Metra riders subjected to high amounts of diesel soot

[daveklepper]

Or does it take some time for the pollution to go through the ventilation system?

[Dakguy201]

The thing I did not understand is that the next to last paragraph of the piece indicates the levels continue to rise inside the cars throughout the trip to the burbs -- an arrival at Downers Grove is several times worse than it was at Union Station.  That means the trains are self polluting; the source is the train's own exhaust not the general ambiance of Union Station.  If that is true, surely the air intakes could be relocated to minimize this problem.   

[blue streak 1]

Some observations.

1. Union Station has the added problem of most AMTRAK trains arriving head in close to the station concourse.

2. A quick and dirty (pun intended) solution would be to immediately plug in HEP and shut down diesels. That would not take care of the problem when temps are below freezing. Would require extra carmen to implement such a plan. Do not know if all tracks have 480 V HEP available at both stations and if the sufficient power available to power all tracks at same time?.

[schlimm]

Metra responds to Tribune investigation:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/11/metra-will-test-diesel-soot-at-stations-in-trains.html

[schlimm]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-dirty-diesel-20101105,0,7261777.story