Metra trains on the three West Region lines are running late due to today’s extreme cold.

Metra’s website on Wednesday (Dec. 14, 2016) is full of alerts about delays ranging from 15 to 41 minutes. That’s true for all West Region trains, including the Burlington Northernl Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) to Aurora, the Milwaukee District West (MD-W)
to Elgin and the Union Pacific West (UP-W) to Elburn.

On Wednesday morning, “inbound trains may be operating 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule due to mechanical problems on trains departing Aurora caused by weather conditions,” Metra said. “Please listen to platform announcements for the location of your train or refer to Track Your Train for current delay information. Metra apologizes for this inconvenience.:

Sign Up For Alerts

One of the best things commuters can do to stay up to date on delays due to weather is to sign up for email alerts, the Ventra app and visit the Metra website.

“Metra understands the importance of providing reliable, real-time communications to help our customers make decisions about their travel options during severe weather and offers a number of tools to give them access to the most up-to-date service information,” Metra said in a recent news release.

• Email alerts — Customers can sign up to receive service alerts via email for a specific rail line during the times of day that are most important to them. Visit metrarail.com and click on “Sign Up” to create an account and choose your alerts.
• Ventra App — Customers can download the app and use the Transit Tracker for information about Metra trains, Pace buses and CTA trains and buses. The free app is available in the App Store or Google Play.
• Rail-Time Tracker — Customers can visit metrarail.com and access real-time information about train status and service alerts. This information is also reflected in the Schedule Finder tool, which allows you to generate a schedule between two stops on a line for a specific day.
• Twitter — Customers can visit www.twitter.com to follow each of Metra’s 11 rail lines or receive more general information about agency operations.
• Passenger Services — Customers can call 312-322-6777 weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with questions about train schedules and service. On evenings and weekends, call the RTA Travel Information Center at 312-836-7000. Calls are answered from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day.

Tips for Traveling on Metra During Winter Weather

• Give yourself plenty of time to travel to the station and park. Expect delays. More customers are likely to use Metra trains when the weather is severe. The addition of just 10 more people on each train can increase boarding time and cause trains to fall behind schedule.
• Visit the National Weather Service website for the latest weather and storm-related information.
• Watch local television and listen to local radio stations for Metra travel and service updates.
• Use caution when walking on wet or icy station platforms.
• If you are already traveling, listen for announcements at stations and onboard trains.

Metra Winter Storm Prep

During a winter snow storm, Metra will prepare by:

• Dispatching Metra signal/switch maintainers to key locations and staffing them 24/7. The switches must remain free of snow and ice, and while all mainline switches have heaters to help keep them clear, sometimes the snow and ice falls too fast or falls from a passing train and the switches need to be cleared manually with brooms, shovels or picks.
• Dispatching about 350 workers to shovel and salt platforms and other areas that are Metra’s responsibility to clear. Clearing platforms, stations and parking lots is often the responsibility of BNSF, UP, Metra’s parking vendor or the municipality in which the station is located and those entities also are gearing up.
• Putting crews and equipment in place to keep our 24 rail yards clear and operational. Bottlenecks in yards can result in delays getting trains in place for timely departures. Metra uses high-powered hot-air jet blowers and cold-air blowers in the yards to clear the snow and prevent blowing and drifting. In the last two years, Metra has also installed heaters on more than 40 of our most critical yard switches.
• Fueling our locomotives in outlying rail yards overnight. Fueling is normally done as part of the midday servicing routine. But, because the locomotives must be disconnected from their cars to be fueled, fueling them during winter storm conditions can take longer and cause yard congestion and train delays. Metra will fuel them Sunday night to help with operations Monday.
• Leaving our engines on overnight. Locomotives don’t like the cold any more than we do. If it’s too cold Metra may keep the engines on so they are ready when we need them.
• Running extra “ice trains” overnight on the Metra Electric Line. Metra must prevent ice from accumulating on the overhead power lines so the Highliner cars can continue to draw power to operate. During major storms, Metra may run these extra trains around the clock to ensure that the Metra Electric Line remains operational.

Equipment and Materials

• Metra will begin this winter with 63,000 bags or more than 3.1 million pounds of salt to cover the platforms and other areas under its responsibility.
• Metra has about 45 snow plows/blowers at its disposal, not counting the equipment used by its parking vendor and the numerous municipalities responsible for clearing parking lots and other areas around most of its suburban stations.
• Metra has five hot-air jet blowers and three cold-air blowers to clear its largest and most critical yards. The truck-mounted cold-air blowers clear ice and snow with a 525 mph blast. Capable of traveling over roads or rails, this versatile tool can quickly clear significant amounts of snow.

Kane County commuters have three train lines to choose from:

• The Milwaukee District West Line, which runs from Big Timber Road in Elgin to Union Station in Chicago.
• The Union Pacific West Line, which runs from Elburn to the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago.
• The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Line, which runs from Aurora to Union Station in Chicago.

Elburn and LaFox stations on the UP West Line are in Metra’s Zone I. The five other Kane County Metra stations are in Zone H.

Metra’s rates are determined by zone. Basically, the farther you are from the city, the higher the fare. As mentioned above, the fare increases for 2017 are across the board — 25 cents more per one-way ticket, for example, no matter where you embark or disembark.

Zone I Increases (Elburn and LaFox Stations to Chicago)

• Monthly: $237.75 (2016); $249.50 (2017)
• 10-Ride: $76 (2016); $78.75 (2017)
• Daily One-Way: $8.50 (2016); $8.75 (2017)

Zone H Increases (Geneva, Aurora, Big Timber, Elgin, National Street Stations to Chicago)

• Monthly: $216.25 (2016); $228 (2017)
• 10-Ride: $69.25 (2016); $72 (2017)
• Daily One-Way: $7.75 (2016); $8 (2017)