Metra
Info
Locale	Chicago Metropolitan Area, United States
Transit type	Commuter rail
Number of lines	111
Number of stations	2391
Daily ridership	322,100 (weekday) 124,600 (weekend)1
Operation
Began operation	1984
Operator(s)	Regional Transportation Authority (RTA)
Reporting marks	METX, METZ, NIRC
Technical
System length	487.7 miles (784.9 km)1
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)
Route map

Metra (officially the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation) is a suburban rail system that serves the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States and surrounding suburbs. Its railroad serves 239 stations on 11 different rail lines across the Regional Transportation Authority's six-county service area (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will Counties) providing over 80 million rides annually. Metra has been honored with several E. H. Harriman Awards for employee safety, most recently with a Bronze award in class B (line-haul railroads with between 4 and 15 million employee hours per year) for 2005. Previous Harriman Awards conferred to Metra include Gold awards for 2003 and 2004 and a Silver award for 2002.²

History

Metra locomotives at Waukegan.

The commuter rail service in Chicago had slowly started to decline from the mid to late 1960s, and by the mid 1970s, they faced an uncertain future. The railroads operating the lines (the Burlington Northern, Milwaukee Road, Chicago and North Western, Illinois Central and many others) were barely making enough revenue from the services to continue them.³ This, coupled with a need for newer passenger equipment (the railroads were still using passenger cars from as far back as the 1920s ⁴) left the future looking bleak and uncertain. As a result, Chicago formed the Regional Transportation Authority in 1974 to handle public transportation. In the beginning the fleet consisted of second-hand equipment, until 1976 when the first order of new EMD F40PH locomotives arrived. The F40PH fleet has been in service since its delivery.

In 1984 the RTA's rail operations were reorganized into Metra, and all commuter rail operations were handed over.³

Lines and stations

Locomotive 180 with bi-level cars at West Chicago.

Bilevel electric train at University of Chicago/59th Street Station

Until the 1960s, Chicago had six major intercity terminals. Three of them – Central Station, Dearborn Station and Grand Central Station – have closed, and Metra still uses the other three – LaSalle Street Station, Union Station and the Ogilvie Transportation Center, and the Millennium Station (formerly Randolph Street Station), a terminal for commuter lines that operated through Central Station.

Union Station serves all Amtrak intercity trains. It also serves Metra trains on several lines that operated into Union Station from before the 1960s:

• Heritage Corridor (Alton Railroad)
• BNSF Railway Line (Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad)
• Milwaukee District/West Line and Milwaukee District/North Line (Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad)
• The ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Calumet commuter service provided by Amtrak to Valparaiso, Indiana until 1991 also operated into Union Station.

Since the 1960s, other routes have been rerouted into Union Station:

• Southwest Service (Wabash Railway), moved from Dearborn Station in 1976 by the Norfolk and Western Railway
• North Central Service (Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway), began operations in 1996, sharing trackage with the Milwaukee District/West Line south of Franklin Park

The Ogilvie Transportation Center, originally the Chicago and North Western Terminal, serves the three lines formerly operated by the Chicago and North Western Railway – the Union Pacific/North Line, Union Pacific/Northwest Line and Union Pacific/West Line.

LaSalle Street Station serves only trains of the Rock Island District, originally operated by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

Millennium Station (previously Randolph Street Station) serves the ex-Illinois Central Railroad Metra Electric Line, and the South Shore Line service to South Bend, Indiana, a former interurban railroad operated by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District.

Extension projects

Newer locomotive 408 pulls into Blue Island, IL.

Despite the State of Illinois's current budget crisis, Metra is implementing vigorous expansion. Some of this expansion has already been realized: the Union Pacific/West line has been extended from Geneva, Illinois through La Fox to Elburn, and the Southwest Service line has been extended from Orland Park to Manhattan.⁵ Metra is also in the process of extending the McHenry branch of the Union Pacific/Northwest into Johnsburg.⁶

Plans for a new station on the Heritage Corridor in Romeoville have been announced. The station and accompanying parking would be on property belonging to the Citgo oil refinery between Lemont and Lockport.⁷⁸

Metra is also planning new rail services, the SouthEast Service line from downtown Chicago to Crete⁹ and the first entirely intra-suburban commuter line, the Suburban Transit Access Route, or "STAR" Line, between Joliet and O'Hare Airport, linking Metra lines in the western suburbs.¹⁰

The state of Wisconsin has discussed extending Metra's service to the cities of Racine and Milwaukee.¹¹ Should all go well in cooperation between Wisconsin and Illinois, and should officials in Wisconsin find funding, Metra hopes to begin service by 2012.¹²

Fare structure

Metra has a zone-based fare structure: fares are determined by the number of zones passed through on a trip. The zones are designated by letters from A (downtown stations and termini) to M. Each zone represents an added 5 miles from the terminus. For example, zone A is 0-5 miles from the terminus, and zone B is 5-10 miles from the terminus. As such, closer to the city there are multiple stations in a zone, up to 8 stations per zone.¹³ There are some exceptions to the rule, because of line geometries. For example, Prairie Crossing/Libertyville is a station on both the North Central Service and Milwaukee District North lines. Although it is 40.7 miles from the terminus on the NCS, in zone I, it is ticketed as zone H because the MD-N station is only 39.2 miles from its terminus (zone H). Harvard on the Union Pacific/Northwest Line is the only station in the M zone, and there are no stations in the L zone.¹⁴

Motive power and rolling stock

Locomotive fleet

Coach fleet

Entrance to a bilevel car

Metra electric fleet

Notable accidents

A Metra Train in Ogilvie Transportation Center

There have been several accidents that have caught regional, and sometimes national, attention:

• At around 5:53 p.m. on August 26, 1991, Mary T. Wojtyla, 41, of Chicago, was walking with her lawyer across the tracks at the Fairview Avenue grade crossing in Downers Grove, directly in front of a westbound train that was stopped at the Metra station. Apparently distracted by ongoing divorce proceedings, she crossed the center track and was struck by a westbound Burlington Northern EMD E9 pulling a "Racetrack" express train, estimated to be traveling at 60 miles per hour. Wojtyla was killed instantly; her lawyer saw the oncoming train and was not struck.¹⁶ The accident delayed between 12,000 and 15,000 commuters on the Burlington Northern line for more than an hour.¹⁷ Trains were further delayed when Downers Grove police ordered the engineer to back up the train in order to re-enact the incident. According to an account in the Downers Grove Reporter, "the engineer was so seriously affected by the re-enactment, where he had to pass by the dead body still on the tracks, he was unable to continue and had to be relieved of his duties."¹⁸ A railfan captured Wojtyla being struck by the train. He was apparently filming at the station to film the last day of one the EMD E9 locomotives. The railfan was traumatised by the incident as Mary's body flew across and knocked the railfan and his camcorder (which was on a tripod) to the ground. ¹⁹ The video, dubbed "Traingirl", has been shown with the impact edited out at many Operation Lifesaver events, and unedited on shock site web sites and YouTube. A wrongful death lawsuit brought by Wojtyla's estate was dismissed in 1996.

• On January 16, 1995, violinist Rachel Barton Pine was severely injured in a train accident in the suburb of Winnetka, Illinois. Her violin case, which contained an over 300-year-old, $500,000 Amati violin, was closed in the train doors, the violin on the inside of the door, the strap over her shoulder on the outside of the train.²⁰ After being dragged 366 feet, Pine fell beneath a wheel, which severed one leg and badly damaged the other. She filed suit for incident which went before a jury in 1999. After a month-long trial in which Metra argued that she made the choice not to extricate her arm from the strap of the violin case due to the value of the instrument, the jury found Metra and Chicago NorthWestern Railroad to be 95.5% at fault and awarded Barton $29.6 million dollars. The Illinois Court of Appeals upheld the jury's verdict in 2001.²¹ Since the accident, Pine has resumed her performance career. ²²

• On the morning of October 25, 1995, a Metra train hit a school bus that was stopped across the tracks at the stoplight at Algonquin Road and Northwest Highway in Fox River Grove. The accident resulted in seven deaths, multiple injuries, and a massive overhaul in safety, especially with respect to school buses and at short crossings. Millions of dollars were spent in lawsuits and safety improvements.

• On September 17, 2005, a Metra train from Joliet to Chicago derailed about five miles from LaSalle Street Station, killing two women – Allison Walsh, 38, and Jane Cuthbert, 22 – and injuring approximately 80 others. While the investigation is still proceeding the indications are that the train was traveling at excessive speed, one report stating that the train was moving at more than 60 mph over the posted speed limit of 10 mph, and this was a factor in the accident.

• On November 23, 2005, a Metra train from Chicago to Antioch, Illinois collided with multiple cars at the Grand Avenue crossing in Elmwood Park, Illinois. The railroad tracks cross Grand Avenue at a shallow angle, creating a longer-than-normal crossing. Just past the tracks on Grand Avenue (heading east) there is a traffic signal that can trap drivers disregarding the signs around the crossing warning them not to stop on the tracks. Fifteen people were sent to hospitals throughout Chicago. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the signals were working properly and have implied in statements to the press that fault for the accident lies with motorists who ignored warning signs and stopped across the railroad tracks.

Metra Police Department—Fallen Officers

One Metra Police Department officer has been killed in the line of duty, Officer Thomas A. Cook, who died of as a result of gunfire on September 27, 2006.²³

See also

• Mass transit in Chicago
• Pace (transit)
• Chicago Transit Authority
• Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District

References

Further reading

• "Leaders Agree to Push for Metra". Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Online, 22 December 2004. http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/dec04/286583.asp. Retrieved 2005-01-20. 
• "Village board seeks Metra extension". McHenry Online. http://www.mchenryonline.com/westosha/metra.htm. Retrieved 2005-01-20. 
• "Metra: Driven by its history, A modern Chicago railroad carries its past with it". Trains Magazine, July 2003, by J. David Ingles. http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=393. Retrieved 2006-09-24. 
• "The CTA's "Doomsday Budget"-and what it means to Metra riders". On the Bi-Level, May 2005 Special Edition. http://metrarail.com/OTBL/05_05_SpecialEdition.pdf. Retrieved 2005-06-08. 
• J. David Ingles, Metra: "Best Commuter Train", Trains July 1993

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Metra

• Metra
• RAILChicago
• Chicago Transit and Railfan Metra page
• Railfanning.org: Metra
• Metra Maps Site
• South Shore Pictures Partially Metra/RTA sponsored service
• Metra Commuter Rail profile and photos
• Metra on Google Maps
• Metra daily rail operations visualized (Java applet, unofficial)