BNSF West Line Extension Beyond Aurora (Montgomery, Oswego, Yorkville, Plano and Sandwich)

If you want to look at relevant examples of Metra running a 60-mile schedule, check out the UPNW and how places like Woodstock and Harvard are served. Or, more approximately, were served prior to the pandenic...

Run Express to Barrington or Crystal Lake and then local because the triple track ends at Barrington... It's about a 90 minute ride at best but people do it for the quality of life and much lower cost of living.

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Yes, that is true about people who live around Crystal Lake. Looking at the schedule to Harvard, there is only one express train each way daily. I wish that there were some more. Even during the week, the main Crystal Lake Station is only served by one express train in each direction.

Here in the NYC area, Metro North and LIRR run plenty of express trains daily from outlying areas and more people are moving to places like Beacon, NY to save money. Beacon to Grand Central is about 60 miles and many of the MNR trains that serve Beacon run local to Ossining, and then skip a few stops down to Tarrytown where they stop next. After Tarrytown, they run nonstop to 125th Street-Harlem, stopping there, and then ending at Grand Central Terminal. MNR's Hudson Line trains run about 70 miles from Grand Central Terminal to Poughkeepsie.

Back to the BNSF West Line Extension-yes, there are already many trains that end in Aurora. Probably a reason to think about for adding platforms at Aurora along the Main tracks is do people work in Aurora who might live west of there in the proposed communities served. What about somebody who might want to travel to Downtown Aurora and Chicago to spend the day-maybe this could be something to think about if weekend service were to ever be added at some point if the actual project happens.

Living in the hinterland, I made a point of working around the express schedule to keep my commute down to about an hour. It was easily 90 minutes on the local, so that provided a lot of incentive not to linger.

Getting that 2-3 hours back during Covid office closures has been priceless for just about everyone I know who still commuted downtown. None plan to return to a five day commute unless there isn't an option given to remain remote.

That may come into play with the extension feasibility study. Kendall residents might push back on the RTA tax if fewer of them need the train on a regular basis.

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Something tells me the even if the BNSF Line is extended west of Aurora, many people will still drive to Aurora or even Rt. 59 for more train service. Down the road, I believe that Amtrak is supposed to begin state supported service to Moline, Illinois, which will result in some additional trains stopping in Plano. Hopefully, sooner rather than later and before the extension of Metra into Kendall County happens if it ever does, the Carl Sandburg will get restored. Thankfully right now, Amtrak's Illinois Zephyr permits for a daytrip to Chicago and it stops at Plano Station. Even if Metra only runs weekday service west of Aurora or they don't run west of there at all, people living in and around Plano will have some more Amtrak options for travel to and from Chicago.

Iowa Interstate basically killed the Moline Amtrak service.

I looked at the proposals posted above. It appears that Buffet's New Santa Fe expects some pork out of this. I don't really see why they really need that much extra infrastructure, as in a third main track for the entire distance. The Mainline is not that busy as to not accommodate the freights and a few more passenger movemnnts. Like I have stated before, the main points needed would to be the addition of higher speed and universal crossovers at both Montgomery and Bristol. I also don't see why BNSF is saying that improvements are needed on the C&I. Why not say that the Ottawa Sub needs upgrading too? I'm being sarcastic because I don't see how this will have any baring on the C&I, except for the third track being relaid between Aurora and Eola.

People will put up with a long commute time. New Jersey Transit/Metro North Railroad run trains from Hoboken, NJ to Port Jervis, NY, with a total travel time of about 2½ hours. It's not an occasional train, but 13 per day westbound, from 5:40 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. And that doesn't count the time to walk or take the subway to a PATH station or ferry terminal for the 20-minute ride to the Hoboken terminal. If there are seats, people will catch up on reading, work, sleep, etc. When I commuted on the Erie-Lackawanna in the 1970's I rode the train bound for Port Jervis, which was about 12 coaches long. Every night, there would be a group of guys who flipped one of the seats to face the other direction, put a piece of cardboard on their laps, and played bridge; they were still at it when I got to my station. And the guy with his plastic foam cooler and board across two seats, selling beer and mixed drinks helped, too. The company for which I worked had a guy who commuted from Philadelphia to New York every day. The train ride was over 2 hours, and one has to add the time to get to Penn Station in Philadelphia and from Penn Station in New York, at least a 20-minute walk. People will do it if they want the benefits of living in the suburbs.

In my case, and for many other long-distance commuters, the reason we lived so far from work was that we could not afford to live near work. There's a saying that people drive till they qualify for purchasing a home: that is, they keep looking farther from work till they find something in their price range (I used to work in real estate too a long time ago). So I drove to VRE, rode the train for an hour and a half, and spent another half hour or more getting from the VRE station to work. Only when I was living alone and got rid of the car could I afford to live near work, in a one-bedroom apartment instead of a house, but to me it was vastly preferable to commuting five or six hours a day and I was glad to stop driving too.