ROCKFORD, Ill. — With an 1880s bridge over the Rock River supporting a Metra train as a backdrop, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other officials announced Thursday that Chicago commuter operator Metra had been selected to partner with Union Pacific to provide two daily rail roundtrips between Rockford and Chicago by 2027.
The estimated $275 million investment comes from the state’s Rebuild Illinois infrastructure fund.
The route chosen will use Metra’s Milwaukee-West commuter corridor, with a stop at Elgin. At Big Timber, the current end of the commuter route, a flyover will be built to connect with Union Pacific’s Rockford branch. Additional stations will be constructed at Huntley, in Metra-served McHenry County; Belvedere; and downtown Rockford, west of the river.
Amtrak had also previously expressed interest in operating the service. The agreement calls for the state to reimburse Metra for all capital and operating costs above ticket revenue the commuter railroad takes in. Exact station locations and detailed engineering still need to be determined.
Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara says the station there will be on the north or south side of the existing tracks where the former Chicago and North Western station was located.
“The improvements needed are identified; now that funding is in place, we will partner with IDOT and Union Pacific and the railroad will have contracts with villages,” Metra Executive Director Jim Derwinski tells News Wire. “None of the definitive agreements are in place. Now IDOT has to say this is what the engineering is going to be and let’s get it out for bid.” At the Big Timber flyover, “We will probably go over and [CPKC] will stay under,” Derwinski adds.
Union Pacific Vice President John Turner says the pact with the state includes an additional passing track on the line originally built by Chicago & North Western predecessor Galena & Chicago Union as Chicago’s first railroad beginning in 1848. The C&NW had upgraded tracks past the Illinois Railway Museum at Union, Ill., as far as Belvedere to serve a Chrysler automobile plant. But the roadbed between the factory and downtown Rockford was allowed to deteriorate and will need substantial upgrading.
It will be the first passenger service to Rockford in more than 40 years. When route improvements are complete, travel time is anticipated to be slightly less than two hours for the approximately 90-mile trip, according to a press release from Pritzker’s office. More information is available at a new website devoted to the project.
Moving right along at a government breakneck pace. 2027, right and on budget too I’ll bet.
It will never pay for itself but who cares we got our train.
And what is it about this “flyover” at Big Timber? The lines run parallel at grade for a couple miles, don’t they? Won’t they just build a crossover?
At this point I think someone was thinking a crossover, but said flyover. Another question I have is that Metra runs right-handed operation on the MILW-W but runs left handed on UP’s legacy CNW. So will the line stay right handed after the switch to UP at Big Timber?
How will meets be handled in the event a UP left handed freight move comes up? The signaling on the UP line is setup for left handed operation. Not insurmountable, but an interesting little operational question for Metra.
John – The UP line beyond Big Timber is single track, so no left-hand/right-hand contention.
Let’s hope that development costs don’t spiral. The last C&NW passenger service on this line ended around 1952, over seven decades ago. There’s that Rock River bridge to look at – good luck finding an engineer who will sign off on that thing for daily passenger service. There’s the line west of Belvidere that will have to be totally rebuilt, not to mention upgrading the rest of the railroad. Passenger stations won’t be cheap, there will be temptations to spend too much. How many will ride these trains each day anyway? 20? 100?
The former CNW Rock River Bridge was built in 1896. The steel beam work looks OK visually, but its the approach work and river piers that look suspect.
It was common for CNW to use local quarry stone before 1915 to build their end caps and piers. Because of this it uses mortar to keep the stone in place. The river piers appear to have some kind of attempt to reinforce them using a concrete and reinforced bar combination, but this has worn off and shows the stone work underneath. The quarry stone end caps have shelves that the steel beams reside on at each end, and these look to be in very poor shape and the stone is breaking down.
A good example of what will need to be done is what UP and Metra are doing to the Fox River Bridge on the Geneva Sub. They are tearing out and building all new end caps to replace the quarry stone work used by CNW.
Since this line has been in extended deferred maintenance by CNW and UP since the late 1970’s, all of those quarry stone and wood timber bridges will need to be fully inspected back to Elgin.
Success will depend of the schedule. Eastbound from Rockford in morning, connecting to Metra rush, westbound in late afternoon/evening. Otherwise there is little incentive for anyone to use.
Interesting development. It sounds like the State of Illinois will cut through the political and bureaucratic hoops, barriers, twists, and turns, by directly funding this service (Since Rockford, Illinois is not in the six-county RTA taxing district). This ought to be a wake-up call to Amtrak and make their incompetent leadership realize that there are other options for states to start up new services (rather than get jerked around and overbilled by Amtrak).
And yes, a stop at the Illinois Railway Museum would be neat. Maybe someday it will be part of this new service?
And yes,. with the closure of the Stellantis automotive plant in Belvedere, Illinois, it sounds there will be minimal, to no freight traffic for the UP. Maybe this line will ultimately have to be bought by the State of Illinois (or Metra) because, yes, no doubt the UP will probably want to get rid of it.
Yes, Governor ‘Corpulent’ will do all he can to try and save the Stellantis auto plant by converting it to an electric car factory. However, the recent collapse of Lordstown Motors (in the old GM Ohio factory) isn’t a good omen and there are a lot of other problems in the EV auto industry (Rivian motors on the brink, etc.)
Just because Metra was chosen to operate the route do not assume it is going to be run like all the other commuter operations. This is intercity passenger rail running between Rockford and Chicago, with two/three additional stops in between, definitely not a commuter operation. Therefore 7/days a week would make more sense, weekday only would signify commuter instead of intercity. Depending on the schedules a future stop at the IRM could be discussed, not only would it increase IRM attendance but also generate guaranteed passenger traffic for a new intercity service. You can ride commute cars for 90 minutes, but if Metra and IDOT were smart they’d order more Siemens Venture cars specifically for this service and any future additional intercity corridors(think Quad Cities).
The new routing should have been from Rockford down the CB&Q branch to Davis Jct. then Milwaukee Road to Union Station. A station located at Camp Grant could serve the Rockford airport and provide it connections to both O’Hare and downtown Chicago without the expense of a flyover at Big Timber. DJ or Camp Grant would provide stations more convenient to unserved areas to the west more convenient than downtown Rockford.
Rockford has had several planning discussions on how to provide better and regular services to their airport. Now that Metra and IDOT have committed to a service to their downtown, I would look for more progress in this area.
Currently OmniTrax owns the yard where the new Metra station will be. But they sold their Rock River Bridge and its a nature trail now. Watco used to have a repair terminal there. They use a rights agreement with CN and goes south by the airport down to Davis Jct. CPKC also has trackage rights from their yard over CN and Omnitrax to reach their line at Davis Jct. CPKC does have service this way via Wisconsin Southern and there is usually a few trains a week that come south.
It is time to give Amtrak a wake up,call. If you want to overcharge for state supported regional service we will look elsewhere for operators of our service. Maybe if more states catch on this will help reduce the cost to operate these state supported services.
I guess the cute locomotive that is trying to steal the big show here must be a 25-year-old, ex-Amtrak EMD F59PHI.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
With a former Amtrak locomotive as a photo backdrop. Priceless.
It can be said that this development is a missed opportunity for Amtrak. However, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation will naturally continue to care about its existing services to and from Chicago.
A trip from St. Louis to Chicago via Amtrak’s Lincoln Service will be about 15 minutes quicker starting the last week of June due to track upgrades that allow for increased speeds.
The Amtrak line ran its first 110 mph/177 kph service on Monday, June 26, up from 90 mph/145 kph previously, which would make the one-way trip less than five hours long. The trip is now a full 30 minutes quicker than when the service ran at 79 mph/127 kph when the project began in 2010.
The faster speed doesn’t meet the federal definition of high-speed rail – 125 mph/201 kph – but the new Lincoln Service is faster than most other Amtrak trains. Less than half of Amtrak trains pass 100 mph/161 kph, according to a March Amtrak report.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Boarding locations in Chicago and Rockford, as well as a fare structure and schedules, are still to be determined.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
This is good news and I am sure there will be some bad news that goes with this.
Obviously the good news is the extension of Metra service to Rockford. The former CNW station and freight house in Rockford is mere blocks from central Rockford and is ripe for re-development for office and mixed use high density residential. Today several railroads meet here, the UP, CPKC (Rockford Sub), CN and the small Illinois Railway.
The bad news is that Stellantis is closing the Belvidere plant. At last word (Feb 2023) they have no plans to retain it and will close it permanently. UP will have almost no reason to keep the line in place between West Chicago and Elgin. As it stands today, there are only 3 active freight customers in Rockford and they are all on the KD Industrial Lead. Cimco, Mondelez/Kraft and Rock Valley Oil. All easily punted to another local provider like Illinois Railway. (1 grain elevator left in Belvidere) This would clear the Elgin-Rockford route as a Metra only and get the pesky night freights to someone else.
It will be interesting to see what UP does with that line, abandon it for yet another trail and dump the remaining customers? Or find another use if someone moves into Belvidere.
Mr. Rice I would point out that Illinois now has two excess automotive assembly plants, one in Normal and one in Belvidere, that Gov. Pritzker wants to convert to electric vehicle manufacturing plants. Rivian is finally getting some traction at Normal after a long gestation period, but Belvidere is still very much a work in progress. Pritzker will probably spend every last dime Ilinois government has left to save the Belvidere plant and the workforce, not to mention all those good Democrat voters.
Passenger rail service to Chicago will certainly make the Rockford region a more attractive place to live and work. Bravo Metra! Bravo Union Pacific!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Please check the related link down below Charles Landey ↓
http://www.chicagotorockfordrail.org/about/
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
From 1974 to 1981, Rockford was served by Amtrak via its Black Hawk route, a daily train service from Dubuque, Iowa to Union Station in Chicago with a stop in Rockford. The Black Hawk was discontinued in September 1981 as part of funding cuts to Amtrak.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
News like this is gorgeous news that make strong signals of hope burn bright about the future of passenger train traffic in the United States!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Rail service will provide efficient, safe and reliable transportation operations up to 79 mph/127 kph to connect Illinois communities with the Chicago metropolitan area.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
What? The article is about METRA? Dr. Ustun, focus please. METRA doesn’t do 79 mph.
Charles you are totally WRONG. I live in Downers Grove and still have many friends at BNSF. The Metra express trains and empty equipment moves go flying through Downers on about a three-mile stretch of straight track between Westmont and Belmont Road. Remember the nickname for the old CB&Q main line is the “Racetrack”.
Charles, Metra does up to 78mph where the territory permits.
Good choice considering Amtrak’s padded billing methods to benefit the NEC slush fund.
Why can’t it go by UP-W line. Please tell me if I wrong.
Two major problems with that. First UP West line, even with the third track, is chocked full of freight and Metra trains now. Second, UP uses different station in Chicago. Smart move is Milwaukee West right into Union Station providing direct connections to the rest of the Amtrak network.
Kurt, Ages ago there used to be a direct siding from the UP-W line (Geneva Sub) to the Freeport Sub at West Chicago. That siding was moved west of the CN tower and now is (was) used for the run of auto parts to Belvedere. The Freeport Sub was renamed the Belvedere Sub after CNW cut the line back to Rockford. Unfortunately this is a very busy crossing for freight as it is. It would have been worse if the BNSF River Sub still connected here, that was pulled back 3 blocks in the early 90’s.
Will METRA use commuter cars? Or will they order some Siemens cars?
Metra already has multilevel cars on order from Alstom.
It’s a good question.
The Alstom Coradia gallery cars will probably go immediately into replacement of the remaining Pullman (of any left in service) , Budd or Amerail (MK) gallery cars. I would surmise that the oldest Nippon Sharyo gallery cars will get pushed out for this service or other less repetitive fringe services.
Metra does use a few single level cars for the longer trains to provide bar service, like on the line to Harvard. But I can’t see them buy all new single level cars (like Siemens) for the Rockford service unless business demands it.
I wonder if Illinois Railway Museum would back building a flag stop type of station to possibly drum up more business.
A stop at the IRM would be a huge boon to attendance, provided there was sufficient time between the inbound/outbound trains allowing for a several hour museum visit.
Well, it would be lovely — but I can’t see it happening.
Does two daily r/ts include weekends and holidays?
Some Metra routes are weekday only.
One way or the other, I can’t envision a schedule whereby two r/ts would allow for reverse commutes, which is what Chicago to IRM would be.
I can’t recall the last time it happened, but a child care agency in Chicago once worked with Metra to bring several car loads of kids out to IRM for a “trains day”. I remember it was a huge hit and meant a lot for the kids, many of them from bad situations. The nearby cows grazing in the fields were just as popular as watching a steam engine fire off his whistle!
I remember the picture of the Metra bi-level consist sitting on the IRM siding while the kids rambled around.
If memory serves the child agency stopped doing this because they lost their corporate sponsor. And it cost a bundle to get a non-revenue Metra train out to Union and have the crew just sit there until the kids were done.
Been many years of on again and off again talks, finally glad to see it happening.
Good news that they are considering Metra as operator rather than Amtrak. They’ll experience far less headaches and roadblocks.
Good news. I think Metra will be a very good operator. I hope the station site in Rockford will allow easy access to CN tracks in case service can be extended to Dubuque someday. Perhaps CN will be open to considering this if an operator other than Amtrak can be found. I am not too familiar with trackage in Rockford, but perhaps someone who knows the area can address this question.
Great News!
#sohappytoliveinillinois