(The following story by Mary Wisniewski appeared on the Chicago Sun-Times website on August 24, 2010.)
CHICAGO — Metra commuters on the Union Pacific North Lines still faced some delays this morning, but Metra said it’s an improvement over Monday’s commute.
“It’s nothing like the 25-minute delays we had yesterday,” said Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet.
Monday was the first day of a new schedule for the North Line from Kenosha to Ogilvie Transportation Center. The schedule was designed to accommodate an eight-year, $185 million project to rebuild 22 bridges and replace the Ravenswood station.
Monday’s commuters saw packed trains, and delays of between 6 and 25 minutes. A train scheduled to come into Chicago at 9:32 a.m. Tuesday was only about three minutes late.
“No glitches today,” said Tom Pedersen, 47, who gets on at the Zion station.
He said that on Monday he heard a conductor get “reamed out” by an irate passenger over the schedule. Pedersen said the time he gets on the train under the new schedule has changed by 5 to 10 minutes but “it’s no big deal.”
Another passenger, Gabe Sehr, 23, who gets on at Evanston, said the morning schedule is fine, but a new evening schedule means there are fewer trains stopping at Evanston’s Davis station between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. There used to be six trains leaving from Ogilvie to the Davis stop between those times.
Now there are just two, at 5:21 and 5:25, and the 6:03 p.m. train is “packed.”
Asked how he’ll fill the time waiting for the evening train, Sehr said, “I guess I’ll do a little bit more work. My boss will be happy.”