Metra

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Mark Your Calendar: 2025 Women in Rail Event Set for Oct. 15-16

Railway Age and Railway Track & Structures are returning to Chicagoland for our much-anticipated third-annual in-person Women in Rail Conference featuring trailblazing women and their allies who are significantly influencing today’s freight, passenger and transit rail

Alstom Opens Plant 4 Manufacturing Facility in Hornell, N.Y.

Alstom on June 2 announced the opening of its new 135,000-square-foot Plant 4 manufacturing facility in Hornell, N.Y., which will produce stainless steel car body shells for passenger rail vehicles and provide additional capacity and manufacturing capabilities to support other Alstom projects.

Reports: Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Replace Chicago RTA (UPDATED 6/2)

Illinois lawmakers on May 28 unveiled a bill that proposes to replace the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which oversees the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Metra commuter rail, and Pace suburban buses, with a new organization called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, according to multiple news reports.

Transit Briefs: MARTA, Metra

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) unveils a new online trip planner. Also, Metra schedules 40 safety blitzes in 2025.

Metra and its freight railroad and municipal partners are taking on a wide variety of projects in 2025, including improvements to 52 stations and replacement of 43 grade crossings. (Metra Photograph)
  • M/W

Metra Outlines 2025 Construction Program

Metra on March 18 detailed its program for the 2025 construction season, covering station, track, road crossing, bridge, and signal/communications improvement projects along the Chicagoland commuter railroad’s 11 lines totaling nearly 500 route

Pictured: TTC’s Harvey Shop Building, part of the Hillcrest Complex in Toronto. The complex will be expanded to house about 25 more Alstom LRVs, part of a new 60-car order. (TTC Photograph)

Transit Briefs: TTC, Metra, Amtrak

Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) begins expanding its Hillcrest Complex to house new Alstom-built streetcars. Also, Chicago’s Metra considers renaming its regional/commuter rail lines; and Amtrak updates its mobile app for riders.

(UP Photograph)

Metra to STB: Ensure Passenger Service on UP Lines ‘Continues Uninterrupted’

Union Pacific (UP) has placed Metra’s regional/commuter rail service in Chicagoland “at risk by demanding” that it pay “economically unreasonable and monopolistic rates to continue using the UP Lines for its public service,” Metra wrote in a Surface Transportation Board (STB) application for terminal trackage rights that was submitted March 7.