CUS track layout

If anyone is interested in the track layout of the north side of CUS, this .PDF has a pretty good diagram:

http://www.arema.org/eseries/scriptcont ... gs/037.pdf

It looks a bit like a Powerpoint, but it has some interesting photos.

Most importantly, it has diagrams of the north side of CUS, including that which is not visible from satellite photos, on pages 3, 16, 32, and 36.

Does anyone have a south side of CUS diagram?

Well, there's this, of course:

http://hometown.aol.com/chirailfan/tstcus.html

But it's not done to scale, and it's slightly out of date now.



If you're interested in that type of schematic, however, he has all of the Metra lines diagramed:

http://hometown.aol.com/chirailfan/tipmetra.html

It's interesting how Metra touted this project as a major upgrade in capacity, but in reality, it was geared more toward rebuilding the subgrade and drainage system beneath the tracks, plus upgrading the ties, ballast, and turnouts. Only about 500 ft. of new track was added, with a few switches being relocated, plus newer LED signals were added between the station throat and Canal St. Overall though, the track configuration hasn't really changed; there's still 8 double-slip switches within the interlocking, and 9 terminal tracks, same as before. Even with the added NCS service during rush hours, terminal tracks 1 and 17 on the extreme west and east sides of the terminal still haven't seen much additonal use...

doepack wrote:It's interesting how Metra touted this project as a major upgrade in capacity

Sometimes we have two trains arriving and one departing at the same time, but generally one or more trains are waiting while another enters/exits the station. I think they need to move trains around to different platforms to take better advantage of it.

F40CFan wrote:Sometimes we have two trains arriving and one departing at the same time, but generally one or more trains are waiting while another enters/exits the station. I think they need to move trains around to different platforms to take better advantage of it.

And because one or more trains are waiting to get in, traffic on Canal and Clinton streets can still get backed up pretty good, particularly in the evening. The "capacity improvements" were supposed to mitigate this, if not eliminate it entirely, but I guess not...

BTW, has service to all terminal tracks been restored yet? I know Metra was shuffling some trains around due to platform closures during the project; is that still happening?

doepack wrote:BTW, has service to all terminal tracks been restored yet? I know Metra was shuffling some trains around due to platform closures during the project; is that still happening?

As far as I can tell, there has been full service to all platforms for a number of months now.

It's odd, though, on one of the higher numbered tracks (15, 17, ?) just passed the north end of the platform, there's a turn-out that goes nowhere. Its just cut off. I don't know if they didn't replace that section of track during the project, or what.

Doepack, I dunno about Clinton, but the Canal crossing is my favorite spot to railfan at 5pm, and I don't usually see big jams happening when the train blocks the tracks. There's also easy alternate routes, IE Lake or Halstead, over the tracks, when the train is stopped for more than a few minutes. This winter, I noticed the oscillating light of outbounds flashes off the condo bldg at tracks/Canal long before you hear the outbounds. Then, if it's a MP, the engineer gives it some power as soon as he gets around that last curve east of the crossing. Repeat that about twenty times, add an inbound filthy Hiawatha, plus the parade of inbound deadheads, and you've got the best rush hour show in the city.

Tadman wrote:Repeat that about twenty times, add an inbound filthy Hiawatha, plus the parade of inbound deadheads, and you've got the best rush hour show in the city.

There was a small parking lot just off the tracks on the east side of Clinton St., underneath the Metra/UP tracks, a place where I'd frequently sit and just watch the parade, especially during the summer. And if you were lucky enough, a delayed inbound Empire Builder would come through around this time as well. Don't know if the lot is still there, but despite Metra's questionable claims about adding more capacity here, the Canal and Clinton street crossings are definitely a railfan's delight, particularly for commuter/passenger train fans like myself.

Still can't figure out why those Hiawathas are always so dirty...

doepack wrote:There was a small parking lot just off the tracks on the east side of Clinton St., underneath the Metra/UP tracks, a place where I'd frequently sit and just watch the parade, especially during the summer. And if you were lucky enough, a delayed inbound Empire Builder would come through around this time as well. Don't know if the lot is still there, but despite Metra's questionable claims about adding more capacity here, the Canal and Clinton street crossings are definitely a railfan's delight, particularly for commuter/passenger train fans like myself.

Still can't figure out why those Hiawathas are always so dirty...

You're thinking of the old Braun Bottle company, which was later used as a parking lot. You wouldn't recognize the spot now. The curved building is gone, part of the area is fenced in by UP (I think) and there is a high-rise on the east end, the west side of Canal, where the entrance to the lot used to be.

The lot east of Canal is still there though, and makes for nice viewing. Maybe not for long, though, as I've heard that Amtrak has sold the air rights over the tracks from Canal to Randolf.

doepack wrote:Still can't figure out why those Hiawathas are always so dirty...

I think it's because the Horizon cars have a brushed aluminum exterior, in contrast to the smooth stainless steel of Metra or Superliner cars. It takes some sort of acid wash to get the Horizons looking reasonably clean. They usually come back from Beech Grove looking relatively shiny, but as soon as they're out on trains they start looking increasingly dirty.

Keep in mind too that a given Hiawatha trainset goes 1204 miles in 39 hours between trips to the yard in Chicago. (With seven round trips to Milwaukee each day, the train that makes the first departure westbound from Chicago on a particular day will make seven 86-mile one-way trips that day, spend that night laying over in Milwaukee, and make seven more 86-mile trips the next day before arriving in Chicago for the night. And the set that departs Chicago at 06:00 on Saturday morning spends both Satuday and Sunday nights in Milwaukee before returning to Chicago at 20:59 on Monday evening after 1720 miles on the rails. That's three-fourths of the distance that the Empire Builder travels between Portland and Chicago.)

The NPCUs (cabbages) in the old paint scheme also look pretty grungy, even straight out of the wash bay, but those that have been repainted seem to clean up fairly well.

I have pics somewhere of 90368 leading the 5:30 arrival, and at the same time setting new records for the word filthy.

That 368 unit is an embarrassment! It's just like meh said... even when it's shiny clean... it still looks "older than dirt"...

The routine maintenance on the Hiawatha sets is terrible. We've been getting the same set over and over for three days with a frozen up pair of bathrooms in one car - just today they decided to be nice and fix it. Ice and snow constantly build up between the cars and eventually cause problems with the 480 cables. The sets are so rarely taken apart that a warm day's melting is the only chance at alleviating this. Also, we frequently catch a particular car with a bad latch on the sliding vestibule door. They love putting this one on the end of the consist, where the door needs to be locked, so we have to jam a wedge in there (probably breaking something further) just to keep the door closed!

The coach cleaners' work seems to be improving some, at least.

Oops... this is the Metra forum, isn't it? Sorry.

Metra's going to start shuffling trains around again on the north end of CUS; with tracks 7 and 9 going out of service for about six weeks, effective Monday, 5/14. According to flyers that were passed out at the station, Milwaukee North trains 2133 and 2137 will be moved all the way over to track 21. Just hope that doesn't interfere with the inbound Empire Builder, which often arrives downtown during the PM rush; otherwise, things could get real interesting.

BTW- I thought the Lake street interlocking upgrade project was done...

21?? There's not really a proper platform over there... just, uh, pavement.