# of round trips per day per train set?

ON THE AVARAGE HOW MANY ROUND TRIPS DO METRA TRAIN SETS MAKE PER DAY? Do crews work all day or do they go home mid day? (Like school bus drivers) I have been told that some BN and UP crews work yard jobs mid day and commuters at night. Here in Fredricksburg VA Virgina Railway Express crews get paid for a full day even though each crew works one train in and one train out of town with no deadheading or revese commuting.

On UP & the Milwaukee districts for instance, most shorter sets (4-6 cars) make about 4 or so round trips a day on average. I'd say the same pretty much holds true for the BNSF & Rock districts, but I'll let Kyle (MetraRI) & MetraBNSF fill in the blanks on that if they wish, since they would know the intimate details a little better. Generally, the longer sets tend to make just two daily trips during rush, although there are a handful of 7 & 8 car sets that make additional runs during midday. Also keep in mind that some shorter sets are combined into longer trains at terminals, and conversely, some longer sets are broken into two shorter trains, depending on the district.

From my observation on UP, yard & road crews seem to be separate; not sure if this is the case on other districts. As such, most conductors and trainmen go home during midday in between rush hour runs, although some board at suburban locations closer to their home rather than at the actual outlying terminal...

As far as crews go on UP Metra side some assignments work 2 roundtrips, and other assignment work 1 in 1 out with the layover in between. We don't do yard work besides s/o and p/u our equipment on very rare occasions of situations can occur where you may have switch a car out. And yes we do get paid for the whole day. From chatting with counterpart on the BNSF side their assignments are similar work rules and agreements and pay are different just as they are with Metra crews that work on the lines run by Metra.

Every district is different as to which sets run what, as is each district unique. MD and NCS are in the same pool, and NCS sets do run some MD mid-day trains. Sort of like UP sets sharing a district, the difference being an NCS set will end up back on NCS. As for RID, although there is one big pool of sets, I tend to view two sub-pools... one at Joliet, the other Blue Island. The first 5 (401, 403, 503, 505, 507) outbound trains to Joliet are run with sets based from Blue Island, which flip directly from an inbound run. 509 and 511 use cut sets based from Joliet. 513 uses the same set as 503 and 515 uses a cut set from Joliet which turns to 417 after arriving back to LaSalle. There have been recent changes to the set assignments on RI; #413 no longer has a double header... this train now adds 4-5 minutes compared to the DH run. It also appears that this set is now used on weekends.

To get an idea... here are the number of round trips each set makes on RI.

Joliet Based:
#1: 4 #2: 4 #3: 4 #4: 2 #5: 1 #6: 2 #7: 4 #8: 2

Blue Island Based:
#9: 3 #10: 3 #11: 2 #12: 4 #13: 4

*Round trip considered to be the point where a train ends, not necessarily the 'base' of the set.

I really do not know the crew assignments for RID that well, I assume everything that gets downtown during the late rush stays downtown and the crew returns in the evening. I know during the evening rush, some of the Blue Island deadheads will pick up another conductor on the way downtown... I'm guessing the same conductor works in the morning... as it really wouldn't make much sense to work one run downtown and back...

SWS is similar, pending on the run. The longest shifts work in the evening, making three round trips based from 179th. 830-823-836-833-840-839 and 834-827-838-837-842-841.

BNSF trains are generally set up with 6-7 cars for a local. These generally made 2-3 round trips. 8, 9, 10 and 11 car sets are usually just expresses with the latter making either 2 morning inbound trips and 1 outbound trip or 1 morning inbound trip and 2 evening outbound trips. Some shorter sets are combined into longer trains at 14th Street and occasionally at Aurora.

BN road crews that work suburban service don't do any work in the yard at 14th Street except cutting the engine off the train and taking it to the pit for servicing. There are BN yard crews at 14th Street that rearrange the consists and put engines back on in the afternoon. They also take the trains from the Aurora Depot back to the Hill Yard or if departing Route 59 as the last stop, duck into the Hill Yard via West Eola. Occasionally they'll set a car out or do some switching in Aurora but again, not super often.

Some engineers and conductors go back to Aurora during the day and some stay in Chicago in layover rooms, some have other employment during their layovers. My observation has always been based on the weather. A lot of people go home when it is nice during the day to cut the grass, etc....

I've seen 3 BNSF sets that usually get cut for off-peak service. One 11 car set is cut to 6 cars at Aurora for evening service and makes 3 round trips. Another 11 car set is cut to 5 or 6 cars at 14th Street to do one round trip during the midday. There is a 10 car set that has a cab car 6-7 cars in the consist but I've rarely seen this set get cut.

Keep in mind also that UP tends to run dedicated sets during rush on the same route every day. On UP, there are four of these on the west line, and at least three on northwest, plus one seven car set on the north line; in fact, cab 8422 (and the other eight trailers) have been assigned to UP/W trains 32 & 55 for the last several months. Other trains, such as UP/NW runs 653 & 662, and UP/W runs 13, 36, 47, 62, 71, & 18 run with two dedicated nine-car sets that rotate on these runs every other day. Note that a car or two in any of these static rush hour consists may get swapped out periodically, but the rest of the equipment plus the cab car tend to remain intact, and generally assigned to the same route otherwise. Of course, these sets will eventually rotate off, but it can take months, though it commonly happens within days after a "modified" schedule was run. Additionally, most of the six-car 700 series rush hour trains on ME also run with dedicated consists, and I suspect that once Metra ever gets their hands on more money for newer cars, I'd guess that more of the older equipment will see rush hour service only before being retired...

Back in the early nineties I was working on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. One of the clerks (he was an older guy - most of the rest of us were right out of college) was a conductor on the Rock Island/Metra line. He worked an early morning run in from Joliet, worked on the grain floor during the day, and worked the return trip home. It seemed to be a nice gig since the two jobs were perfect for each other...got the benefits of working for the railroad and got to make extra money during the day and all 'commuting' costs were taken care of.

This is how the old Wabash/N&W route used to work, before it became more than one train each way. The crew would take the train up from Decatur early on Monday morning, and do the usual run into Chicago. They'd leave the train there, go to work with the rest of the commuters, and then take the train back, eventually tying up at a bunkhouse in Orland Park Monday through Thursday. On Friday nights the train and crew went back to Decatur for the weekend, and maintenance, etc was performed there as needed.

byte wrote:This is how the old Wabash/N&W route used to work, before it became more than one train each way. The crew would take the train up from Decatur early on Monday morning, and do the usual run into Chicago. They'd leave the train there, go to work with the rest of the commuters, and then take the train back, eventually tying up at a bunkhouse in Orland Park Monday through Thursday. On Friday nights the train and crew went back to Decatur for the weekend, and maintenance, etc was performed there as needed.

I had read that the crew base and servicing point for that run was moved there on A-day (5/1/71), even though the terminal had been cut back to Orland Park (at the current site of today's 143rd St. station) almost a decade earlier. RTA assumed control of the service by 1977, and moved the crew base back to Orland Park. Servicing was moved to 14th St., sharing facilities with the BN commuter equipment at the old Zephyr pit...

doepack wrote: RTA assumed control of the service by 1977, and moved the crew base back to Orland Park. Servicing was moved to 14th St., sharing facilities with the BN commuter equipment at the old Zephyr pit...

As far as I know, SWS had always been serviced at Western Avenue until the CUS North Side project began, and has been at 14th St. since then. HC was serviced at 14th street as well from the beginning of the North side construction, until the time SWS was expanded in 06.

metraRI wrote:

doepack wrote: RTA assumed control of the service by 1977, and moved the crew base back to Orland Park. Servicing was moved to 14th St., sharing facilities with the BN commuter equipment at the old Zephyr pit...

As far as I know, SWS had always been serviced at Western Avenue until the CUS North Side project began, and has been at 14th St. since then. HC was serviced at 14th street as well from the beginning of the North side construction, until the time SWS was expanded in 06.

Hm. I thought I read somewhere that, during the late 70s, the midday servicing facilities for the "N&W service" (as the RTA called it back then) was based at 14th St initially, until a second round trip was added in 1979. Perhaps that's when it moved to Western? And as for modern day operations, HC's midday servicing facilities was at 14th St, and SW was at Western Ave. before the CUS project, but had traded places by the time the service expansion came online three years ago? Interesting...

I could be mistaken about the 70's... I'm not sure pre-Metra. Before the CUS project had started, I had known both HC and SWS to go to Western Ave. Back in the early 00's there was not a BNSF/CBQ car to be found on SWS. This was also when the 8400's actually had K5's... which all changed when they went to 14th Street.

Found this randomly, back in '01.. SWS DH on the north end of CUS:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=136023