Earlier this month, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced plans for restored train service between Chicago and Rockford in the coming years, bringing back a route that has not run in more than four decades.
Service to Rockford was once operated by Amtrak. This time, the state chose Metra, which is facing a looming financial cliff and has struggled to bring back riders since the pandemic sent office workers home. Some say running the route could bring needed help to the Chicago-area commuter rail service.
“This effort is a much-needed expansion of Metra’s mission by tapping into unserved regional markets,” said Joseph Schwieterman, director of DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. “… It’s a step toward reinventing its business model.”
But service to Rockford is likely still years away. Trains are not projected to start running until late 2027.
Trains last ran between Chicago and Rockford in 1981, on a state-funded route that extended on through northwest Illinois. The state has planned at various times to restore service to Rockford, including outlining a plan to restart service by late 2015. Those plans were put on hold.
Current plans call for the train service to run along Metra’s Milwaukee District West line to Elgin, then use Union Pacific tracks to Rockford, with stops in Huntley and Belvidere. Two round trips per day are planned, and travel times between the two cities are expected to be slightly less than two hours.
The state has allocated $275 million in funding for construction work to get the route up and running, which will include upgrades to grade crossings and bridges, double tracks at some points and stations in Huntley and Belvidere. Track improvements could be needed to allow passenger trains to travel at faster speeds than the freight trains that currently use the tracks, and a connection must be built in Elgin between the Metra and Union Pacific tracks.
Once it’s up and running, the route will also cost money to operate and maintain. Some of the cost is expected to be offset by fares, and the state plans to fund the remainder, as it does with other state train routes to Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis and Carbondale, Illinois Department of Transportation spokeswoman Maria Castaneda said. Metra is not expecting to be on the hook for operating costs.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said there was no competitive process before Metra was chosen to operate the latest iteration of the route, but Amtrak remains interested in service to Rockford and farther west.
“We’re interested in being Illinois’ partner wherever it makes sense for both of us,” he said. “And we believe — and we’ve studied this repeatedly — that service that goes beyond Rockford to Galena and Freeport and Dubuque makes sense.”
Castaneda said IDOT approached both Metra and Amtrak about operating the state-funded service. The state chose Metra because it is expected to mean lower construction costs, partly because Metra already runs passenger trains half the distance to Rockford. Metra also has an existing relationship with Union Pacific, she said.
Union Pacific for years operated three Metra lines but has recently sought to get out of providing the service, sparking a legal battle between the freight railroad and Metra. Union Pacific is now in the process of transferring operations of the three commuter lines and employees to Metra.
Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said the Rockford route will come down to the state coordinating with both Metra and the freight railroad to provide the service. Despite the sometimes-contentious negotiations between Union Pacific and Metra, the existing relationship will help make the trip seamless, he said.
Metra has other challenges looming. Like other transit agencies, Metra has struggled to hire employees, but Gillis said the agency didn’t anticipate that being a challenge in running Rockford service. Metra likely would not need to hire a large number of new workers to operate two round trips per day, he said.
“We know how to operate passenger trains — we’ve been doing it for nearly 40 years, through polar vortexes and hot streaks and pandemics and with an on-time performance rate that is the envy of our peers,” Metra CEO Jim Derwinski said in a statement when the new service was announced.
Metra also expressed concern about the amount of freight traffic projected on the Milwaukee District West line that the new Rockford service would use, saying a recently approved freight rail merger would mean extra freight trains along the line and that could increase delays.
Gillis said Metra has been assured extra freight trains will not lead to delays, and the agency is hopeful a monitoring system put in place as part of the merger approval will help.
And like other transit agencies Metra remains below pre-pandemic levels of riders, in June reaching 52% of 2019 weekday ridership. Chicago’s fare-dependent transit agencies are lobbying for changes to the way they are funded, but if nothing changes, they are collectively facing a $730 million budget hole once federal relief runs out.
The state is expended to fund the service, and the new route won’t take money away from existing commuter service in the six-county Chicago region, Gillis said.
Rather, the new service could help Metra attract riders in new markets, said Rick Harnish, executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance.
“Metra needs to serve many new markets,” he said. “The foundation of Metra was, people wanted to live in the suburbs but enjoy the city’s benefits of employment, so the system was designed pretty much to get people from a suburban parking lot to downtown Chicago. In my mind that was always a failed model.”
The move is also key to allowing residents to travel throughout Illinois without a car, and more new routes are needed within the Chicago area and to other cities, Harnish said. The proposed new Rockford service marks a change from previous divisions between Metra providing service within the Chicago area, and Amtrak providing service outside of it, he said.
Metra would like to brand the Rockford route in a way that distinguishes it from regular commuter service, Gillis said, but hasn’t yet worked out the details. Still, Metra could benefit from the new service. The personal travel market has bounced back stronger than the commuter market, and the Rockford service would tap into that demand, DePaul’s Schwieterman said.
It could take some work to make the financial model work, though, he said. Transit agencies statewide are looking for financial help from the state as their COVID-19 relief funding dries up.
“The devil’s in the details regarding funding,” he said.
