Give 'em credit for trying...

Some recent observations:

On the UP lines during the last month, they've deadheaded equipment back downtown for additional runs, and over the Thanksgiving holiday, longer trains of at least eight cars were run Friday and Saturday mornings to accomdate the larger crowds heading downtown. Also, for the first time that I can recall, Omaha dispatchers have become a little more strict lately in terms of enforcing the freight curfew on the Geneva sub, and although there are still delays to some off-peak trains owing to "freight train interference", rush hours have been fairly smooth. And to top it off, the "Santa Safety trains" are running on two UP lines next month, with a scheduled appearance on the freight-heavy Geneva sub included. Mind you, this is all new to me, I've never known UP to run trains, especially commuter service, in this manner.

Speaking of which, "Efficient" and "Commuter Friendly" aren't things that immediately come to mind when assessing UP's operation of Metra service, but this recent behavior, even if temporary, is a welcome change...

On the flip side...

It seems like BNSF has thrown the freight curfew out the window. On multiple occasions over the past two months, various rush hour trains have been delayed due to freight interference. For example, about a month ago, a eastbound Naperville express wound up arriving CUS about 25 minutes late because it was forced to follow an intermodal from roughly Downers Grove to Cicero. It is also not unusual to see eastbound freights run during the height of the afternoon commuter rush, sometimes on the middle track. Throw an Amtrak into the mix and that will also contribute to delays.

MetraBNSF wrote: Throw an Amtrak into the mix and that will also contribute to delays.

With long distance trains 4 and 6 typically running at least several hours late into Chicago, seeing them spliced between all the reverse equipment moves on the Burlington during the afternoon rush is common, if not expected.

But as we all know, a freight curfew isn't always set in stone, and the most common situation that allows UP/BNSF to circumvent the freight curfew is when the crew only has several hours left to work before the FRA mandated 12-hour maximum hours of service law shuts them down. While it's unavoidable at times, railroads would rather change crews in the terminal than dog-catch them on the road, and if the yard can take the train, dispatchers will send them in, even during rush hours.

I don't know if there is a direction-specific curfew in effect on the Burlington, but that appears to be the case on the Geneva sub, where freight traffic that does come through in rush hours is running opposite of Metra's peak direction...

Huh? Every up-w train I've been on in the last month has been delayed wheter it would be rushhour or off peak. I had a problem with customer service at Oligvie 3 weeks ago were i got so mad i blew up. 2 weeks ago there was 3 days in a row were afternoon rush hour was up to 45 minutes behind schedule due to mechanical failures and other reasons. If anything the service keeps getting worse.

Agreed, the overall service still leaves much to be desired, as this line continues to suffer from delays on an almost daily basis, with the latest incident being an attempted suicide at Kilbourn Ave in Chicago during Monday morning's rush hour, which delayed trains for about an hour. No doubt, Metra service suffers from almost every conceivable kind of delay imaginable on this line, some of it being the result of poor decision-making by some of the more inexperienced dispatchers (particulalrly in Omaha), but a lot of it is just bad luck, with the equipment breakdowns, car/pedestrian incidents, and such. It's not hard to see why UP/W ranks dead last in OTP.

But in the interest of fairness, there are subtle hints that UP is at least making an attempt to offer more flexibility in their operations of Metra service, as I stated in my original post; even if the overall results don't quite show it yet. Running longer trains during more special events other than just for the Taste of Chicago, offering additional options to commuters by slightly upgrading the extra/modified service schedules, and operating the outbound Ravinia concert trains in two seperate sections at times to accomodate the large crowds heading there even during the afternoon hour are some recent examples of this. And I still can't believe that the mighty and arrogant Union Pacific, notorious for its reputation in hating passenger trains almost as much as CSX does (if that's even possible), has agreed to run a Metra sponsored Santa Safety train! With its own crews! These examples are indicative of what could be a subtle change in UP's attitude toward commuter/passenger service, perhaps because more money for UP is involved somewhere (likely), or because they're actually trying to change. In either case, Metra commuters stand to benefit the most, and in the end, that's all that matters...

What other crew would you expect to run the Santa Train? I would agree with some of your critisism of the UP/W line. Theres bunch things going on the casual observer doesn't always see. It will continue to be like this till much more capacity comes and don't count on that anytime soon. Considering how much freight traffic and other factors that come into play I would say the OTP is halfway decent I'm not familiar with most of Metra other lines outside of the UP lines. It will always be a work in progress.

qboy wrote:It will continue to be like this till much more capacity comes and don't count on that anytime soon. Considering how much freight traffic and other factors that come into play I would say the OTP is halfway decent

That's true, and although Metra officially listed UP/W with a 95.1% OTP in 2005, with all of the problems of this past year, I'd guess that number is sliding closer to 90%, or perhaps lower...

Another thing to remember is that Metra's current schedule for this route is obsolete in a way, because, despite the extension to Elburn, it's still based on conditions that existed over a decade ago, and as such, the average schedule recovery of 3 minutes "padded" running time for inbound trains between Oak Park and OTC is no longer sufficient. (Note: I know there's a Kedzie station in between, but I chose Oak Park for this example since it's a full-time station). A revision to add more recovery time to Metra's UP/W schedule is needed, so as to properly reflect today's conditions, which, by current definition, means you've got the same ongoing capacity issues now being exacerbated by more freight trains plus Metra traffic that now covers a longer commuter district...