Bye-bye clickety-clack

Metra is replacing the jointed rail on the MILW west, west of Bensenville. The inbound track is done through Wood Dale (and I'm sure farther west). The outbound (main 1) still has a section of jointed rail as of this morning (8/18/2008).

I am aware of the benefits of welded rail, but I'm kinda going to miss the old clickety-clack.

Many nights did I fall asleep leaving the city, only to be awakened after entering "clickety clack" territory.

There is still clickety-clack on the southbound main of the UP North from Kenosha to Waukegan. this might be the only one left

I think the MED Blue Island branch also has some jointed rail as well.

As of 8-20-08, there is officially no more jointed-rail left on the Milwaukee West Line. Unless there is a small section left between Church St and the depot in Bensenville, it's all gone.

I was looking this morning (08/22/2008) and the north rail of the outbound (main 1) track is still jointed between Church and almost to Ash. The south rail is welded part of the way but still jointed east of Route 83 and Church. There were workers out there and I'm thinking they will finish the job this weekend.

Today, 8/23, the track gang replaced the north rail on one main.

This morning (08/25/2008) it looks like its all done. They just have to finish balasting.

NIRC 7 was out ballasting around B-17 this morning.

From the looks of it, all they have to do is tamp it and they're done. They must have had a slow order on track 1 last night. It is a smoother ride, but as I said, I still miss the "clickety-clack."

Anyone know if there is still any jointed rail in the Amtrak system? or in the DC area (thats where i live)?

Outside of the NEC, on freight-owned lines, sure, there are sections of jointed rail all over the country that Amtrak runs over. On the NEC main tracks, I highly doubt there is any of such. It would be difficult to imagine that the FRA would approve of 125+ mph running on "stick rail". However, I am not qualified on any of the NEC and not intimately familiar with the territory, so those with better knowledge please feel free to correct me.

Did some F40C hunting at Roselle today, and was surprised to learn that they're STILL single-tracking on weekends between here and Bensenville. While I came up short on seeing either one of the old soldiers, I did see inbound train 2720 held at the Roselle East plant until outbound 2717 cleared, so apparently track 2 was OOS. I thought the rail replacement project wrapped up late last year, what's up with that? Or is this some other project?

Oh, and btw: Metra could've done a much better job in letting the passengers know that 2720 was going to be boarding on the opposite (outbound) platform, no announcement was made at all. Which naturally led to a lot of passenger confusion, as many of them played an impromptu game of hop-scotch trying to determine what platform to use; the engineer of 2720 actually crept through the plant at about 10mph in order to let the folks cross. But ironically, the outbound announcement for 2717's arrival worked fine, yet notification conveying information that would have been far more useful was non-existent. Go figure...

Oh, and btw: Metra could've done a much better job in letting the passengers know that 2720 was going to be boarding on the opposite (outbound) platform, no announcement was made at all. Which naturally led to a lot of passenger confusion, as many of them played an impromptu game of hop-scotch trying to determine what platform to use

Yeah I've seen that too several times there in the last few years, it was exactly as you said; they don't make any announcements or anything on the scrolling signs and it results in a dozen or two people track hopping and standing on the tracks as the train is approaching.

yet notification conveying information that would have been far more useful was non-existent

My thoughts were exactly that. It wouldn't just be for convinience, its a matter of safety; I can think of a few ways where a fatality can result from a situation like this if a passenger gets into panic mode. But like you said, thankfully everytime I've seen it happen the engineer would either stop or get down to an absolute crawl before the crosswalks to let everyone cross. And it isn't just Roselle, when I saw it last year apparently they didn't make announcements at stations further east either because at each station the train again got down to a crawl and let everyone cross (and a few people didn't cross and missed the train - this was a Sunday too )

doepack wrote:I thought the rail replacement project wrapped up late last year, what's up with that? Or is this some other project?

They have been replacing the bridge over Salt Creek in Wood Dale.