by qboy
I didn't think the name CP College would last all the long. Thought they would used CP Chase, but CP University works too! I yet to run through them, but I'm sure the day will come soon enough for me!
Railroad Forums
Moderators: metraRI, JamesT4
HammerJack wrote:It is nice to see three main tracks all the way from 25th Ave. to West Chicago, but between 25th Ave. to Vale, there are still only two main tracks. Any idea if and when this section of the line will get upgraded to three? Right now it is still a bit of a bottleneck, so it would be nice to get three main tracks all the way from Chicago to West Chicago (Kress I think). Also, are there plans to upgrade the section of the line in Geneva (Kress to Peck?) to three main tracks? I don't really know if this would increase capacity a whole lot, but i was just wondering.IMO, the single biggest obstacle to adding capacity on the Geneva sub is JB Tower in West Chicago. Acquired by CN five years ago after their purchase of the EJ&E, it's where their single track north-south main (Leithton sub) crosses the triple-tracked Geneva sub at grade. In the few years before being merged into CN, the "J" ran about 10 trains per day or so (a figure not reached often, 7 to 8 was more the average), but now that's effectively more than doubled to 20-24 trains with CN using this route as its main link between the Waukesha sub to the north and its important Joliet and/or Markham yards to the south. With freight increasing on the UP side as well, you now have upwards of something like 110 trains per day from both carriers plus Metra all vying for a slot through this bottleneck, give or take a few UP freights on the Geneva sub as coal, ethanol, or frac sand traffic ebbs and flows. Even with the reduced Metra schedule on weekends, that's still about 80 trains. This is where any extra capacity meets a black hole.
MACTRAXX wrote:Everyone:UP has said that the third track that will be built through Geneva as part of this project is one of their capital improvement requirements before they would even consider allowing any service extension to DeKalb, so this project is good news for the potential service extension. That being said, however, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome before service to Dekalb becomes a reality. First, like you said, Dekalb county is not part of the RTA service area, so the county would either have to create their own RTA or join the Chicago RTA. Both options would require a referendum to pass to make them happen. In addition, UP would also likely require further capacity upgrades between Elburn and Dekalb, such as a new third main between those cities, which would be very expensive. These are the two biggest hurdles to overcome before METRA can serve DeKalb.
I was looking at Google Earth at the UP West Line between Elburn and DeKalb remembering that
there was mention of extended service to serve DeKalb - with the significant student population
of Northern Illinois University - being a base for ridership.
Does anyone have an exact distance between Elburn and DeKalb using a UP or C&NW ETT?
From studying a map this looks to be around 15 miles.
From what I noticed there could be three new stations on this route: Two new stations in DeKalb
with one serving the town center and a terminal adjacent to the south end of the NIU Campus.
An intermediate station at either Cortland or Maple Park would offer service to Kane County
exurban areas and from southern McHenry and northern Kendall County areas along with Elburn.
Since DeKalb County is not a part of the METRA service area could some County subsidy or grant
in lieu of a transport tax be provided to subsidize this service? Could NIU itself provide anything
towards this service? Students would more then likely be a key portion of new ridership and this
could even encourage daily rail commuting to NIU making this service extension more prudent...
Would UP work with METRA and local governments to allow any extension of service?
MACTRAXX