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Metra may lease cars to ease shortage
Here we have the usual menu of ignorant and uninformed observations. The bottom line is that Metra, like all other similarly constituted public agencies, think the Port Authority of New York/Jersey, are deep pools of patronage/corruption. It is almost miraculous that this ilk runs trains at all. Were it not for the heritage memory and personnel involved, all soon retired, 'twould be railroading in name only.
Metra and other gov’t or gov’t supported agencies do that, They take advantage of a bad situation and turn it in their favor, now Metra will get emergency $ to lease or buy more cars, period. All gov’t agencies do that, its normal business practices. Metra has no need to keep cars if they don’t want them or deem them unnecessary. All gov’t agencies bide for $, I’m not condemning or applauding, it S.O.P. All those cars they got rid of, could of been rehabbed to ADA standards but why? Metra can just buy new cars at 20 times the cost of rehabbing the old ones. Its about getting more $, getting more contracts, greasing the palms, and most important, creating new jobs at Rochelle and other places, but rehabbed cars could of lasted another 50 yrs and saved taxpayers MILLIONS if not TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars. But that’s just the way it is. I will miss the CB&Q gallery cars when they are all gone, the most beautiful cars Metra ever had, they are slowly being rid of.
Illinois Railway Museum has 3 Bilevels, including a cab car. Maybe Metra could do a complete restoration in return for use.
That reference to bi-levels they used to own opens up all sorts of tantalizing possibilities, from museum cars at Union IL and Duluth MN to Wisconsin & Southern, Hawkeye Express (Iowa), and other cars. The Hawkeye Express cars, usually used for fall football specials, are in great shape. When railfanning Chicago I usually put the camera down for Metra trains but this could change things.
The LA cars are probably trains laying over until the afternoon commute; some maybe waiting inspection, repairs, modification or parts and shop space depending on back log if any.
The Algoma Central and other tourist outfits flat don’t have push-pull cars. Theirs would be incompatible.
GO, and any other commuter service, has the economically fatal problem of needing to move bunches of people prior to and after the weekday work hours.
My Guess: GO, and others, were displaying cars and trains laying-over between morning an evening rush hrs. …
dear individuals, the leased cars will very well be from their previously retired fleet of EX-CNW cars painted up in the RTA livery. These cars, like others, have seen the lines before, and will fit in. Where other leased cars may come from is beyond me, because I don’t know of a railroad that would want to have their cars leased.
Maybe they could lease some of Ed Ellis’s dome cars.
AMT has nine spare gallery cars that Metra could use.
The army bought a number of Chicago bi level cars to transport soldiers a few years ago. They came through NS tracks in Virginia at the end of freight trains. The army plans were never completed . So!!!
Call Metrolink in Los Angeles! They have numerous Bombardier bi-levels parked next to the L.A. River.
The bi-levels at IRM are in the CNW paint, metra should get those and keep the colors as a heritage cars.
Two dozen ex-Metra stainless bi-levels have been stored/rehabed in Michigan for possible Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter service. They have mostly sat in the former PRR yard in Cadillac, MI for the past several years.
This is very interesting. When Metra received its last batch of new 6000 series cars a few years back, UP offered to hold onto some of the older ones. Metra didn’t want that, and got rid of them. So what do they do a couple years later when there is a car shortage? They wind up buying them back for more than what they got rid of them for!
I wasnt blaming the new board Thomas, but thought it was rather interesting that the past board didnt have the foresight to keep some of the older cars for a reserve fleet.
“When Metra received its last batch of new 6000 series cars a few years back, UP offered to hold onto some of the older ones. Metra didn’t want that, and got rid of them.”
The difference today is that you have a professional railroader running the place, namely Don Orseno. He is Metra’s fourth CEO and only the second one to be a railroader. The first one, Jim Cole, was a railroader. The next two were not.
Don’t blame the new board and Don Orseno for the errors of their predecessors.
The “Army Train” was a no-go. Too bad, but the Gummint won’t give up the cars. Hard to admit defeat/stupidity. Damn! Even our “Charlie Russell ‘Chew-Choo’” (I hate that appellation!) has cars available in the winter-spring. Shop around, METRA!
Try some of the ‘seasonal outfits’, like the Maine Eastern, for short-term relief. What is going to happen to the ‘Algoma Central’ cars? Time to think about it, METRA. Seems, to me, that GO (Ontario) always has excess cars, too. Well, that’s “Gummint Run”. No surprise there.
AMT cars would require labels and warning signs in English. I don’t think Ed Ellis would welcome ‘riff-raff’ (commuters) in his big domes.
Mr. Hays, did you miss the article the other day that the Army cars are for sale?
I think a lot of the same people that are criticizing Metra for not having a enough extra cars right now would, if it did have enough, be criticizing it for having so many old cars sitting around and spending money maintaining them.