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[ndbprr]

I needed to ride Metra yesterday on a circuitous route. I travelled from New Lenox to Lasalle Street station on the old Rock Island route and then  down to Homewood on the IC.  Later in the day I had to reverse the route.  I had a newer car going to Chicago  and it was a fairly good ride. I just missed the IC train and had to kill an hour at the Van Buren Street station which gave me a chance to look it over pretty well.  That is a nice old art deco style station and has a very comfortable feel to it worth the time to stop and see if in the area.    Several northbound trains including South Shore trains came through but I was unaware that the IC line had newer corrugated cars that look  identical to the diesl pulled cars but are electric powered. When my train pulled in it consisted of the newer cars made by Nippon.  Very disappointing experience.  They appear t o be very light and the one I was in hunted the entire ride.  Lots of rattles, banging and shaking going on.  Every time we stopped there was a whine that I assume was dynamic braking.  The wierd part was there was a gear change sound at about fifteen miles per hour like someone down shifting.  The interiors are identical to the newer diesel pulled cars with the luggage rack on one side of the upper level over the aisle. The Nippon cars also have a trap door in the floor for low level entry and exit but all the stations are high level so I doubt it gets used much.  When I got off the car there was a builders plate in the vestibule indicating it was built on 2005.  Where have I been that I didn't even know about them.  Later in the day my ride was in one of the old Bombardier cars that the IC bought probably 40 years ago and a much better ride.  When the IC got the new cars they also installed an automated ticket system where you buy a ticket and put it in a turnstyle to get passage to the platform then it spits the ticket back at you.  When you got to your destination you put it in an exit turnstyle and if used up it ate the ticket.  Well about four years ago as the area the IC operated in became blacker suburbs there was a big claim that the area was being singled out and this was racist. So the whole system has been removed and now the ticket end is handled by people on the train. My ride back to New Lenox was on an older car that had a blue and cream or light yellow interior and smelled like it had just been cleaned.  It was spotless and had the best ride of any car all day. I also assume it was the heaviest.  I think the original IC car had the most comfortable seats but the diesel pulled cars weren't far behind.  The Nippon cars do not measure up in my opinion.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The automated fare system on the IC actually dates back to about 1965 and was installed in a piecemeal fashion.  The original gates were installed at the three downtown stations (Randolph, Van Buren and Roosevelt Rd) and were gradually installed at the outlying stations.

[billio]

Personal recollection:   Long. long ago (c. 1977), on a planet far, far away (Chicago), I assisted in an annual station count on the IC (this was pre-METRA), the purpose of which was to afford IC management some rough idea of patronage at various stations along the IC electric line throughout the day.  We were supposed to record debarks from IC trains. At 57th, 58th, 59th Street--Hyde Park (University of Chicago), a few intrepid graduate students would ride the South Shore from downtown Chicago (South Water Street Station, next to IC's Randolph Street Station), and, knowing that on eastbound CSS trains they wouldn't have their tickets checked and punched until AFTER the train entered CSS tracks (south of Kensington, or maybe 95 the Street,as I recall), they would bolt off the train at Hyde Park, look furtively around for THE LAW, and seeing none, would vault over the turnstyles and scuttle like crabs away from the station as fast as possible.  In this way, they procured for themselves free transportation.

How could this happen?  Well, the South Shore had authority to carry passengers from Chicago points on the IC, over which it had--and still enjoys-- trackage rights (read from Downtown through Hyde Park) to CSS stations, but it's authority did not include intra-Chicago passenger traffic, because that little market was the preserve of the IC.  

IC people informed me that, especially in the early days, the automated fare system had notable imperfections.  Enterprising riders would cheat by inserting a xeroxed $20 bill into the machine, which it would then accept.   One presumes that todays fare card machines are a tad more sophisticated...

[Midnight Railroader]

CSSHEGEWISCH

The automated fare system on the IC actually dates back to about 1965 and was installed in a piecemeal fashion.  The original gates were installed at the three downtown stations (Randolph, Van Buren and Roosevelt Rd) and were gradually installed at the outlying stations.

 

True. I remember them being all the way to Blue Island in the 70s. I'm surprised to see a report that some stations just got them recently.