Blue Island-Vermont St.

Do Beverly Branch Trains Skip The Vermont St Or Do The Mainline Trains Go Right Past?

Both Beverly Branch and mainline trains stop at Vermont Street.

Both Beverly Branch and Mainline trains stop at Vermont Street, as Mike said. However, selected few mainline and branch trains do not stop at Vermont. 414, 413, and 415 are express to/from Midlothian on the mainline. 610 and 616 on the branch make the 1st stop at 127th/Prairie Street..bypassing Vermont.

The branch trains don't actually "bypass" Vermont St., since they don't even pass the station. They come out of the yard on the north end, and make Prairie St. station as the first stop.

Actually no.. 610 and 616 do not start from Blue Island yard. They both turn from Joliet trains which all ready made runs to LaSalle Street. Train #400 turns to train #301 which turns to #610, and train #406 turns to deadhead #6161, turning to #616.

Should also mention that most trains bypassing Vermont Street are deadheads going to/from Western Ave. Junction during rush hours.

I'll stand corrected on that one. I used to live near the 123rd St. station, I could have sworn that a couple of trains came out the north end of the yard. Should mention that I was too lazy to go to the crossing at that hour of the morning to verify my thinking!

metraRI wrote:Both Beverly Branch and Mainline trains stop at Vermont Street, as Mike said. However, selected few mainline and branch trains do not stop at Vermont. 414, 413, and 415 are express to/from Midlothian on the mainline. 610 and 616 on the branch make the 1st stop at 127th/Prairie Street..bypassing Vermont.

We could see some interesting variants on those numbers and orders... you know, if Metra ever decides to pull the RI out of 1996...

If/When Metra decides to update RI's schedule, I could see them pulling one branch line train off the schedule and adding it to the mainline. The bulk of RI service used to be on the branch, its interesting to see what 10 years did to RI's main/branch line schedule between 1986-1996.

Revenue Train Differences
1986 # : 1996 #
27 : Branch : 19
18* : Mainline Express : 24*
14** : Local Service to Joliet : 25
59 : Total RID Weekday Trains : 68

*3 Trains Between LaSalle and Blue Island Only
** One train Terminated in Mokena

Weekend Operations in 1986 did not have any constancy. Inbound trains to Chicago on Sunday's left at 6:10, 9:50, 1:20, 4:50, 8:05. Outbound trains back to Joliet left at 8:05, 11:30, 3:05, 6:20, 10:00.

That would only make sense - the growth of places like Frankfort, Tinley, etc... is phenominal, and those people don't want the slow-poke nickel tour of Beverly that the branch provides. Back when RI was in business, the branch was probably the only really dense service area.

metraRI wrote:Weekend Operations in 1986 did not have any constancy. Inbound trains to Chicago on Sunday's left at 6:10, 9:50, 1:20, 4:50, 8:05. Outbound trains back to Joliet left at 8:05, 11:30, 3:05, 6:20, 10:00.

Looks like just one set of equipment (but not necessarily the SAME equipment) was assigned to the route all day back then, given the way the schedule was structured.

But, regarding the long overdue revamping of RI's schedule, it's probably going to take someone with some political muscle to really get Metra's attention. Congressman Mark Kirk for instance, was quite instrumental in getting Metra to revise the NCS schedule with express train service, less than eight months after expanded service began. He represents the 10th district, which includes Buffalo Grove, an NCS suburb. Perhaps someone needs to lobby Jerry Weller, currently Illinois' 11th district congressman (an area that includes Will county) to get the ball rolling for RI's schedule revision...

Making either 413 or 415 run direct to Tinley like they do right before Thanksgiving would be helpful, and likewise on one of the AM inbounds. It's not uncommon for an eight-car inbound to be nearly at capacity by the time that it reaches Blue Island.

And cut 603. A Beverly run at 2:30 and between an hour and a half mainline run gap is worthless.

Tadman wrote:...the growth of places like Frankfort, Tinley, etc... is phenominal, and those people don't want the slow-poke nickel tour of Beverly that the branch provides.

Preach it, brother! I used to commute downtown, and when I stayed late I hated the extra twenty minutes that the Beverly run added to the schedule.

Gas prices notwithstanding, the "Slow Boat Through Beverly" keeps me off Metra during the weekends as well - especially since my car's gas mileage is good enough to make the car ride cheaper even with $3/gal. gasoline.