Breaking: No Service On RI

From Metrarail.com:

http://www.metrarail.com/Service_Updates/

Thursday, May 5, 2005

Rock Island District
There has been a coal train derailment accross the Metra tracks at 16th Street. Rock Island District trains will not operate this morning. We are encouraging Rock Island passengers to seek alternate transportation. Passengers at Joliet may take the Heritage Corridor trains into Union Station. Passengers at other locations may consider taking Metra Electric service into Randolph Street or the Southwest Service to Union Station. Additionally, the CTA Red Line will honor Metra tickets between 95th and Downtown.

WE ARE CONFIDENT THAT SERVICE WILL BE RESTORED BY 3:00 P.M. AND ARE WORKING TOWARDS IMPROVING ON THAT TIME. PLEASE LISTEN TO THE MEDIA FOR FURTHER UPDATES.

CTA Bus routes 95, 111, 34,103, 106, 119, and Pace Bus routes 353, 352, 359, and 381 all stop at 95th on the Red Line, and will honor Metra tickets.

Metra will operate an extra Heritage Corridor train departing Joliet at 7:30 a.m., Lockport at 7:36 a.m., Lemont at 7:45 a.m., Willow Springs at 7:53 a.m., Summit at 8:01 a.m. and arriving Chicago Union Station at 8:35 a.m.

Metra will also operate an extra Southwest Service train departing Orland Park (179th Street) at 9:45 a.m., Orland Park (153rd Street) at 9:50, Orland Park (143rd Street) at 9:53 a.m., Palos Park at 9:58 a.m., Worth at 10:02 a.m., Chicago Ridge at 10:05 a.m., Oak Lawn at 10:09, Ashburn at 10:14 a.m., Wrightwood at 10:17 a.m. and arriving Union Station at 10:45 a.m.

Metra Electric will operate the following extra trains.
Depart Blue Island at 8:45 a.m. making all stops to 115th and Kensington and arrive Randolph Street at 9:28 a.m.

Depart Blue Island at 9:10 a.m. making all stops to 115th and Kensington and arrive Randolph Street at 9:53 a.m.

Depart Homewood at 9:00 a.m. making all stops to 115th and Kensington and arrive Randolph Street at 9:45 a.m.

We will update this site as new information becomes available.

I assume an RI trainset was used on that extra HC train. Anybody know which Loco ran it? How is did it get back to the Rock from Union Station?

208 and 412 ran on HC today with RI sets. 182 with a 6 car HC set ran the 12:24 out of Joliet. Train #'s 407 and 411 are cancelled today, which explains the missing RI sets. There will not be many people using RI to come home. The 80th Ave. parking lot was basicly empty.

That explains why I saw 208 parked in Western Ave. yard this morning with a train and facing the wrong way.

From the looks of the news footage, it appears the coal train split the switch just before the crossing.

I could be wrong but this is not the first time a freight train has derailed and blocked the metra traffic at that location.I belive that this is the seconed time in maybe in 2 years that this has happened.

While I was out along RI yesterday, it was interesting to see Metra deadhead a 9 car train from Chicago instead of putting it in service.

Bones, after using 182 and its 6 car HC set on train #514, what outbound train was it used on?

BTW> You can see my pictures from yesterday here.

I didn't know 182 ran that day. When I came to work at 400P it was parked at Joliet.