Highliners through CUS

Last night, 07/24/2007, I was walking down the platform to get on Milw-West 2227 and I saw a brown and orange highliner being towed on the through track from the south to the north. I was too far away to see any details.

I thought they would be at Western when I went by, so I found some paper and a pen to copy down numbers.

Guess what, they were at California Ave., and all I could see from the train was the end of one highliner. The rest was behind a parked scoot.

Does anyone know whats up with them?

There was two places the dead H1's were being stored - KYD on a south lead track and Randolph on the "secret" track on the upper concourse. Neither seemed like an advantageous use of space - KYD is kinda small and Randolph is not the most spacious environs either. Possibly there's some extra space up north, but that's just speculation.

Also - were there any cab windows boarded/plated over? If so, that's the string from KYD.

I heard that a museum bought a couple of the old highliners. Not sure which one unfortunately.

Wish I could've gotten at least a glimpse of them as I rode past California Ave. yard yesterday (7/25) on UP/W 47, but I didn't see them. Not sure if they had been moved already, or parked out of view, but according to a reliable source, here are six of the cars that were seen:

1506, 1511, 1523, 1538, 1551 and 1628.

Actual destination was unknown, but four of the six were still in the orange & brown livery, also, all Metra markings were painted out on each. I'm told that Metra switcher NIRC 3 performed the delivery...

Wow, thanks for the info.

I haven't seen them at California Ave. either, just the one evening. I think they were gone by morning.

I wonder if they are going to cut them up. Maybe UP will move them from California Ave. over to the Chicago Terminlal Railroad (new shortline that now runs the old Milwaukee Road tracks around Goose Island). That's where some of the old Pullman bilevels were brought for scrapping.

From what I heard, Metra did offer the retired Highliners to various railroad museums- IRM, FRTM, and I'm guessing East Troy, maybe. They were turned down for a number of reasons. The main reason is that the first batch are in the worst shape. Another thing is that museums have 600 volt electric systems while the Highliners run on 1500 volts.

Update on the highliners - the string stored at Randolph on the secret track is still there. I didn't have a chance to visit KYD yet. Another good question - did the H1's get retired 1-for-1 when the H2's came on the property? In other words, since 26 H2's were bought, were 26 H1's retired? Because there is only about 8 at Randolph and 8-10 at KYD. If there is 26 retired H1's, that means about 10 are stored elsewhere at a third location.

Tadman wrote:Another good question - did the H1's get retired 1-for-1 when the H2's came on the property? In other words, since 26 H2's were bought, were 26 H1's retired? Because there is only about 8 at Randolph and 8-10 at KYD. If there is 26 retired H1's, that means about 10 are stored elsewhere at a third location.

It had been presumed that the oldest highliners (those in the low 1500's) would be retired/sold off when the H2's arrived, but, judging from the numbers above, that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps Metra is placing more of a priority on operating and/or structural condition of the H1's rather than just getting rid of units within a certain numerical range...

I think at least one of the H1 parked at Randolph is a 16XX numbered unit, so I'm sure they didn't go sequentially. I would agree with the "worst case" retirement idea.

Edit - it should be noted that the string of highliners in Randolph on the secret track has a compromise coupler on the north end - I assume these cars are unfit to run or stripped of parts, or lapsed in their 90 day inspections, or something of that nature. I would assume when the 90-day inspections lapse, a much more complex inspection is required to re-commission the units. So they likely won't move under their own power again.

c604. wrote:http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?1,1465100

Thanks for the link. Its nice to see that they escaped the torch.

So good to hear - although Metra may have been holding these units in reserve in case of other equipment failure at ME, they haven't actually operated since 2006 spring at the absolute latest. I was a pretty frequent rider and observer of ME 2004-06, and toward the end of that time, especially after arrival of H2's, the brownies were RARE.