Your impossible Metra wishes...

This thread is all about posting your wishes about Metra that you know can never come true, just for fun. Go ahead! I'll start:

I think it would be cool if Metra would run a "Heritage Train" periodically, led by an F40PH in the RTA paint scheme, pulling and RTA Coach, a painted Metra Coach, a Milwaukee Coach, a Rock Island Coach, a CNW coach, and a Burlington Cab Car.

Either that, or I'd settle for getting to see the flat sided coaches again. Does anyone know if any are still out there in a yard or something?

TheGortex wrote:Either that, or I'd settle for getting to see the flat sided coaches again. Does anyone know if any are still out there in a yard or something?

Head out to Maryland or Virginia. MARC and VRE each have a bunch of them in service, with only some minor modifications to their Metra appearance. Music City Star in Nashville also runs a small fleet of them.

TheGortex wrote:I think it would be cool if Metra would run a "Heritage Train" periodically, led by an F40PH in the RTA paint scheme, pulling and RTA Coach, a painted Metra Coach, a Milwaukee Coach, a Rock Island Coach, a CNW coach, and a Burlington Cab Car.

Either that, or I'd settle for getting to see the flat sided coaches again. Does anyone know if any are still out there in a yard or something?

I always thought a heritage train would be cool. Throw in an E8/9 and away we go!!!

There is still a flat-sided St. Louis car at the former CNW California Yard. I can see it from the MILW mainline near the Western Ave. stop.

Prior to the ADA cars coming wasn't it pretty much every train in the system was a herritage train? Basically the only thing that was changed was the name and/or paint on the side of the car (and locomotive in some rare cases).

c604. wrote:Prior to the ADA cars coming wasn't it pretty much every train in the system was a herritage train

Sort of. It was particularly true of the CNW/UP lines, since they didn't receive any modern, Metra-ordered equipment until the ADA cars were delivered. The same can be said of the Milwaukee and Burlington lines, but to a lesser degree: The fact those lines started to modernize earlier allowed the retirement of some of the older equipment orginially bought by the legacy roads, but in reality, they actually wound up augmenting the current fleet instead of displacing the older equipment entirely. Which meant that some trains (usually of the rush hour ilk) eventually began operating with completely modern equipment every now and then. But more often than not, the trains on those lines eventually became a hodgepodge of older and newer equipment, a situation that still exists on the Burlington, which has just about every type of car and locomotive still active today on Metra's roster.

The arrival of the RTA-ordered, Budd-built coaches and cabs in the 7300/8200 series allowed the Rock, HC, and SWS to be completely modernized by the time of Metra's 1984 inception, so the "Heritage" cars on those lines were among the first to be retired. Considering the ancient equipment used in the years before, especially on HC/SWS, the decision to modernize those lines first was a no-brainer...

On the UP line where I live, I still see that CNW club car periodically, and most trains usually have a Budd Milwaukee car on it.

While we're talking about "impossible", I might as well think big, right?

Extend the Metra Electric Line north in tubes under the Chicago river. Add a new underground commuter stop along Fairbanks. Then surface into a retained cut replacing some of Lake Shore Drive, and follow the route of Lake Shore Drive until approximately its end, with relatively widely spaced stops. Then at some point dive west and meet the Red Line.

It would act as relief and express service for the Red/Brown/Purple lines as well as providing local service further east, to areas with lots of population and tourist attractions.

It would also cost billions and billions.

neroden wrote:Extend the Metra Electric Line north in tubes under the Chicago river. Add a new underground commuter stop along Fairbanks. Then surface into a retained cut replacing some of Lake Shore Drive, and follow the route of Lake Shore Drive until approximately its end, with relatively widely spaced stops. Then at some point dive west and meet the Red Line.

It would act as relief and express service for the Red/Brown/Purple lines as well as providing local service further east, to areas with lots of population and tourist attractions...

This would be a valuable and timely option right now for the commuters affected by the Brown line reconstruction, since that has now entered its most disruptive phase with a 25% reduction in capacity (and rail service) along the one mile segment between Red/Brown/Purple line stations at Belmont and Fullerton. A multi-billion dollar price tag aside, the increased rail service to the immediate vicinity of Navy Pier would be another bonus...