(The following article by Jon Davis was posted on the Chicago Daily Herald website on September 30.)
CHICAGO — A defective locomotive wheel delayed thousands of Metra passengers for nearly an hour during the morning rush on the Union Pacific Northwest line Wednesday.
More than 12,000 passengers on 19 Chicago-bound trains were delayed as the three-track line was reduced to one between Barrington and Harvard after inspectors checked the tracks for damage caused by a flat spot on a locomotive wheel.
Metra and Union Pacific Railroad officials said even though the tracks were cleared by 6 a.m., a ripple effect prevented equipment from getting where it needed to be for the morning commute.
That in turn caused trains to run between 10 and 55 minutes behind schedule, Metra spokesman Tom Miller said. Full service was restored by 10 a.m. and went smoothly during Wednesday afternoon’s rush hour, he said.
Two outbound trains on the UP North Line also were canceled Wednesday morning because equipment they needed from Northwest Line trains was late in arriving downtown, Miller added.
Mark Davis, a Union Pacific Railroad spokesman, said the problem began around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday when one freight train’s crew noticed sparks coming from the wheel of a passing, southbound freight train coming from Janesville, Wis.
Inspectors then found a 12-inch flat spot on a wheel of the southbound train’s locomotive, Davis said. That meant inspectors had to check the tracks to see if the wheel had damaged them, he said.