HOMEWOOD, Ill. — The Homewood station on Metra’s Electric District will close from April 1 to May 20 to replace the single stairway leading to the station platform, Metra has announced.
The station has been undergoing a $20.7 million reconstruction since May 2023, and has remained open during the project, but must close during this work because there is no alternative path between the platform and the station’s pedestrian tunnel. At the same time, the elevator between the tunnel and platform will be closed for replacement, a 90-day project during which there will be no ADA access at Homewood.
Alternatives during the work are stations at Calumet, which has ample parking, is ADA accessible, and is in a less expensive fare zone, and Flossmoor, which is also ADA accessible. During the Homewood closure, inbound trains that normally run express from Homewood will instead run express from Calumet, while outbound trains that normally run express to Homewood will instead run express to Calumet.
“We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience to our Homewood customers,” Metra CEO/Executive Director Jim Derwinski said in a press release, “but this is the only stairway to the platform, and it must be replaced, which leaves us with no alternative but to close the station and replace the stairway as quickly as possible.”
The Homewood project is expected to be complete in the summer of 2025. It includes a new east headhouse; platform, warming house and gatehouse renovations, and new drainage, ventilation, lighting, and interior finishes in the pedestrian tunnel, as well as the stair and elevator work, as well as a new bus facility [see “Metra awards contract for Homewood station renovation,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 18, 2022]. Work to renovate Amtrak’s portion of the shared station complex and bring it into ADA compliance was completed in 2022 [see “Amtrak, local officials dedicate …,” News Wire, June 26, 2022].
At the risk sounding like a knit picker amidst all the positives celebrated in this article, the train pictured is not “outbound”/southbound. Look at the train number in the mountings below each marker which btw are light showing we are looking at the train’s hind end. #122 is a northward train aka “inbound”.
Corrected.
That picture of the old station is a throwback to the interurban style of operation. Refilter it in B&W and it could be 1926 all over again.
The Homewood Station is a “throw-forward” to the 1950’s when my beloved New Haven Railroad opened the Route 128 Station in Westwood, Massachusetts. Suburban stations for intercity trains just plain rock. What Route 128 (Massachusetts) and Homewood (Illinois) have in common is that the costs of operation are shared between frequent commuter runs along with multiple daily Amtrakers. For example, ten years ago I needed to get from Hyde Park in southern Chicago, to Mattoon in downstate Illinois. No problem. Metra from Hyde Park to Homewood, Amtrak Homewood to Mattoon.
Felt like I was back in England, where you can make a transfer from intercity to suburban. As I did in Reading, west of London.
On the other hand, there’s no station in Denver’s suburbs. (As Amtrak runs once daily and there are no commuter trains.) The choice is downtown Denver or rural Fort Morgan, neither one convenient to my family. My family can hear Amtrak from home in the Denver suburbs but can’t conveniently ride it.