UP-NW 622: Brain cramp in the scheduling dept...

Prior to this week, train 622 made a stop at Barrington, scheduled to depart at 7:24. With the opening of the new Pingree Road station, 622's schedule was modified to skip Barrington, and instead run express from Fox River Grove to Desplaines. Passengers who used to catch the 7:24 express at Barrington now instead have three options to choose from: Catch the 7:11 express (What? Get up EARLIER? Hell no!), wait for the 7:42 express, or ride one of the locals. Apparently, these options were unacceptable to many Barrington residents, and as a result, Metra will restore 622's previous schedule on Monday, adding only the stop at Pingree Road.

This is the second time in the last month or so that there has been a glitch in terms of the updated schedules for this route. First, Metra prematurely released schedules that hadn't been approved yet, now Barrington accidentally loses one of its morning rush hour express trains. I don't know; maybe Bones was right about that "dartboard"... looks like the scheduling department borrowed it.

RI's piece must have fallen off the scheduling departments "dart board", considering it is the oldest schedule in effect...and its a schedule that could use many updates. Local inbound trains are always late, usually 5-6 minutes by the time they get to Gresham, but they usually arrive on-time at LaSalle. The 1:30p-2:55p gap in mainline trains is something that should be fixed, along with a train arriving into LaSalle before 6AM, which is when the Board of Trade opens. It also looks like Metra wants to add a Chicago to Tinley express, as one is always added on special schedule days around holidays.

When I went downtown on Sunday, it was a nice unexpected suprise to ride a pretty much empty 10:55p express from LaSalle going right to Robbins....for some reason they expected a big mob of people with the events going on and added an express train.

Well it is a good thing Metra is restoring it but I quesiton why they haven't improved the RI Timetable.

AmtrakFan wrote:but I quesiton why they haven't improved the RI Timetable.

I believe they have the updated versions in the stations, but I'm not sure. Next time I'm out, I'll check.

metraRI wrote:Local inbound trains are always late, usually 5-6 minutes by the time they get to Gresham, but they usually arrive on-time at LaSalle.

No doubt, this is where the extra 3 to 5 minute "padding" on the inbound schedule between Gresham and LaSalle St. comes into play. According to Metra's definition, a train is considered "on time" if it arrives at the terminal not more than 5 minutes after its published time on the schedule, even though it may sometimes exceed that window at intermediate stops.

Take BNSF, for example. Due to the 2-hour gap in service, off-peak inbound trains 1266 and 1268 are frequently 5 to 8 minutes late on average departing stations east of Downers Grove due to high passenger volume. But because of the generous cushion on the published schedule between Western and CUS, most of the time these trains still make it to CUS "on time". I'm using this as an illustration to suggest perhaps Metra might want to increase the amount of padding for the RI district, at least as a short-term fix.

metraRI wrote:The 1:30p-2:55p gap in mainline trains is something that should be fixed, along with a train arriving into LaSalle before 6AM, which is when the Board of Trade opens. It also looks like Metra wants to add a Chicago to Tinley express, as one is always added on special schedule days around holidays.

Actually, the 1:30p-2:55p gap in mainline service might not be as bad you think. Since the 2:55 LaSalle St. departure runs via the mainline between Gresham and Blue Island, its arrival time at Blue Island and points south is a little more than an hour after the 1:30 train, which is still pretty decent for that time of day. Adding an inbound train to LaSalle St. before the 6am opening of the CBOT wouldn't be a bad idea, it could be theoretically possible to move back the departure times of trains 400 and 600 about 20 minutes or so. But it is true that RI's current schedule clearly doesn't reflect today's reality of the demographic changes occurring along the communities served by this route, especially the growth of Tinley Park and New Lenox, and indeed, some tweakage is necessary...

I see what you mean by the 2:55 getting close to an hour behind the 1:30, but more commuters are going to look at the hour 25 minute gap between trains downtown, just like the 1:30 to 2:28 on BNSF.

If Metra changed the 2:55 to a 2:25 and moved following trains up, there would be room for an additional mainline departure, which is what Metra has said they were going to add.

RI's evening schedule is also strange. Instead of having 6:40, 7:40, 8:45, 9:45, 10:55 and 12:30...why not just have trains leave every hour at X:30.

metraRI wrote:If Metra changed the 2:55 to a 2:25 and moved following trains up, there would be room for an additional mainline departure, which is what Metra has said they were going to add.

RI's evening schedule is also strange. Instead of having 6:40, 7:40, 8:45, 9:45, 10:55 and 12:30...why not just have trains leave every hour at X:30.

One possible solution: If you moved the 2:55 to 2:25, you could probably add a 3:05 mainline to Joliet as well, while keeping the other depatures during that time of day the same. You could then run the extra set back to LaSalle as a limited stop express sandwiched somewhere between the 4:24 and 5:13 inbound departures from Joliet, then you'd have an additional train to upgrade the evening service as well, enabling hourly service after 6:40. Could it be done? Absolutely. Will it be done? Well, that's anybody's guess. But given Metra's recent track record in terms of planning these things, I wouldn't be surprised if a dartboard becomes involved at some point...