In The News

Limited service today in the wake of the blizzard. From Metra's homepage...



Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Train Travel Information

While we make every attempt to provide Sunday schedule service, as indicated below, the provision of this service may be uncertain due to local road conditions and closures throughout the Chicago land area. Service will continue to be updated on this site.

No Service on the Following Lines:
Heritage Corridor
North Central Service
Metra Electric Blue Island Branch
SouthWest Service
Union Pacific McHenrey Sub

Sunday Service Only:
Union Pacific North Line
Union Pacific West Line
Union Pacific Northwest Line
BNSF Railway
Milwaukee District West Line
Milwaukee District North Line
Rock Island District
Metra Electric District - University Park and South Chicago Only

Uh, about that new Bellwood station on UP/W: Not gonna happen anytime soon...

US lifts ban on Metra funds - Chicago Tribune

As Metra Chairwoman Carole Doris announced her resignation today, she also said that the Federal Transit Administration is lifting its restriction on Metra's access to federal funds because of reforms the agency has implemented.
The FTA imposed the restrictions...

Well, it looks like the Metra bilevels are pretty darn bulletproof in comparison to the Bombardier variant: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 6880.story

A Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train collided with a semi-tractor trailer truck in Mount Prospect this morning, killing the truck driver and causing the front train car to derail, officials said.

All the train cars remained upright but at least 29 passengers were taken to hospitals and 10 others were treated on the scene, according to officials, who said none of the injuries aboard the train appeared life-threatening.

The impact sheared the trailer from the cab, which landed to the side of the intersection. The train came to a stop after clearing the crossing, the second car black from soot because of fire from the truck. The driver was a 58-year-old man from Prospect Heights.

Byte: I saw a report on this accident today (5/13) on WCBS Channel 2 news (NYC) today on the noontime news broadcast EDT...
As serious an accident as it was I feel that it could have been far worse...it shows again how sturdy METRA's bilevel equipment actually is...
MACTRAXX

Regarding Mr. MACTRAXX immediate report, before we start in with the "hearts and flowers' drill for the deceased, and apparently quite negligent, truck driver, how say we review this news report:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011 ... -citations

Brief passage:

• The driver of a semi truck who injured three dozen commuters when he turned into the path of a Metra train Friday had accumulated more than 50 traffic citations since 1986 but hadn't lost his license.
  
  None of the infractions, including a 2000 drunken-driving arrest, triggered the suspension of the commercial driver's license of driver Kazimierz Karasek, who was killed in the fiery wreck in Mount Prospect. He was properly licensed, officials said, when he disobeyed a no-turn sign and drove around crossing gates.
  
  Terrified passengers jumped screaming from windows and doors of the Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train at about 8:40 a.m. after the inbound train collided with the concrete-carrying truck, causing the front car of the train to derail.
  
  "The scariest thing was that we didn't know if it was a bomb or something else," said Brad Ball, 30, of Woodstock.
  
  Twenty-six passengers, including the train engineer, were taken to area hospitals. Another 10 were treated on the scene, according to officials, who said none of the injuries appeared life-threatening

Thankfully, no passenger or UP employee was seriously injured; how about searching the web for a funeral home guest book site should anyone wish to share thoughts with the decedent's family as I believe such would be a more appropriate venue than here.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Regarding Mr. MACTRAXX immediate report, before we start in with the "hearts and flowers' drill for the deceased, and apparently quite negligent, truck driver, how say we review this news report:

Mr. Norman, I ask politely that I be excused from any "hearts & flowers", or any other such sympathies for the deceased trucker in this accident, for it would be truly misplaced. I only regret that his death means that he will evade prosecution forever...

doepack wrote:I only regret that his death means that he will evade prosecution forever...

Or, perhaps, one could consider this as receiving the death penalty.

As for Mr Norman's suggestion to leave comments on a funeral home site (should one exist) - please remember that the driver will not be reading the comments, his family and friends will. While the urge of the unwashed masses on the Internet seems to be to lash out posthumously in these situations consider that snide negative comments would likely do more harm than good. (While in no way do I believe Mr Norman was encouraging any negative comments - I encourage only those who can say something nice to say anything at all.)

Mr. Lurker, I made the suggestion regarding a funeral home's Guest Book on the strength that any such comments made there are carefully "pre-Moderated". The family would be spared the adverse thoughts, should such be submitted, surely held by anyone who follows railroad industry affairs.

This is why I advocate a $2,000/weekend(s) in jail for this kind of shenanigans. Obviously the threat of losing a license or $200 fine wasn't enough and continues not to be enough. Who is going to be killed next?

How Metra "hides" its late trains...

doepack wrote:How Metra "hides" its late trains...

As an Engineer on the UP-W and I'm sure other employees on other lines would agree this ain't shocking info about the hiding tardiness on the schedules! I would think to some passengers understand it too. Doesn't mean there can't be some tweaks to the schedules to help trains make time in the intermediate stops. Also better explaining delays can help some. Although doing so without getting to technical...cause it may fly over some peoples heads. Believe me when we are running late and its over that 6min mark they want detail info for the delays to present to Metra.

As far as Monday's fiasco I'll comment at later date! But I'll say for certain it had nothing to do with labor dispute or work stoppage!

I figured most people knew that Metra counts trains as on-time if they're 5 minutes late. But what most folks don't realize is that certain "problem trains" already have 5+ minutes of slop built into the schedule. That is to say, if everything goes the way it's supposed to, these trains should arrive five minutes early. So when one of these trains is five minutes late, it's actually ten minutes late, and yet it's still "on time".

How hard can it be to go 40 miles? I get the same five minutes of schedule slop to go 85 miles.

Metra trains also regularly make stops to pick up and let off employees at coach yards or other facilities. It's sort of a de facto practice that they try to keep quiet - otherwise people would complain about it. It still irritates me, though.

The key here is "industry standards". If Metra was using a five minute grace period and comparing itself against systems without a grace period that would be unfair. But if the industry allows 5 minutes grace why shouldn't Metra?

I agree that the on time performance should be rated per line. Allowing their most efficient line to raise on time performance for the entire system seems like "cheating". They are being honest with their systemwide statistics ... but their best line is burying the problems on their worst.

As far as the complaining people they should know better. If five minutes is the difference between getting to work on time and not you're cutting it too close. And if your train is "always late" take that into account when planning your journey.

EricL wrote:I figured most people knew that Metra counts trains as on-time if they're 5 minutes late. But what most folks don't realize is that certain "problem trains" already have 5+ minutes of slop built into the schedule. That is to say, if everything goes the way it's supposed to, these trains should arrive five minutes early. So when one of these trains is five minutes late, it's actually ten minutes late, and yet it's still "on time".

The "slop" being only at the final stop ... unless they don't "hold for schedule" at intermediate stops. (Most of NICTD's outbound trains are noted in the timetable to run up to four minutes early so they are not holding for schedule.)

BTW - Amtrak's Capitol Limited has nearly an hour of slop arriving at DC and they are still running 54% on time performance over the past year. But in their defense the last mile is the slowest ... getting held outside of Union Station while waiting for a platform is common.

EricL wrote:Metra trains also regularly make stops to pick up and let off employees at coach yards or other facilities. It's sort of a de facto practice that they try to keep quiet - otherwise people would complain about it. It still irritates me, though.

It saves Metra from paying someone to run a cab service. As long as the stops do not severely delay the trains I see no problem.

qboy wrote:Also better explaining delays can help some. Although doing so without getting to technical...cause it may fly over some peoples heads.

Agreed... better explanations along with an actual location of a delayed train would also help. Because even when it's remotely accurate, the cryptic, ambiguous, fall-back reason of "mechanical problems" gets really old, and doesn't always describe what's going on. Now for PR purposes, I know you can't always just come out and tell the real reason when confronted with a situation similar to what occurred last week, but maybe blaming it on "phantom" freight train interference might have been a better way to couch it at the time...

EricL wrote:I figured most people knew that Metra counts trains as on-time if they're 5 minutes late. But what most folks don't realize is that certain "problem trains" already have 5+ minutes of slop built into the schedule. That is to say, if everything goes the way it's supposed to, these trains should arrive five minutes early. So when one of these trains is five minutes late, it's actually ten minutes late, and yet it's still "on time"

Then by that logic, most of the off-peak inbound runs on BNSF are "problem trains", because they've got an average of 10 minutes of slop built into the schedule. Yet UP/W, which has a similar amount of freight traffic, but whose route infrastructure is inferior to BNSF due to fewer control points along the middle portion of its route while also crossing two other railroads at grade via manual interlockings gets only an average of 3 minutes of padding. I have no idea why the standards are different; maybe it's politics, but if they were equal, an inbound on UP/W running up to 10 min. late en route could still conceivably arrive OTC "on time", as is the case on BNSF...