Metra Electric Highliner Retirement

UP delivers them to Metra in Blue Island, usually sometime after the evening rush. That same night, Metra crews take the cars to KYD.

Ah, so from the Geneva sub, it'll pick up the "Hah-ba" (IHB) at Provo, then head south to Blue Island. That makes sense, thanks...

doepack wrote:Does anyone know where the new cars are being received? Blue Island maybe? Saw UP4720 head east from Rochelle through Wheaton earlier today, with car #'s 1245/46 sandwiched between two flat cars. (Sorry, no pics, caught me off-guard). I'm guessing it would head east to the Rockwell sub, turn left through Global one, come out the east end and hit the St. Charles Air line, then turn right down Metra's Rock Island district heading toward Blue Island. Anyone know for sure?

Blue Island is the connection to the MED so that is the natural delivery point. There are no other connections to MED other than the new one put in for NICTD at Kensington (northbound CN-IC to Track 3 or 4 of MED).

About a week ago, I saw a four car set of the new cars heading for Blue Island from Rochelle via the Geneva sub. Think the highest number so far is 1250. Have the newer cars begun displacing the older ones yet?

doepack wrote:About a week ago, I saw a four car set of the new cars heading for Blue Island from Rochelle via the Geneva sub. Think the highest number so far is 1250. Have the newer cars begun displacing the older ones yet?

At least 30 of the old highliner cars are sitting at 47th Street on RI. Unless they get rid of some of them soon, they will run out of space.

The highest new number I've seen so far I believe is around 1260. Like others, I do hope IRM will get their hands on a couple of the retiring highliners.

Another set coming east this morning, we're up to 1268...

I just saw a string of highliners parked in the siding on the Fox Lake Sub in Rondout.

This begs an interesting question: how often are ME cars split up and re-paired? I'm pretty sure they're not married pairs, just coupled blind-end to blind-end (normally) with a standard transit couple like the cab end has. Occasionally I've seen Highliner-I's elephant style.

Tadman wrote:This begs an interesting question: how often are ME cars split up and re-paired? I'm pretty sure they're not married pairs, just coupled blind-end to blind-end (normally) with a standard transit couple like the cab end has. Occasionally I've seen Highliner-I's elephant style.

Single ended single units? There are a few (10) South Shore cars which are single cab single units, part of an additional order in 2000. The PATH cars are also in this configuration ("A" cars single unit with one cab).

The new cars are individuals. They could run as a one car train if needed but there would be no cab on the back for the reverse trip. I suppose unmarried pairs would be a good description. I have not watched Metra consists enough to know if the pairs are intermixed regularly (non-sequential pairs).

NICTD's 14 gallery cars have been seen in consists of five cars and shuffle in and out of service as needed. The only rule seems to be to make sure there is a cab facing "out" on each end.

As for NICTD's 10 single cab cars they certainly are single cars ... and they can be seen at the head or tail of a train seven days a week. The gallery cars get the weekend off.

I suppose it would be easier for Metra to keep their cars in pairs - but when a car needs to be repaired it is nice that the pair can keep running, paired with any other car. It adds flexibility.

There was one time years ago I did see a couple Highliner trains being run elephant-style on one end.

I think the MED might have some kind of cycle by which cars get broken up and moved around in a certain pattern, so that they get assigned to Blue Island trains at set intervals. This would be so they lay over there overnight, during which they'll get dragged over to a shop in Metra's yard there and be run through the wheel truing machine.

Or cars just hit the wheel shop in BI when passengers' butts start hurting due to flat wheels. This is just speculation, as I'm merely a foamer on a foamer message board.

JLJ, I see that elephant style just about every day. I think when they did the initial purge of the roster with the new 1200's showed up ten years ago, there was more cab-south units purged than cab-north units.

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Boone and Scenic Valley have acquried six cars. Interesting to see them running pulled by the FP9 or SD40T-2