Railnews from Railfan & Railroad Magazine

Erie Turntable, the non-profit initiative to preserve Port Jervis, N.Y.’s railroad history, has announced its 2025 schedule. The initiative is a project of TOYX, Inc., a non-profit that maintains historic pieces of equipment and runs Operation Toy Train to gather toys for less-privileged children during the holiday season. TOYX has leased space in the city-owned rail yard since 2020. 

The Port Jervis yard exhibit, which centers around the former Erie Railroad turntable, will be open every weekend from May 11 until October 12, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Among the highlights will be the first-ever Orange County Transportation Festival on August 31 from noon to 4 p.m. The event will feature tours and equipment displays. 

Another highlight will come on May 10, when the Dining Car Society (previously the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Society) will host a special meal on a 1949 dining car. 

Besides events, the group is also working on restoring a former Erie Railroad caboose. The “Dunmore” caboose will be repainted to look as it did when it was built in 1946.

For more information, visit ErieTurntable.org. 

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Watco announced on March 6 that it was acquiring Michigan’s Great Lakes Central Railroad. Based out of Owosso, Mich., Great Lakes Central operates approximately 400 miles of track in central and northern Michigan, including parts of the former Pennsylvania, New York Central, Grand Trunk Western, Pere Marquette, and Ann Arbor. 

The transaction must be approved by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. Watco has been an equity investor in Great Lakes Central since 2013. 

“The Great Lakes Central Railroad has been a vital part of Michigan’s transportation network and both my father, Louis P. Ferris, Jr., and I have been deeply passionate about its role in connecting industries and communities,” said Jennifer Ferris, President and CEO of the Great Lakes Central Railroad. “Thanks to our tremendous team, GLC has experienced remarkable growth over the years, strengthening our service and expanding our capabilities. With Watco as a long-time partner since 2013, we are confident they will honor the legacy we have built while continuing to serve Michigan’s industries and communities with the same dedication and excellence.”

Great Lakes Central already interchanges with two other Watco operations, Grand Elk and Ann Arbor railroads.

“We are committed to honoring the history of the GLC and building upon our strong partnership with the Michigan Department of Transportation and our valued customers,” said Watco CEO Dan Smith. “This acquisition allows us to further support and grow our Michigan customer base, and we look forward to continuing the legacy of excellence that the Ferris family has established.” —Justin Franz 

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Amtrak is criticizing proposals to privatize passenger rail service in the United States. The railroad published a white paper on the subject shortly after billionaire and presidential advisor Elon Musk said the government should privatize the national passenger carrier. 

“If you go to China, you get epic bullet train rides. They’re amazing,” Musk said during a tech conference. “And you come back to America, and you’re like, ‘Amtrak is a sad situation.” 

Amtrak began operations in 1971 after most private freight railroads in the country had given up operating passenger services.

It’s unclear how serious Musk is about finding a private operator for Amtrak. And while the staff of his Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” has been going through many federal agencies looking to cut costs, Amtrak is its own quasi-public corporation. Any effort to privatize the railroad would legally have to go through Congress. 

Regardless, Amtrak appears to be taking the remarks seriously. In the six-page document, the passenger railroad noted that it has succeeded over the last half-century despite receiving what it called limited government funding. The railroad also noted that elsewhere in the world, most notably Great Britain, efforts to privatize passenger services have faltered (last year, Britain enacted legislation to end what was left of its franchise model and create a new government entity called “Great British Rail” to replace the private train operators). 

The paper also noted that past efforts in Congress to privatize the railroad have failed. In 2008 and 2017, the FRA solicited bids to take over parts of the Amtrak network, but there were no takers. In 2016, a similar solicitation resulted in just one non-Amtrak proposal from China’s government-owned railroad. That proposal also called for government funding. 

Presently, the only part of the Amtrak network that covers its operating costs is the Northeast Corridor between Washington D.C. and Boston. The remainder of the system (specifically the long-distance trains) relies on government funding. 

Amtrak also noted that while Brightline West, the high-speed route being built between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, initially stated it would be constructed with private capital, it has since received $3 billion in government grants. 

“It is not clear what proponents of Amtrak privatization expect it would accomplish,” Amtrak officials wrote. “A private entity would face the same constraints as Amtrak, but it would lack Amtrak’s essential statutory right to operate over the national rail network.” —Justin Franz

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The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum has saved an Alco S-1 that spent its entire operating career in western New York. On March 7, the museum announced that it had purchased Bath & Hammondsport 5 from the Steuben County Industrial Development Agency with the help of the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad.

Built as New York Central 872 in March 1950, the 660-horsepower diesel switcher is one of 71 S-1 units built for the railroad. In January 1965, it was reassigned to the freight car manufacturing and repair facility known as Despatch Shops in East Rochester, N.Y., where it was renumbered 5. After the shops closed in 1970, the locomotive was sold to Steuben County for operation on the B&H.

The Bath & Hammondsport Railroad can trace its roots back to 1872, connecting Hammondsport at the south end of Keuka Lake with the Erie Railroad and Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad at Bath. By 1903, B&H had come under the control of the Erie Railroad, until a major flood in 1935 caused significant damage, ending service. Local businessmen purchased the railroad, made repairs, and resumed service in 1936. Thanks to the agreeable climate, a robust wine industry developed around the Finger Lakes, and many wineries were customers of the B&H, nicknamed “The Champagne Trail.” In 1976, B&H expanded when it became the operator of Steuben County-owned track between Bath and Wayland. In 1996, the county named Livonia, Avon & Lakeville as the new operator of the combined B&H lines, which included a 2001 expansion from Bath to a connection with Norfolk Southern at Painted Post.

S-1 5 worked at Despatch Shops, Inc., in East Rochester, N.Y., from 1965 until it closed in 1970. It was used to move freight cars in and out of the shop for repair or delivery, as well as move materials between different areas of the manufacturing plant. It was built in 1950 as New York Central 872. —Photo courtesy of East Rochester Village History.

As freight traffic increased on the B&H under LA&L in recent years, more powerful diesel locomotives were required, and S-1 5 was set aside. With the help of Buffalo, USA Foundation’s Flour-by-Rail Legacy Project, the unit was identified as a good candidate for preservation and offered to R&GV. The sale to the museum was completed in February.  

“We are excited to preserve this historic diesel locomotive and return it to Rochester,” said R&GV Museum Vice President Jackson Glozer. “Besides helping preserve the history of Bath & Hammondsport Railroad, this diesel also worked locally at Despatch Shops in East Rochester, replacing a steam locomotive of the same number which we also just added to our collection a few years ago.” The museum is currently soliciting funds to offset the cost of transportation to the museum. You can contribute to their GoFundMe Campaign here.

The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum was established in 1971 and has since grown into the largest operating railroad museum in New York State, preserving more than 40 pieces of historic railroad equipment operating on a private demonstration railway on the museum grounds. For more information, please visit www.rgvrrm.org. —Railfan & Railroad Staff

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The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum has acquired the Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Company “Red Arrow” 83, a streetcar built in 1932 to connect Philadelphia with its western suburbs. This car, known as an “80 ca,” was built by the J.G. Brill Company mostly out of aluminum to save weight and had very comfortable seats in the company’s attempt to attract riders away from their automobiles.

The trolley ran from the company’s 69th Street Terminal in Philadelphia to West Chester, Media, Sharon Hill and Ardmore. P&WCT Co. was owned by the Taylor Family, who later rebranded their system with the Red Arrow Lines as part of the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Co. PST was sold to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in 1970, and SEPTA operated the car until 1982. It was briefly renumbered 86 toward the end of its service life.

The car was later sold to Wendell Dillinger, founder of the Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad. Dillinger passed away in 2023, and his family recently donated some cars to the Rockhill Trolley Museum. The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum plans to restore the car to operation. —Railfan & Railroad Staff

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The sale of Nickel Plate Road 2-8-2 587 has been halted. In January, Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp., announced that the 1918 built locomotive would be sold at auction after the owner failed to pay the non-profit storage fees. Bids were due on February 25, and the winning bidder was to be notified on March 3. But instead, the group announced that the sale had been withdrawn. 

“The sale of Nickel Plate 587 has been withdrawn as Kentucky Steam and the locomotive’s owner are in talks for resolution through a settlement agreement.  More details will be made available when a resolution is reached,” a message from Kentucky Steam read. 

No further details were released. 

This is not the first time the locomotive has been in limbo, an unfortunate situation for an engine that was leading excursions in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2018, the locomotive’s owner, the Indiana Transportation Museum, was evicted from its long-time home in Noblesville, Indiana. The locomotive was purchased by an anonymous buyer and moved to Kentucky. In 2021, it was announced that the buyer was working with Jason Sobczynski, KSHC chief mechanical officer and CEO of Next Generation Rail Solutions, to come up with a restoration plan for the locomotive. Those plans never came to fruition and the owner has apparently not been paying their bills to keep the engine at KSHC. As a result, a judge ruled it would be auctioned off to pay for the storage fees.

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This summer, following an absence of more than two decades, rail excursions will operate out of historic Gettysburg, Pa. In January, Patriot Rail, operating under the name Gettysburg Scenic Railway, launched a website and began to renovate the 1884 depot on North Washington Street. The website noted that trips would start in “mid-2025” but did not say how long they would last or what motive power would be used. It did note that at least some of the passenger cars formerly worked for Ringling Brothers in circus train service. Theme trains are also planned.

Excursions have come and gone over the decades with a variety of owners and operators with power including steam and diesel locomotives. Gettysburg Railroad last ran excursions in 2004. The former Reading branch runs north to Mount Holly Springs, Pa. Patriot Rail operates other excursions, including Blue Ridge Scenic and Granite State Scenic (formerly Hobo Railroad in New Hampshire). —M.T. Burkhart

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Officials in California and Nevada said this month that they anticipated heavy construction work to begin on Brightline West in the spring. The $12 billion high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas will result in the nation’s first true high-speed passenger train that will reach speeds of 186 miles per hour. 

Much of the route will be built down the median of Interstate 15. The train’s eastern terminus will be just south of the Las Vegas Strip, while the Los Angeles area station will be in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; there will also be a station in the Victorville area. Brightline broke ground on the Las Vegas station last year and has since been lining up funding to continue construction. —Justin Franz 

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A non-profit with the mission of getting young people involved with railroading and rail preservation is launching a new online speaker series. Next Generation Railroaders was founded in 2023 and is led by a board of directors ranging in age from 18 to 45. 

“Both the railroad industry and the railroad preservation field face a recruitment crisis, particularly among young adults,” the group’s mission statement reads. “While many railroads, museums, and nonprofits have some type of program to attract new employees or volunteers, most do not directly target millennials and Gen Z, which together comprise the vital demographic of ages 18 to 45. There exists a stark disconnect between the industry’s traditional messaging and the ways that younger generations access and absorb information, especially with regard to technology. As a result, railroads are often viewed as outdated, and the interest in railroading as a career or hobby that was present in the mid-20th century has not been perpetuated by today’s young adults. This disconnect and the resulting perception of ageism have turned railroading into an industry that will eventually become unsustainable from a personnel standpoint as current participants are not replaced with new recruits.”

On March 4, Next Generation Railroaders will launch its first Virtual Mentor Deep Dive with a presentation by Ed Lecuyer, a volunteer with the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in Alna, Maine. The event starts at 7 p.m. EST. The group plans on doing monthly “Mentor Deep Dives.” 

For more information, visit nextgenrr.org. —Justin Franz 

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Delaware’s Wilmington & Western Railroad announced Wednesday that it was suspending operations for the 2025 season to repair its aging historic equipment. 

“As our historic trains continue to age, the time has come for us to take a proactive step in ensuring their long-term viability,” railroad officials said in a post on social media. “We’ve made the decision to pause our operations for the 2025 season to conduct important maintenance and repairs to our beloved equipment. While our historic trains have stood the test of time, it’s crucial that we focus on restoring and maintaining them for the future.”

Sources close to the railroad told Railfan & Railroad that one major issue is the reliability of its locomotives. Last year, some holiday excursions had to be canceled because no motive power was available. The railroad’s two steam locomotives, 0-6-0 58 and 4-4-0 98, are both out of service at this time.

The railroad said it did not know when regular service would continue. 

The W&W was established in 1966 to operate excursions on 10 miles of former Baltimore & Ohio trackage between Greenbank and Hockessin, Del. In the past, it also provided freight service. —Justin Franz

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The Washington, Idaho & Montana Railway LLC operated its first train to Potlatch, Idaho, on February 21, bringing rail service to the north central Idaho community in nearly eight years. The upstart WI&M plans to establish regular freight service in the coming months using a leased GP9 that previously operated on Central Montana Rail. 

WI&M is actually the second railroad company to use the Washington, Idaho & Montana name. The Potlatch Lumber Company built the original between 1905 and 1907 to connect eastern Washington with one of the finest stands of white pine anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. The WI&M ran 50 miles from a connection with the Northern Pacific in Palouse, Wash., to Bovill, Idaho, where it met the Milwaukee Road. In 1962, the WI&M became a subsidiary of the Milwaukee Road. After Milwaukee abandoned its lines west of Miles City, Mont., in 1980, the line became part of Burlington Northern before being spun off as a short line in the 1990s. The previous operator, the Washington & Idaho, last ran on the route in 2018. 

The first Washington, Idaho & Montana train heads east toward Potlatch, Idaho, on February 21. Photo Courtesy of WI&M. 

By the time W&I ended operations, there was only one customer on the line, the Bennett Lumber Products in Potlatch. In an instance of history repeating itself, in 2023, the lumber company purchased the surviving 18 miles of the WI&M from the Idaho border east to Harvard, Idaho (the remaining 30 or so miles of the railroad were abandoned after a flood in 1996). Bennett then leased the line to the newly formed WI&M, led by John K. Howell, Jason J. Hill, and Maddie D. Farnsworth. Since 2023, WI&M has been working to rehabilitate the line between Palouse (where it connects with short line Spokane, Spangle & Palouse) and Harvard. Hill, who is one of the co-owners and serves as general manager, tells Railfan & Railroad that over the last few years, the company has installed 10,000 new ties and redecked nine bridges, along with numerous other projects. That work led to the February 21 run from Palouse to Potlatch with GP9 1838. Hill said he is hopeful that the railroad will be able to attract new business to the line, including transload services and car storage. —Justin Franz 

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Minnesota’s Northstar commuter rail operation could be nearing the end of the line. On February 24, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Council (the regional planning agency for the Twin Cities) announced that it was studying replacing Northstar service between Big Lake, Minn., and downtown Minneapolis with buses. 

Prior to the pandemic, about 2,000 to 3,000 people rode the trains daily, but according to MPR News, that number has dropped to only a few hundred. In 2023, the line collected about $323,589 in fares but cost about $11.6 million to operate. 

Northstar was established in 2009 and runs on BNSF Railway trackage, which also operates it through its commuter rail department (Besides Northstar, BNSF operates passenger trains for Metra in Illinois, Sounder in Washington, and Metrolink in California). Originally, the line was supposed to connect the Twin Cities with St. Cloud, but an extension beyond Big Lake never occurred. Some have said that’s why the service has never thrived. Ridership on Northstar also lags behind commuter operations of similar size. 

On the same day the Department of Transportation announced it was looking at replacing the service with buses, a Republican state representative introduced legislation to terminate the service completely. 

“Northstar has been an over $320 million failed experiment in commuter transit,” Rep. Jon Koznick stated in a news release. “Taxpayers have been forced to subsidize a rail line that continues to underperform year after year, and it’s time to stop wasting $11 million annually on a project that simply doesn’t work to reduce congestion or move people.”

For its part, Department of Transportation officials stated they were committed to providing high-quality transportation to those who rely on Northstar presently but that it will likely look different in the future. —Justin Franz 

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Metra has donated one of the last surviving F40C locomotives to the Illinois Railway Museum. The locomotive, which has been stored in Chicago for over a decade, was expected to be moved to the museum at Union, Ill., in the coming days. 

Metra 614 was built in May 1974 as Milwaukee Road 54. The F40C design was unique to the North Suburban and North West Suburban Mass Transit Districts, which supported commuter service over the Milwaukee Road lines north and west of Chicago to Fox Lake and Elgin. The F40C is a six-axle, six-motor locomotive with a “cowl” design intended purely for passenger service. The locomotive sides were sheathed largely in stainless steel to match the Milwaukee Road’s bi-level commuter coaches. They were also equipped with head-end power (HEP) as built. Only 15 F40C locomotives were built, all in 1974 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors at the EMD plant in McCook, Illinois.

Metra 614 was used in daily service on the Milwaukee Road North and West lines until 2004, when it was removed from active service. It and identical F40C 611 were returned to service in 2009. In 2012, Metra permanently retired both units and put them into storage at Western Avenue. In December 2024, Metra contacted IRM and offered 614 to the museum for historic preservation. The locomotive needs various missing components replaced, notably turbocharger, aftercoolers and ducts, radiators, diode banks, and some other small items. The museum plans to use the locomotive on its demonstration railroad. It is unclear what will happen to Metra 611, which is still stored in Chicago. —Railfan & Railroad Staff

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by Railfan & Railroad staff

MTA Metro-North Railroad unveiled their sixth heritage unit this morning at the maintenance shop in North White Plains, New York. Metro-North P32AC-DM 222 wears the classic green and yellow worn by New York, New Haven & Hartford diesel and electric locomotives up until the mid-1950s. A significant portion of the former New Haven main line is operated by Metro-North on behalf of Connecticut Department of Transportation, including the New Canaan, Danbury, and Waterbury branches. The work was performed as part of scheduled maintenance, which was going to include a new coat of paint once body work was complete.

The New York, New Haven & Hartford can trace its roots back to 1848, building a main line between its namesake cities. The railroad continued to grow through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, backed by powerful banking interests of J.P. Morgan and the leadership of Charles Mellen, consolidating almost every other railroad in southern Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Facing considerable postwar competition from trucking and new highways, and saddled with tremendous debt and a costly passenger operation, New Haven entered its final bankruptcy in 1961. It was absorbed into Penn Central in 1969 as a condition of the merger between Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Connecticut Department of Transportation began subsidizing commuter rail services operated by PC (and later, Conrail), and in 1983, those services were contracted to Metro-North.

This latest heritage tribute from Metro-North is the sixth in a series celebrating the commuter railroad’s 40th anniversary in 2023. The first tribute unit (MN 208) was released in May 2023, celebrating Metro-North’s red, blue, and silver image of the 1980s and 1990s. This was followed up by a tribute to the Conrail era of operation from 1976 to 1983 released in November 2023. The third unit featured the distinctive “lightning stripe” design paying tribute to predecessor New York Central, original owner of the Hudson and Harlem lines until 1968. The fourth unit debuted in March 2024, and paid tribute to the MTA/Penn Central partnership of 1970, paving the way for improved commuter rail services. An Employee Tribute unit (MN 214) was released in July 2024.

A subsidiary of the MTA, Metro-North Railroad was created in 1983 to take over operation of the Harlem and Hudson lines in New York, contract operation of the New Haven Line for Connecticut DOT, and a portion of the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines shared with NJ Transit operating out of Hoboken, N.J.

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on February 19 that the country would construct an approximately 620-mile high-speed rail line between  Toronto and Quebec City, capable of hosting trains running up to 185 miles per hour. 

The new train, called Alto, would cut travel times in half and take people between Montreal and Toronto in just three hours. 

“Canada is getting high-speed rail. Today’s announcement of Alto, a high-speed rail system between Toronto and Quebec City, will transform our economy – drastically shortening commute times for millions of Canadians, turbocharging economic growth, creating thousands of good-paying jobs, improving productivity, and reducing emissions. Montréal to Toronto in three hours – you can’t beat that,” Trudeau said.

In November 2022, the Government of Canada created a Crown corporation, VIA HFR, to oversee this project. VIA HFR has now been rebranded Alto. Cadence has been selected to co-design and build this project and finance, operate, and maintain it. Cadence is a consortium of world-renowned companies with expertise and know-how in the design, development, and operation of large-scale transportation infrastructure. The project is expected to cost between $60 billion and $90 billion. It would be the largest public infrastructure project in Canadian history. The design phase of the project is expected to take four or five years. —Justin Franz 

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The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Sugarcreek, Ohio, has completed its cosmetic restoration of Bessemer & Lake Erie 2-10-4 643. The locomotive will make its public debut on March 29, during Age of Steam’s Member Day. 

Locomotive 643 was built by Baldwin in 1944, but it only ran in regular service for about eight years. Thankfully, the locomotive was preserved by B&LE in the roundhouse in Greenville, Pa. In the 1980s, it was sold to a private individual who kicked off an effort to restore it to operation. While a lot of work was completed by the late 1990s, the locomotive never ran and the owner kept it in storage for decades. In 2019, Age of Steam purchased it in tribute to its founder, Jerry Joe Jacobson, who had long dreamed of acquiring the locomotive he had dubbed “The King.” The locomotive was moved in pieces to Ohio in early 2024. 

In the year since the locomotive has been reassembled and painted. It is now on display inside the roundhouse alongside 22 other steam locomotives. Visit Age of Steam’s website for additional information. —Justin Franz 

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Six passengers and a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority employee had to be rescued by boat on Tuesday after the historic streetcar they were riding ran into a “wall of water” near Milton, Mass.

At approximately 7:30 a.m., water from the Neponset River quickly began to flood the right-of-way of the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line, a 2.6-mile transit line that serves the south side of Boston and connects with MBTA’s Red Line. The operator later told officials that the water came quickly and the trolley lost power soon after entering the flood waters. Members of the Milton, Mass., Fire Department were called in and deployed an inflatable boat to get the seven people on board to higher ground. MBTA suspended the streetcar service afterward and had buses operating between Mattapan and Ashmont. Regular streetcar service resumed later in the day. Officials said the flooding was caused by an ice dam.

The Mattapan Line is one of the last traditional streetcar lines in the country using PCCs and it’s also the only line to have never stopped using the iconic cars. —Justin Franz 

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Union Pacific announced on President’s Day that it was painting a locomotive in tribute to President Abraham Lincoln. The locomotive, numbered 1616, will be officially unveiled later this spring. 

“America’s history is Union Pacific’s history,” said Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena. “By signing the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, President Lincoln created our railroad and ignited The Great Race to connect the country and fuel the economy – roles our industry still plays today.”

Locomotive 1616 will be the second unit UP has painted to honor a U.S. president, following 4141, which honored President George H.W. Bush. That unit led Bush’s funeral train in 2018 and is now on display at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Tex.

This year marks President Lincoln’s 216th birthday. The locomotive is expected to tour the system this year. The engine is being painted red, brown and black, a nod to the colors worn by UP 4-4-0 119 at Promontory, Utah, when the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. —Justin Franz 

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The East Board Top has acquired a diesel locomotive from the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The 80-ton H.K. Porter locomotive, currently numbered 1203, arrived at the Pennsylvania railroad earlier this month and will serve as a backup for EBT’s steam locomotives. 

“The acquisition of this locomotive boosts our capacity for efficient operations,” said EBT Foundation General Manager Brad Esposito. “While the restoration and operation of our historic steam locomotives remains the Foundation’s primary focus, the growth of our business and expansion of our footprint demands greater flexibility in our motive power.”

The locomotive was built in 1946 for U.S. Gypsum’s operation in Plaster City, Calif. The locomotive worked in California until 1979 when it was sold to the Huckleberry Railroad in Michigan. In 2005, it was sold to the Georgetown Loop and then traded to the D&SNG in 2017. 

EBT plans to renumber the locomotive to 19 and repaint it to better match its fleet. In return for the diesel locomotive, D&SNG got two EBT hopper cars. 

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Union Pacific announced in February that it intended to transfer its Chicago-area commuter operations to Metra in mid-April, provided the freight railroad and the commuter agency can agree on the cost. 

In early 2023,  it was announced that Metra would assume services on the three lines, including train crew, mechanical, car cleaning, rolling stock maintenance, ticket sales and some engineering duties. The tracks themselves, however, would still be owned by UP. Commuter service in Chicago is unusual in that Metra operates some routes and others are operated by freight railroads under contract for Metra. For example, UP operates the Union Pacific West (to Elburn, Ill.), Northwest (to McHenry and Harvard, Ill.) and North (to Kenosha, Wis) lines and BNSF Railway operates the BNSF Line to Aurora, Ill. While Metra owns the equipment, the UP and BNSF logos sometimes appear on signage and timetables. UP has operated its three lines since 1995, when it took over the Chicago & North Western. The freight railroad is paid $100 million annually to operate the commuter services. 

UP was expected to hand off commuter operations to Metra in early 2023 and then late 2024. In fact, some employees (specifically mechanical, storehouse employees and station staff) have already become Metra employees. But in a filing in December, UP officials told the U.S. Surface Transportation Board that the two parties needed more time. A key sticking point has been how much UP will charge for the use of its tracks. After multiple rounds of negotiations failed, UP has extended an offer to Metra to use binding arbitration to resolve the issue with the hope of finally transferring operations in mid-April. 

“We are proud of the work Metra and Union Pacific have accomplished to progress the transfer of services,” said Liisa Stark, vice president of Public Affairs. “We are committed to reaching a financial agreement this year that is fair to both parties.” —Justin Franz 

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