Yeah it is exciting and sort of restores just slightly my confidence in the agencies leadership. Though I would stop short of saying "the obvious place to start electrification" as I would think if they are casually considering even the possibility of electrifying the RI district, the most glaringly obvious candidate for conversion potential w/ all the right ingredients, that means there must be negative chance of electrification happening anywhere else. That's just the sad reality we're dealing with. The combination that none of Metra's lines outside of the IC had a previous or current RR owner that implimented electrification in the early days (like the LIRR, NYC, NH, EL, PRR, Reading, etc. out east and not to mention the rest of the world) and the limited operational budget that just prevents capital investment in systemwide conversion means Metra will be operating diesel trains when my kids kids have kids (if I ever have kids that is). Correct points about other RI improvements like high platforms. Would love to see an S-Bahn running on the RI.
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