Metra service between Chicago and Rockford to begin in 2027

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Palmland

Palmland

Conductor
AU Supporting Member
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It appears service to Rockford will actually happen. But will not be Amtrak. Not sure what this would do to Amtrak’s corridor plans in this area.

Metro to operate Rocford service

“Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other officials announced Thursday that Chicago commuter operator Metra had been selected to partner with Union Pacific to provide two daily rail roundtrips between Rockford and Chicago by 2027.

The estimated $275 million investment comes from the state’s Rebuild Illinois infrastructure fund….”
 
Palmland said:
It appears service to Rockford will actually happen. But will not be Amtrak. Not sure what this would do to Amtrak’s corridor plans in this area.

Metro to operate Rocford service

“Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other officials announced Thursday that Chicago commuter operator Metra had been selected to partner with Union Pacific to provide two daily rail roundtrips between Rockford and Chicago by 2027.

The estimated $275 million investment comes from the state’s Rebuild Illinois infrastructure fund….”
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That would by far be Metra's longest route!
 
I just saw a video mentioning this and was like what and came here to see if anybody had posted (after googling of course, since YouTube is always the best news source, right)!

I think Metra is actually the right choice for this service - it's on par/akin to a lot of MetroNorth services and may be a catalyst for more regional services (looking at you DeKalb and Kankakee) throughout Northern Illinois.
 
I’ll echo that, less than 2 hours seems to be too short to necessitate intercity service. Many people make commutation trips of that length. There’s really no need for cafe service. METRA offers lavatories. METRA will be better able to lengthen trains to meet holiday demand than Amtrak could. The line will have a commuter-type service demand, AM traffic to CHI far greater than AM traffic to Rockford. I certainly hope that the line will at least be designated as Thruway service, the way NJT’s Atlantic City Line is. Rockford is large enough to generate at least some Amtrak connections at CHI.
 
Upon further reflection I think that there should be at least five (or six) round trips a day. Why and what schedules?

There should be one that gets in to Chicago for start of business (and probably outbound as well).
Next one leaving at start of business day.
One or two mid-day.
One that gets back at end of business day (or leaves at close of business day)
And an evening one for events/late workers.

Hopefully it does well so that they have to increase frequencies!
 
Palmland said:
It appears service to Rockford will actually happen. But will not be Amtrak. Not sure what this would do to Amtrak’s corridor plans in this area.

Metro to operate Rocford service

“Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other officials announced Thursday that Chicago commuter operator Metra had been selected to partner with Union Pacific to provide two daily rail roundtrips between Rockford and Chicago by 2027.

The estimated $275 million investment comes from the state’s Rebuild Illinois infrastructure fund….”
Click to expand...
Amtrak doesn’t have plans for this route. It was always an Illinois funded service, Amtrak was just one of the potential operators. It only appeared on the Connects map because it was included in the most recent Illinois rail plan.
 
This service makes sense for Metra but to think that Illinois will hand it’s Amtrak routes over to Metra is getting ahead ourselves. Metra has a massive fiscal cliff coming and frankly they won’t balance it by running trains to cornfields. They already have plenty of lines currently running where the service is awful off peak. Let Amtrak run to Quincy and St Louis.
 
Metra's getting the Rockford service because it's fairly short, just beyond the frontier of suburban development (lots of subdivisions in Huntley, some in and near Union),probably not due to some crisis of confidence in Amtrak. I'm sure if CN ever becomes cooperative 🤪"Blackhawk" service to Galena & Dubuque would be Amtrak, not Metra.

I hope the two round-trip announcement is a "auto-pilot" leftover from when Amtrak was going to operate this all the way to Dubuque. I already gave feedback on www.chicagotorockfordrail.org that there should be more than two trains. As an Illinois taxpayer, I will be also be sending messages to the Governor, head of IDOT, and my legislators to urge that (1) the project start with more than two trains, and (2) if it can't because of some agreement with UP, that that fact be publicized & pressure be put on IDOT & UP for a better agreement.
 
AmtrakMaineiac said:
I'm a little puzzled as to why the Metra Rockford service would preclude Amtrak to Quad Cities as Rockford is only half way to Quad Cities and does not look to be even the most direct path, more on the way to Dubuque than QC.
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It doesn't. Quad Cities is planned to branch off from the BNSF main line (IL Zephyr, California Zephyr, SW Chief) east of Galesburg. The tracks beyond Rockford go to Freeport, Galena & Dubuque (the former Blackhawk). Metra could operate service to Rockford AND Amtrak could go to Dubuque on the same line as far as Rockford.
 
If METRA arrivals are convenient then Amtrak could get a lot of connections for MKE, Michigan, NY, Capitol and CNO. No drive to CHI US. Going west connections? Does not make sense. If Amtrak could be persuaded to put the connection into Arrow all the better.
 
Not being from the area or being very familiar with the line, why build the connection to UP instead of continuing down the line (CP?)? Both lines end up at Rockford. To serve more people/communities? Better negotiations/rates with UP vs CPKC?

Where will the station be in Rockford? The old Illinois Central depot that Amtrak used as well is now a parking lot.
 
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EchoSierra said:
Not being from the area or being very familiar with the line, why build the connection to UP instead of continuing down the line (CP?)? Both lines end up at Rockford. To serve more people/communities? Better negotiations/rates with UP vs CPKC?

Where will the station be in Rockford? The old Illinois Central depot that Amtrak used as well is now a parking lot.
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CP line misses Rockford. The two lines that go to Rockford are the ex-CNW now UP line used in this plan and the ex-IC now-CN line that continues past Rockford all the way across Illinois and Iowa. The CP and CN lines cross in Genoa.

Hopefully the Rockford station will be located in a spot where a) both routes from Chicago can be used, and b) service could be extended to Dubuque and beyond, and to Beloit and beyond. It appears to be possible based on the track layout. No idea if it’s also practical.
 
west point said:
If METRA arrivals are convenient then Amtrak could get a lot of connections for MKE, Michigan, NY, Capitol and CNO. No drive to CHI US. Going west connections? Does not make sense. If Amtrak could be persuaded to put the connection into Arrow all the better.
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Being able to book tickets on the Amtrak app would be helpful. If the first train left Rockford around 7:00 it could connect with 319 to KC. A short layover for 333, which will become the Great River soon, also.
 
I received a reply today from IDOT to my message expressing I was pleased that service between Chicago and Rockford will proceed under Metra but mildly disappointed at the 2027 time-frame and greatly disappointed at a frequency of only twice a day. At least someone is reading such comments and hopefully totting up how many people ask for more than two trains.
Thank you for your e-mail and interest in the Chicago to Rockford Passenger Rail Project. I would suggest that you visit the project website (Chicago to Rockford | Illinois Passenger Rail (chicagotorockfordrail.org) and sign up for the project mailing list to keep up with the latest developments.

In terms of your suggestions, at this time there are no plans for more than two roundtrips per day. However, there is nothing that would preclude adding more frequencies in the future. The target launch date of service is 2027 in order to make the improvements necessary to run safe and timely service on the corridor between Elgin and Rockford. While the target date is 2027 we are continuing to look for any opportunity to reduce that timeline.
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PaTrainFan said:
What a kick to the gut this is for Amtrak.
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I'm not so sure. I have seen some folks on other boards citing issues with Chargers, objections about corridor and long distance consist lengths, and other day to day Amtrak operational stuff we all take about as the reason for this. But if one reads the announcement and articles on this I don't really get any sense that this is the result of any day to day Amtrak operational stuff. Its most likely all about money and what's the most cost effective and efficient way to do this - Metra's service to Elgin already operates half of the way there - Amtrak does not operate any service on this line at present. They when asked about the decision making cited Metra's ownership of part of the route, their operating already to Elgin, and this being kind of on the shorter end of things as far as an Amtrak route. The corridors Amtrak operates for Illinois are significantly longer and venture out of the reasonable range for commuter like service operated by transit agencies. Amtrak operates only two routes of less than 100 miles at present - the Hiawathas and the New Haven - Springfield trains - the latter of which are essentially a stub extension of NEC service from the south. The Hiawathas are really the only Midwest Amtrak route where one could make the argument. With Rockford as the terminus this was probably the logical way to go.

I also read some materials from the last couple Next Generation Equipment Committee meetings and I didn't really get a sense of Illinois primarily blaming Amtrak for all its woes with the Chargers and the like - they seem to mostly be blaming supply chain issues.
 
lordsigma said:
I'm not so sure. I have seen some folks on other boards citing issues with Chargers, objections about corridor and long distance consist lengths, and other day to day Amtrak operational stuff we all take about as the reason for this. But if one reads the announcement and articles on this I don't really get any sense that this is the result of any day to day Amtrak operational stuff. Its most likely all about money and what's the most cost effective and efficient way to do this - Metra's service to Elgin already operates half of the way there - Amtrak does not operate any service on this line at present. They when asked about the decision making cited Metra's ownership of part of the route, their operating already to Elgin, and this being kind of on the shorter end of things as far as an Amtrak route. The corridors Amtrak operates for Illinois are significantly longer and venture out of the reasonable range for commuter like service operated by transit agencies. Amtrak operates only two routes of less than 100 miles at present - the Hiawathas and the New Haven - Springfield trains - the latter of which are essentially a stub extension of NEC service from the south. The Hiawathas are really the only Midwest Amtrak route where one could make the argument. With Rockford as the terminus this was probably the logical way to go.

I also read some materials from the last couple Next Generation Equipment Committee meetings and I didn't really get a sense of Illinois primarily blaming Amtrak for all its woes with the Chargers and the like - they seem to mostly be blaming supply chain issues.
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Yeah Illinois isn’t blaming Amtrak for equipment reliability issues. Amtrak is the one who submitted grant requests; along with the MIPRC, for Charger overhauls in 2022 and again this year. Either Illinois agreed to this or they’re asleep at the wheel and Amtrak took the initiative.
 

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