The proposed 2025 Metra budget, which was released on Oct. 10, doesn’t include any projects in Evanston — but it touched on issues relevant to all suburbs served by the Union Pacific North Line.
When Union Pacific Railroad bought Chicago & North Western Railroad in 1995, it inherited the contract to operate what are now the three “Union Pacific” lines on Metra’s behalf. But, for the past couple of years, UP has been trying to get out of the commuter rail business. In March 2023, the two sides agreed to transfer the operations to Metra. UP employees operating and maintaining the trains would become Metra employees, while UP would retain the ownership of the physical tracks and related structures.
The transfer was originally supposed to be completed in March 2024. According to the proposed 2025 budget, the two sides made some progress — UP mechanics and customer service staff have already transferred to Metra. But they still need to transfer the crew members that operate the trains, and the fate of many stations, including all three in Evanston, remains an open question.
Another issue that came up during the Oct. 10 Metra Board of Directors meeting was new passenger rail cars. The commuter rail agency ordered two types of rail cars — the smaller, single-level, battery-powered trains and the bi-level Alstom trains. The fleet replacement is an important issue for Union Pacific lines, which use some of the oldest train cars in the fleet. Director Rodney Craig, who represents west suburban Cook County, expressed frustration with delays in the bi-level car order.
Union Pacific transfer
When the Regional Transportation Authority was established in the 1970s, it simply paid railroad companies to keep running commuter trains. In the ensuing decades, the Commuter Rail Division of the RTA (what we know today as Metra) either bought the commuter rail lines outright or entered into agreements with freight railroads that allowed it to run its own trains with its own crews on their lines. The UP lines and the BNSF line are the only ones that retain the purchase-of-service arrangement.
Most Metra riders don’t notice those intricacies, but they were thrown in the spotlight 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. Since Metra didn’t operate the trains and the crews didn’t work for it, there was little it could do about the situation.
New budget shows worker transfers
According to the proposed budget, the mechanics and former ticket agents (who were shifted to customer service when Metra closed all ticket windows at the beginning of this year) transferred to Metra throughout 2024. The train engineers (the crew members who drive the trains), conductors and employees who maintain stations, platforms and train yards, are expected to complete the transition “in early 2025.”
Since the budget’s unveiling, there has been one sign of progress. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the union representing those employees, announced Oct. 18 that it had ratified the labor agreement with Metra.
The budget indicates that a total of “more than 800 employees” are expected to make the switch, representing about 78.8% of the 1,014 UP employees involved with the commuter lines.
Metra also plans to hire for “additional positions needed to perform transferred UP activities related to station, platform, and yard maintenance (20); additional dispatchers (15) and signal maintainers (10).” But the budget warns that this is merely a goal.
“Like other governmental agencies and private businesses, Metra, UP, and BNSF have been challenged in attracting, hiring, and retaining employees to fill vacant, budgeted positions,” it stated.
One issue the budget didn’t dwell on was real estate. UP still owns the rail yards where it stores and maintains Metra trains, and it still owns some stations — including Main Street, Davis Street and Central Street stations in Evanston. The two entities are negotiating whether the freight railroad would lease or sell those properties to Metra and under what terms.
Until those issues are settled, Metra has been operating under a Right of Entry agreement, which was originally signed in February and was scheduled to expire in August. Metra since renewed the agreement, most recently on Oct. 10, extending it until the end of the year.
New train sets — still delayed
Replacing the rail car fleet has been an ongoing issue for Metra. According to data compiled by the RTA, it still uses 339 Budd coach rail cars and 27 Pullman bi-level cars, the oldest of which were built in the 1950s and the newest of which were built in the late 1970s. Many, but not all of them were assigned to Union Pacific lines.
(Evanston Metra riders will recognize the former as the cars with narrower windows, and the latter as the cars with blue and red stripes on the sides).
By comparison, the other cars regularly seen on Union Pacific lines were built in the 1990s and early 2000s. Metra considers 40 years of service a benchmark for replacing passenger cars. Sean Cronin, the head of Metra’s mechanical capital projects, told the board back in February that, while the older cars are safe, they get increasingly expensive to maintain and repair as they age.
Once the new rail cars come in, Metra will be able to phase out the 1950s cars. The bi-level cars, which are expected to go to the busier lines such as the UP lines, are being built by Alstom, a French rolling stock manufacturer with an extensive U.S. presence. The first cars were originally expected to be delivered in 2024, with the rest being delivered over the next two and a half years. Now, the first cars aren’t expected to arrive until next year, and most of the cars aren’t expected to be built until 2027 at the earliest.
During the Oct. 10 meeting, Craig mused that the board should do a “field trip” to the Hornell, New York factory where the trains are supposed to be built, to “send a message.”
“When you get a year behind, for whatever reason — we’re investing a lot of money, building a new building, the line being put together — it’s been long enough,” he said.
Metra Executive Director Jim Derwinski said he would be open to arranging a trip, and that he would provide an update at a future meeting.
“No one wants the cars more than I do,” he said. “I promise — more to come.”
Metra and Union Pacific make progress on operations transfer; fate of stations to be decided is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.