Metra operations back to normal Friday evening, with some delays
BY DAVE GATHMAN dgathman@stmedianetwork.com November 4, 2011 2:26PM
The day after a Canadian National Railway train derailed, interrupting freight and Metra service, work crews performed cleanup and repairs. | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: January 9, 2012 12:20PM
ELGIN — With one track temporarily reopened through the site of Thursday’s freight-train derailment in Bartlett, Metra commuters headed for Chicago on the Milwaukee District West Line Friday morning experienced a fairly normal (though sometimes delayed) trip.
And with both tracks finally reopened at mid-afternoon Friday, Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile said commuters on the line between Big Timber station and Chicago would find a normal operating schedule for Friday’s evening rush hour.
Twenty-two cars on a Canadian National freight train derailed about 5 a.m. Thursday right where the CN’s former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern line crosses the Metra line, near Spaulding Road and Lambert Lane in an unincorporated area along the border between Bartlett and Elgin.
That kept Metra trains from traveling past that point from the Elgin stations. And because Metra stores the line’s locomotives and passenger cars in downtown Elgin overnight, even the unobstructed parts of the line, between Bartlett and Chicago, were short of equipment and could offer only limited service Thursday.
“Metra would like to have more spare cars. But all our equipment is committed to one line or the other during the rush hours,” so the agency couldn’t make up for the trains stuck in Elgin Thursday, Metra spokesman Mike Gillis said Friday.
Before dawn Friday, contractors working around the clock to clean up the damage temporarily reopened one of Metra’s two tracks through the Spaulding area. That allowed fairly normal service for eastbound commuters from the Big Timber, downtown Elgin and National Street stations from about 5 a.m. to about 7:45 a.m. It also allowed the trains that had been trapped in the Elgin coachyard all Thursday to move east of the derailment site.
The handful of westbound trains during the morning rush stopped at Bartlett, with their passengers offered Pace buses to continue on to the Elgin stations.
During the day Friday, the open track was closed down again at the crash site as repairs continued. From 7:45 a.m. until about 2 p.m., all trains on the line began or ended their runs at Bartlett. Metra again arranged buses to shuttle passengers between Bartlett and the Elgin stations.
“We now have tracks back in service, so we’ll go back to a normal schedule beginning with Train 2219, which left Union Station at 1:40 p.m.,” Reile said. “But we’re still telling passengers to expect 15- to 25-minute delays on trains in both directions tonight and throughout the weekend.”
She said any major changes in train schedules will be posted on http://metrarail.com.
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