ELGIN, Ill. — Metra will move service on its Milwaukee District West line onto a new bridge over the Fox River in Elgin on Saturday, Sept. 14, a process which will require busing passengers to two stations in Elgin for much of the day.
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., passengers using the Elgin or National Street stations will be bused to and from the Gifford Road rail crossing in Elgin, where trains will originate and terminate. Passengers can avoid the buses by using the Bartlett station. Inbound trains may operate up to 20 minutes late because of the busing; outbound trains are expected to operate on time as far as Bartlett, but those traveling to the Elgin stations may experience delays of up to 20 minutes.
Metra is replacing a 138-year-old single-track bridge over the Fox River with a double-track bridge. With one track on the new bridge complete, Metra will be rerouting the line and connecting signals onto the new route so the old bridge can be demolished. Trains on the route will operate on a construction schedule both Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 15, to accommodate the bridge work. For more information, see Metra’s website.
@Charles Landey: METRA passengers pay nothing for capex on the RTA lines. Those are paid for out of FTA infrastructure grants or State of Illinois bonding. As it stands, the farebox only covers about 48% of Metra’s annual operating budget. The rest of that comes from a regional sales tax.
So indirectly Metra passengers pay through their federal taxes and State of Illinois property taxes.
Many of the original bridges built by the granger roads out of Chicago were between 1880-1900 out of masonry/plate steel to replace the wooden ones. In the 1920’s the rest were replaced with concrete and plate steel.
Many of them no longer can carry the weight of today’s engines. Either the masonry is failing or the plate steel has become too brittle or has rust problems. Even the concrete poured in the 1920’s, much was not reinforced.
This is far from the first bridge on METRA Milwaukee District lines to be replaced and likely won’t be the last.
Hey, folks, welcome to “Reality”. Forty-five years ago when METRA’s parent RTA was founded, who knew that passenger trains would end up paying to rebuild the Milwaukee Road’s infrastructure? The free ride of passenger trains on freight ROWs is coming to an end.
Infrastructure improvements like Chicago CREATE are laudable. However there’s also the cost of simple replacement. Do the math, if METRA owns a hundred bridges, a certain number will need to be replaced each year ad infinitum.
METRA has invested heavily in station improvement for the METRA Electric (ex-ICRR line) but there’s plenty left to do.
On METRA’s lines still owned by the freight railroads like BNSF, don’t be surprised if the freight railroads increase the track rental costs.
The disruption is because the primary signal hut for the original single track bridge is in the ROW of the new 2nd track on the west side of the Fox River. Also there is a gas fired switch heater right where the old bridge meets the embankment.
So to make the switch over, the hut has to be moved to other side of the ROW and the fiber/copper reattached.
The switch also has to be flipped to the other side and the gas line reattached so they can maintain a dual track main until the new 2nd bridge is done.
There are 3 major fiber optic trunks on the old bridge that will have to be relocated/preserved before the old bridge can come down.