At long last: An updated schedule for the Rock...

Appears to minor adjustments to certain rush hour trains at first glance, but it's a start:

http://metrarail.com/Service_Advisories/ri.html

WOOOOOW!!! Funny thing too.. I just wrote to On The Bilevel last month about the schedule.. Hmm, wonder if that made them think about the change, haha.. if only I was that big of an influence. But its about time.. even if the times are only adjusted by a minute or two. Biggest change is with what used to be a deadhead out to Joliet, the new #401, another change is with Robbins... more inbound trains are making regular stops.

Looks like #301 bit the dust also.

What a pathetic schedule update. Really, with the exception of the one or two trains on the inbound and outbound that are getting axed, what's the only difference? Oh, the mid-day inbounds are adjusted by about two minutes in the middle out of route and are now scheduled to arrive five minutes later than they are now. THEY'VE BEEN CONSISTENTLY RUNNING THAT LATE FOR AT LEAST THE PAST FIVE YEARS ANYWAY! Wow, Metra finally got off of their ass enough to adjust the schedule to correspond with the Rock's constant mid-day lateness. They'll be stuck with their hands in their pants when New Lenox reaches the size of Schaumberg and they're still running an ancient schedule.

Agreed that the timetable is not a major improvement.. but it does have needed adjustments, the dumbest thing on the old schedule was the timing between Joliet and New Lenox on some trains, and the timing with LaSalle and Gresham. Hopefully with the soon to be completed main line project, the soon to be reconfigured Gresham Interlocking and the soon to be built 35th Street station will come more improvements, but with Metra "broke" I dont know how likely the addition of more trains would be. The biggest area of improvement that I see is with the early outbound rush... instead of there being a 2:55, 3:45, 4:10... add another train so it looks more like 2:25, 3:05, 3:40, 4:10, then the addition of another inbound express. A change like that could probably be done without adding more sets to the Rock.

It's true that the new schedule is merely an adjustment of running times for certain trains, and a former deadhead move has now turned into a revenue trip, but like I said at the top, it's a start. At least most of the inbound trains now have more accurate arrival times into LSS.

I mentioned this before a while back in another thread, but eventually, what I'd like to see for the Rock is the elimination of Joliet trains using the Beverly branch. Split the railroad in half, with local service to Blue Island via Beverly on one side, and main line service to Joliet on the other. This would particularly apply to off-peak service and weekends, where you'd be adding perhaps one or two more trains for this service without increasing the overall number of sets required. I'm sure the main line passengers west of Blue Island wouldn't mind seeing faster service at all times, instead of during rush hours only...

metraRI wrote:The biggest area of improvement that I see is with the early outbound rush... instead of there being a 2:55, 3:45, 4:10... add another train so it looks more like 2:25, 3:05, 3:40, 4:10, then the addition of another inbound express. A change like that could probably be done without adding more sets to the Rock.

The number of sets definately doesn't seem to be a problem, but some of the scheduling is just... weird, and it seems a little inefficient.

Is there any reasoning for the all of the little time differences after the PM rush? A lot of the other lines run hourly outbounds. But on the RI, it changes from 6:40 and 7:40 to 8:45 and 9:45 to 10:55 (now 11:05) and finally 12:30. MD-N is kind of the same way. It's not like it's a problem, it just seems weird, and I missed an outbound once because of it.

And yeah, the early PM rush is pretty odd. What I hate the most is the hour and a half gap between Joliet-bound trains, since 603 is a Beverly. I guess you could just transfer to 405 at Blue Island, but it seems stupid since they both get there at about the same time anyway. But on a daily basis, there's always a large amount of people waiting on 405.

And a little more variety would be nice between 413, 415, and 417. The RI runs that 3:40 departure before holidays that goes direct to Oak Park Avenue. Why not send either 413, 415, or 417 direct to Tinley and then have one that serves 95th, 103rd, Robbins, Midlothian, Oak Forest, and maybe two or three stops after that? BNSF does that with their 5:22/5:26/5:32 departures, in which the stops are all staggered. Granted, they have a third track to use, but it wouldn't be impossible on the RI.

Same thing on the morning inbound side. Why not send some runs express after 80th or Oak Park and have some skip Hickory Creek and 80th? Some of those AM inbounds are so packed by the time that they get to Midlothian that few people boarding at that point can find a seat.

The outbound evening schedule is unique to the Rock, granted the 10:55 has come in handy many times. The change to XX:30 could be made easily, with the addition of another inbound train leaving Joliet at 8:24. As for 413, 415, 417.. a Tinley express would be nice.. but Metra has said in previous 'On The Bilevel's' they won't reduce the number of trains serving one station just so 4 minutes can be taken off the travel time for 80th Ave.. and I do agree with them on that. It would make more sense to add another train in addition to the trains already scheduled now.. possible changing the placement of 303 so 413 could express past more stations since 419 leaves 15 minutes after 303, making the same stops. Live I've said before, the timetable still has room for improvement.. but its a move in the right direction.. and it only took 11 years.