Almost a year after Union Pacific Railroad began the process of transferring operation of its three commuter lines to Metra, the two parties are still trying to work out what that transfer would look like.
The railroad currently operates Union Pacific North, Union Pacific Northwest and Union Pacific West lines under contract with Metra. Union Pacific North Line serves Evanston and other North Shore municipalities, running between Chicago and Kenosha, Wis.
Union Pacific has been trying to get out of the Metra contract since 2019 in order to focus on its core freight railroad business – something that Metra resisted. The two sides agreed to begin the transition in March 2023.
The idea was to make the process seamless for riders – UP would continue to own the train tracks; train crews would become Metra employees and the stations would either be sold to the municipalities or redeveloped. They planned to complete the transition by the end of the first quarter of 2024 – in other words, end of March.
On Feb. 28, Sandhouse Rail Group, a networking group established by the Northwestern University Transportation Center to connect railroad professionals with students and academics, organized a meeting to update its members on the state of Chicago area commuter rail as Metra and Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District are still trying to rebuild ridership after the pandemic.
During the Q&A portion of the meeting, held at Metra headquarters, 547 W. Jackson Blvd. in Chicago, Metra Executive Director Jim Derwinski was asked about the Union Pacific transition.
He responded that it was still a work in progress.
“So we’ve got – we’ll just say conceptual agreement on the path forward, ” Derwinski said. “I can’t get into any details.”
He said negotiations are proceeding along three “tracks” – labor negotiations related to train crews and other railroad employees, the ins and outs of how Metra will use the railroad tracks and real estate negotiations over the future of the stations. Derwinski declined to elaborate any further.
Union Pacific spokeperson Robynn Tysver declined to comment beyond saying that negotiations have been productive and the railroad’s goal is to complete the transition before the end of the year.
Currently, Union Pacific North and other Union Pacific Metra lines use the Metra branding and Metra train sets, but the railroad owns the tracks and some of the stations, and the train crews work for UP rather than Metra. While riders don’t usually notice the difference, this came into play during the COVID pandemic. When Metra resumed fare collections on trains in June 2020, Union Pacific refused to follow suit until June 2021 – which got Evanston riders an extra year of free rides, but cost Metra millions of dollars.
Union Pacific is looking to transition to a model Metra uses on North Central Service, SouthWest Service and Heritage Corridor lines. The railroad would own the tracks, but Metra would operate the trains with its own crews.
The railroad has been pushing for the transition since 2019. Metra argued that Union Pacific inherited the Chicago and North Western railroad’s common carrier obligations, which required it to provide commuter rail service. The railroad argued that regulatory changes since Amtrak was created in 1971 rendered those obligations moot, and filed a lawsuit to settle the matter. In September 2021, Judge Jorge L. Alanso of U.S. District Court in Chicago ruled in Union Pacific’s favor.
Fare system changeover – Evanston is in Zone 2
On Feb. 1, Metra switched over from 10 letter-based fare zones to four numbered fare zones. Evanston ended up in Fare Zone 2. Metra also closed all remaining ticket windows, leaving riders to either use the Ventra app, buy a ticket from the conductor or use a vending machine.
Metra’s January ridership report shows 84% of riders systemwide used the Ventra app that month; 7% bought from ticket agents; 7% bought from conductors and 2% used ticket machines.
During the Feb. 28 meeting, Derwinski acknowledged that Metra got off to a rocky start because of Ventra app issues. He said that those have been largely sorted out, and Metra was still keeping an eye on the app.
Metra is putting up ticket vending machines for those who don’t use the app. Derwinski said that, once all stations have them, conductors will no longer sell tickets. But that’s still a ways off.
“The way we’re going to [install the machines] is line by line,” he said.
He added that BNSF Line, the system’s busiest, will be first. Once all the stations have machines, Metra “well be monitoring it for significant period of time” to see how it works in practice before getting to the other lines.
According to Metra’s official list, Union Pacific North line has ticket machines at downtown Evanston Davis Street station, Wilmette, downtown Highland Park and Waukegan stations.
Derwinski also touted the fact that, under the new fare system, all trips that don’t involve one of the Loop stations have a flat fare of $3.75.
“We believe this is a potential way to gain new riders, because [in the past] we priced them out of the system when they wanted to go a few stops to a grocery store or things like that,” he said.
In Evanston, riders have plenty of alternatives to Metra within the city. Main and Davis Street stations are parallel to the CTA Purple Line, where the tickets are $2.50, and all three Evanston stations are served by Pace Route 213, where the fare is $2.
But the new fare represents a slight reduction for riders who use Metra to travel between any of the three Evanston stations – the trip used to cost $4 each way. It also made travel to many North Shore destinations cheaper. For example, a trip from Evanston to Ravinia Park station, which directly serves the concert venue, used to cost $5.50.
One year later, Union Pacific-Metra transfer still a work in progress is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.