D.J. Mitchell, assistant vice president for BNSF passenger operations, says that he and a BNSF vice president for mechanical operations would soon meet with Metra officials and seek to prevent a recurrence of the “hot cars” with failed air conditioning on Metra’s BNSF line.
“We’re going to sit down with the Metra folks and see why this happened,” Mitchell says. “We owe everyone, first and foremost our riders, to make sure we don’t have this happen next year.”
At one time this summer, there were 64 hot cars on the Metra line to Aurora. Currently, Mitchell says, there were two hot cars in service and two in the shop being repaired.
The BNSF line is the busiest of Metra’s 11 lines, with 94 trains carrying 64,000 riders a day between Union Station and Aurora. Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF Railway operates the line under contract to Metra.
In addition, Mitchell says trains were now operating with the appropriate number of cars. One cause of recent overcrowding was that many cars were taken out of service for repairs. Mitchell thanked Metra officials for shifting some spare cars to the BNSF to alleviate the problem.
“That is a significant improvement over a month ago,” Mitchell says.
At Metra’s July board meeting, the BNSF line’s mechanical chief, Sherwin Hudson, apologized for the problems. His attempt to explain the causes — he cited a lack of repair shop time availability, a personnel shortage, and chronically clogged condensers on the AC units — failed to mollify Metra board members who represent BNSF line riders.
Within the next 45 days, Mitchell says, officials would come up with a plan to address the overcrowding on the BNSF line.
Mitchell says BNSF will also seek to improve the line’s on-time performance, which has hovered around 91 percent, well below most of Metra’s other lines and below Metra’s stated goal of 95 percent. Mitchell said BNSF’s goal ought to be 97 percent. Metra considers a train on-time if it stays within six minutes of its schedule.
Mitchell also pointed out that certain BNSF trains are often more late than others.
“We’re going to do a deep dive at specific trains,” he says.
Metra board member Steven Messerli said he was grateful for Mitchell’s appearance, but admitted it “would have been very helpful to have had you here 30 or 60 days ago when these problems started.”
“It’s good to have somebody from high up on the ladder (at BNSF) to address some of the issues we’ve been facing, says Messerli, who represents Kane County, Ill.
Messerli says this summer has been an embarrassment for BNSF but that the responsibility for the railway’s poor service “has come to land on us.”
“I’m glad we have an action plan. We don’t want to play the blame game,” Messerli says.
Another board member, Stephen Palmer echoed Messerli.
“You should have been here last month when we had your guys on the ropes,” he says. “But I’m happy to hear what you said and I’m looking forward to see the results of what you’ve talked about here.”
John Zediker, who represents DuPage County, Ill., says he’s heard criticism from his own daughter, who told him, “Dad, what is going on with the BNSF? You guys can’t run a train on time.”
Still, Zediker commended BNSF for “attacking the problem” and said the road to improvement was a “two-way street, and we have to do our part, too.”
“When (the BNSF) doesn’t run on time,” Zediker says, “I hear from most of the residents of Naperville.”
