I can't find it but I do believe double tracking planned. I also understand that Rockford trains would run express starting/ending at Elgin. Regular Elgin commuters are understandably excited about this.

^ Interesting. The MD-W line is double tracked from Elgin until just west of Mannheim, where it goes triple track. I wonder how they will manage the express trains. There are portions of the route were trains will be able to go around the locals, but the timing might not always work out, and it may cause delays for the locals/express.

Don't get your hopes up too high just yet; it's only going to be two daily round trips. They are putting their foot in the door, and this is a good first step to be sure - but this is a small fraction of the service seen to other outlying destinations.
Compare:
-Harvard has 13 Round trips on weekdays, 10 on Sautrdays, and 7 on Sundays;
-Kenosha has 9 Round trips on weekdays, 7 on Saturdays, and 3 on Sundays;
-South Bend has 7 Round trips on weekdays, 5 on Weekends;
etc, etc. You get the point.

It's run by Metra, but it's basically minimal intercity service, not commuter service.

Double tracking isn't part of the plan for now. As far as I can tell, a track connection about a mile past Big Timber Road station is the only new track that is going to be laid as a part of this project.

It is too bad that they are going to run regular passenger service RIGHT BY Illinois Railway Museum and... not stop there. If they ever change their mind and decide to put a station in Union, I hope they put it at IRM.

Metra studied a Marengo extension awhile back and it included a Union stop at the IRM. But that was a much more extensive (and gold-plated) project.

The massive park and ride requirement is an obstacle for any official Metra or IDOT station at IRM, but once the service is up and running IRM will probably work with them to build a barebones flag stop, maybe even using volunteer or donated labor.

Another option is for IRM to extend their demonstration railroad... right now it ends about 1 mile from the proposed Metra stop in Huntley at Coyne Station Road. They'd have to buy the land to extend their tracks parallel to the UP right of way, but it avoids some bureaucratic obstacles of building a Union Metra stop. IRM could do a timed transfer to the Metra trains on heritage equipment.

This was talked about a while back on here. This is 100% the way to go. How great would it be to catch a ride on a green hornet PCC from the Metra stop to the front gate of IRM.

There is a roughly 1000-space parking lot at IRM. It's enormous. I'm sure there's pretty much always lots of extra space, especially on weekdays.

Ok, so most of their parking is gravel-and-grass; if Metra were to pave it, I bet that's a few hundred thousand bucks. Not a budget-buster.

I am betting that the schedule will be something like:
AM round trip:
6:00am Rockford
6:40am IRM
8:00am Chicago

8:30am Chicago
9:50am IRM
10:30am Rockford

PM round trip:
4:00pm Rockford
4:40pm IRM
6:00pm Chicago

6:30pm Chicago
7:50pm IRM
8:30pm Rockford

This would be such a win for IRM, that's literally a perfect day trip from Chicago. Leave Union Station at 8:30am, 6 hours at the museum, return at 6pm. I bet it would be quite popular. The extra visitors would be totally worth sharing their parking lot with Metra.


(This schedule leaves enough space for a midday round trip as well:)
11:00am Rockford
11:40am IRM
1:00pm Chicago

1:30pm Chicago
2:50pm IRM
3:30pm Rockford

Racine station reopening (Green line englewood branch)
 

https://i.ibb.co/xH1phDg/Screenshot-...-21-210212.png

CTA is creating a plan to reopen the long closed Racine Green line station in Englewood

https://transitchicago.bonfirehub.co...unities/154763

Posting this in the transit thread. While discussing the potential Pink Line station for the 1901 Project, the Blackhawks chariman also mentioned possibly "reconfiguring" the Pink Line. Not sure if this would mean smoothing out the remaining few curves, or something bolder
https://chicago.suntimes.com/real-es...irtz-reinsdorf

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet.....

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/tran...gNews-20241003

This is pretty awesome news if it means we have a regular Metra service to ORD.....

Great news! Its much too difficult to get to O'Hare from the city center. 90/94 is a parking lot most hours, and the Blue Line has too many stops and moves too slowly to make it viable for most business travelers to take to the Loop. Expanding service on the NCS is the most logical approach.

The dream scenario would be to tunnel track into the O'Hare CTA station, branching off from the main NCS line and allowing for express Metra trains from Union directly into O'Hare. The NCS is already triple/quad tracked for most of the route between Union and O'Hare, meaning we just need a billion or two for the tunnel. Easy, right? :haha:

Assuming electrification, it may be easier and cheaper (than a soft ground TBM bored tunnel), to instead branch off the NCS and into the median of 190 using cut and cover and alongside the Blue Line tracks at grade and re-entering a widened or new parallel tunnel for the final 3000' or so to get into a new shared regional rail/Cta terminal station.

I still think the cheapest and best option would be to extend the ATS a few hundreads yards running perpendicular to the current NCS O'Hare station.
An even cheaper and more practical option would be to retrofit an enclosed ped tunnel to the ATS Rental Car station from the current NSC O'Hare station.

I took the NCS from Prospect Heights to Terminal 2 a few months ago and once you are on the ATS it is not too bad in terms of convenience to the rest of the airport other than the open-air walk of a few hundred feet between the two stations. Take out that walking segment and you can easily find a target market who would use the service, particularly those leaving from T5.

This Chicago Tribune op ed from July raises the issue of a connection between the North Western and Amtrak tracks. Is such a thing possible and is there any chance it (or any alternative) would actually be seriously studied and put into motion?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/...ation-ogilvie/

Oh geez, that sounds like hell trying to connect those two points. I'm not even sure if Metra's rolling stock would be able to make sharp enough turns for such a connection