Metra BNSF tutorial please.

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kentuckian1977

Service Attendant
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
126
Location
Somerset, Kentucky
My mother and I will be arriving and departing from Chicago on Amtrak. We are staying in the area one night, and will need to take the Metra BNSF line to Aurora on a Monday evening then back into Chicago the next morning. I'm pretty familiar with Union Station from prior Amtrak trips, but know nothing about Metra ticketing, boarding, etc neither there or in Aurora. Someone walk me through it so I'll look a tad less like the ignorant tourist lol. Thanks.
 
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It's pretty easy. They don't have such a thing as a round-trip ticket, so you'll be buying two one-way tickets for each of you. Probably the easiest thing to do is go to the staffed Metra ticket windows at Union Station and buy all four one-way tickets at once. Tickets aren't for a specific train, they'll just be stamped with a date and are valid for 14 days after that date. (Also note that if your mother is 65 or over, she's eligible for a reduced fare.)

At Union Station, once there's a track number posted for an Aurora departure, you can go right out to that track and board the train through any open door; no one will check your tickets on the way out there; your tickets probably won't be checked by anyone until the conductor punches them after you're underway.

At Aurora the next morning, probably the best advice is to just follow the crowd onto the train. (There is also a ticket agent on duty in the station, just in case.)
 
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If you buy all your tickets from the agent at Union Station they will accept any credit card. If you purchase a fare on the train it is indeed still CASH ONLY. I would recommend you buy all 4 tickets from the agent at CUS like others have recommended. The ticket agents are on the west end of CUS right near Amtrak baggage claim.

Also, the BNSF has a lot of rush hour express trains- more so than the other diesel lines- so depending on which train you choose to take a later departure may actually get you to your destination earlier than an earlier departure. Of course, you may want to ride one making every stop amd there's nothing wrong with that! The BNSF line is something to see during rush hour. They have trains arriving or departing every 5 minutes and every one of them is packed. It's amazing to watch!
 
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Schedule: http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/maps_schedules/metra_system_map/bnsf/schedule.full.html

Note that several weekday trains don't go all the way to Aurora; several short-turn, usually at Downer's Grove or Route 59. I would definitely recommend taking an express-there's a lot of stops. As an example, there's departures at 6 PM and 6:18 PM. The 6:18 skips 21 stops and gets to Aurora 10 minutes before the 6 PM. Between those there's a 6:14 that short-turns at Rte 59-don't get on that one. Outside of rush hours most trains make all but a few stops-the last inbound express leaves Aurora at 8:06 AM.

As far as boarding, just walk up and get on. A board outside the tracks will show which stops each train makes.
 
Of course, if your travel arrival/departure days are Saturday/Sunday, you can save a little money with the Weekend Pass.
 

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