Metra riders hit sour note

Metra line's missteps leave riders stranded
By Richard Wronski | Tribune staff reporter
September 6, 2007

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... genews-utl

Train service has been a harmonious part of the Ravinia experience since the park was built by the fledgling Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad in 1904. But there were sour notes sounded among concertgoers Monday night when no Metra train showed up to take them home.

The Ravinia Special typically arrives 15 minutes after the performance of the annual Labor Day Spectacular, but after waiting more than two hours for a train, anxious music fans felt neither special nor spectacular.

The missing train -- the cause of which was still a mystery Wednesday -- was the second embarrassment in two weeks for Metra on its Union Pacific North Line.

During the fierce thunderstorm of Aug. 23, several hundred passengers were ordered to leave a Metra train amid rain and lightning when the train's Union Pacific Railroad engineer reached the federally mandated shift limit.

Both incidents have Metra officials steamed at the Omaha-based Union Pacific, which contractually operates the trains and provides crews on the UP North.

"We're trying to get to the bottom of why there was confusion by the UP. Although it's Metra's train, they are the carrier and they are responsible for the Ravinia schedule," said Judy Pardonnet, a Metra spokeswoman.

Union Pacific couldn't offer an explanation for either incident Wednesday, but expressed regret.

"We want to apologize to the passengers who ride the North Line and we'll try to find out what happened and make corrective actions," company spokesman Mark Davis said.

Concertgoers became concerned when the Ravinia Special failed to show after Monday's performance, which ended about 9 p.m., said frequent Ravinia patron Stephen Rudolph of Wilmette.

"Typically, a Ravinia crowd is not going to get angry, screaming and yelling, but frankly it was a long night," Rudolph said. "The wait for the train was longer than the concert."

Normally, the Ravinia Special runs between Chicago and the park and back whenever there are performances. On Monday, however, the train didn't run in either direction, Metra said.

Pardonnet blamed a scheduling snafu between Ravinia and Union Pacific.

Another train scheduled to stop at Ravinia at 10:38 p.m. had mechanical problems and didn't arrive until about 11:15.

By that time, about 130 concertgoers had been treated to free soda, coffee and dessert at Ravinia's restaurant, said Nick Pullia, Ravinia's spokesman.

In the Aug. 23 incident, the 4:13 p.m. UP North train out of Chicago was jammed with commuters trying to get home during the storm.

When the train reached Kenilworth, passengers said, a conductor announced that everyone had to exit because the engineer had worked the maximum number of hours, which is normally 12.

Passengers were forced into gale-force winds and lightning and waited 20 minutes for the next train, passenger Roseanne Harrington of Winnetka said.

"This was the goofiest thing I've ever seen in my life," Harrington said. "The whole thing was just weird. It was like being in la-la land, except for this raging furor around us."

Pardonnet said it was "unconscionable" for the crew to have put the passengers off the train in any storm, "much less the biggest one of the year."

Because the crews involved are Union Pacific employees, Metra does not know what, if any, discipline may be imposed, Pardonnet said.

"Certainly we're reaching out and meeting at the highest levels with the UP and we're doing everything we can to discuss our displeasure with the circumstances and find out what can be done so the situations do not happen again," Pardonnet said.

MetraBNSF wrote:In the Aug. 23 incident, the 4:13 p.m. UP North train out of Chicago was jammed with commuters trying to get home during the storm.

When the train reached Kenilworth, passengers said, a conductor announced that everyone had to exit because the engineer had worked the maximum number of hours, which is normally 12.

Passengers were forced into gale-force winds and lightning and waited 20 minutes for the next train, passenger Roseanne Harrington of Winnetka said.

"This was the goofiest thing I've ever seen in my life," Harrington said. "The whole thing was just weird. It was like being in la-la land, except for this raging furor around us."

Pardonnet said it was "unconscionable" for the crew to have put the passengers off the train in any storm, "much less the biggest one of the year."

Because the crews involved are Union Pacific employees, Metra does not know what, if any, discipline may be imposed, Pardonnet said.

I looked at the "service disruptions" thread, and indeed, on 8/23, there were storm-related delays systemwide. On UP/N, Winnetka local trains 331 & 346 were cancelled, due to "debris on the tracks in the vicinity of Winnetka". While other general delay announcements were made periodically through the rest of the evening, no specific mention was made of the problems with train 335, the 1613 from Chicago as noted in the article.

Leaving Ravinia passengers stranded is bad enough, but it's unfathomable that an engineer could barely be out of the terminal on the road with a crowded outbound commuter train FOR LESS THAN 30 MINUTES before expiring on the hours of service. Chances are pretty good that this question likely won't be answered here, but it needs to be asked anyway: Did the engineer of this train bother to let anyone know at UP commuter control that he/she wasn't going to make it to Kenosha (or even Waukegan) before the 12-hour limit was up? And if so, why did they even let this train go in the first place?

good points doepack, and I'd also like to add - if the crew were expired on hours, doesn't that mean they can't move the train?

so rather than kick off the passengers and leave, the train should have waited at the station for a new crew. I don't see how the engineer could legally have continued to operate even an empty train under the rules, if they did indeed reach the duty limits

perhaps I'm missing something, but when Amtrak crews expire, they don't kick the passengers off in the middle of nowhere, they just wait for a new crew to arrive to continue the trip

metrarider wrote:good points doepack, and I'd also like to add - if the crew were expired on hours, doesn't that mean they can't move the train?

so rather than kick off the passengers and leave, the train should have waited at the station for a new crew. I don't see how the engineer could legally have continued to operate even an empty train under the rules, if they did indeed reach the duty limits

That thought occurred to me as well; maybe the engineer wasn't actually "dead" at Kenilworth, but was going to be before reaching the outer terminal (Kenosha?) had the train continued to make its normal stops, and the only way to get there before exipring was to run non-stop for the rest of the trip. I agree, the passengers shouldn't have just been kicked off the train like that, especially during bad weather conditions, but then, UP couldn't just leave the train sitting there waiting on a fresh crew either. Since this occurred right at the start of the evening rush, doing so would've caused even worse delays to the trains behind it, although, as things turned out, most of the trains were delayed anyway that evening due to the weather. It was a tough call either way.

The truth is, we'll never really know what happened, but it's a fact that service glitches like these happen more frequently on the UP-operated lines than anywhere else. With that in mind, can we really be sure that this won't happen again?

Over at the Service Disruption topic, Mr. Ultra notes:

ne plus ultra wrote:Yesterday, the engineer on a (Sunday early evening) UP-North train seems to have missed the memo informing him that Ravinia Park is open again. The automated announcement sounded "Ravinia Park next", but we coasted through, and then we got the automated announcement "Ravinia next", and then began a series of urgent calls from one of the conductors, which went unanswered.

I'm not overly surprised -- I believe it was the first night of the season. And for me it wasn't a long walk back, though some of the other 20 or so who were affected were more confused/upset. I'd note that the response by the conductors was completely useless. The conductor at my exit allowed that the engineer 'must have forgot' but couldn't bring himself to utter the magic word 'sorry'. He treated the incident as if it had nothing to do with him or the train line he worked for. Offered the suggestion that "you'll have to walk back." Well, yes, we would, but given that it was your crew that screwed it up, you could at least offer some reassurance that it's not far and a sympathetic tone at the problem your colleague created with his screw-up. For people carrying fold-up tables, blankets and coolers, the walk was a bigger deal.

Well, it appears I have finally made contact with someone who uses the C&NW's (North) Ravinia service (I KNOW its used, but I've never known anyone before who does).

Guess what volks, owing to stern advice from my Optometrist regarding nighttime driving, I'm going to have to learn what it is all about if I am to continue to go there. My "concert companion' who resides near Hanover Park on the MILW (West) and regularly "rides trains" is quite "skittish' about driving anywhere, day or night, outside her "comfort zone" i.e. Jewel, Library, train station, Woodfield Mall'.

I'd like to attend Ohlsson and CSO performing the Schumann A-Minor on July 15 (there will be a "meet the artist' at the Gift Shop and I had his Father for Music History at Champaign pushing 50 years ago), and possibly Mahler's 9th on the 19th; the restaurant scene there has greatly improved since they essentiually "started from scratch' during 2007, but unfortunately the Ravinia Special's 630P arrival does not allow sufficient time for Dinner and the 8PM performance. Never mind the matter of BNSF connection home to Clarendon Hills or MILW to Hanover Park.

Likely, absent hiring a livery car service (I'm really not in that league), I will just accept that there are things you can no longer do as you get older; after all as Mr. Ultra knows, I have consistently held elsewhere at this site that the Federal government and the Class I railroad industry should not be under any obligation to maintain a costly system of transportation - the Amtrak Long Distance trains - for benefit of those who cannot, or choose not to, use air or highway transportation.