Willow Springs (Metra)
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Willow Springs (Metra)
Willow Springs is a station on Metra's Heritage Corridor in Willow Springs, Illinois. The station is away from Union Station, the northern terminus of the line. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Willow Springs is in zone 3. As of 2018, Willow Springs is the 170th busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 148 weekday boardings. The tracks run parallel to both the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago R .... They also run along a former Chicago and Alton Railroad line, and shares the right-of-way with Amtrak's '' Lincoln Service'' and '' Texas Eagle'' trains, however, no Amtrak trains stop here. As of February 15, 2024, Willow Springs is served by three inbound trains in the mo ...
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Willow Springs, Illinois
Willow Springs is a village in Cook County, Illinois, with a small portion in DuPage County. The village was founded in 1892, and was named for the springs along the Des Plaines River. Per the 2020 census, the population was 5,857. Geography Willow Springs is located on the banks of the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. According to the 2010 census, Willow Springs has a total area of , of which (or 97.42%) is land and (or 2.58%) is water. Demographics 2020 census ''Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.'' 2000 Census As of the census of 2000, there were 5,027 people, 1,948 households, and 1,381 families living in the village. The population density was 1,299.8 people per square mile (501.5/km2). There were 1,991 housing units at an average density of 514.8 per square mile (198.6/km2). The ...
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CN Joliet Subdivision
The Joliet Subdivision is a railroad subdivision of the Canadian National Railway in the Chicago metropolitan area. The 33-mile route runs from Joliet, Illinois to Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, largely paralleling the route of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Union Pacific has trackage rights over the route, which meets the Union Pacific Joliet Subdivision at Joliet to reach Bloomington and St. Louis. The line also hosts Metra's Heritage Corridor commuter service, and Amtrak's Lincoln and Texas Eagle service (as far as Joliet). From Bridgeport, services reach Chicago Union Station via Canadian National's Freeport Subdivision. History In 1856, the Illinois General Assembly issued a charter for the Joliet and Chicago Railroad, which was to run parallel to the existing Illinois and Michigan Canal connecting the two cities. Illinois governor Joel Matteson believed the success of the venture depended on it becoming the Chicago extension of the existing Chicago, Alton and St ...
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Side Platform
A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, one for each direction of travel, is the basic design used for double-track railway lines (as opposed to, for instance, the island platform where a single platform lies between the tracks). Side platforms may result in a wider overall footprint for the station compared with an island platform where a single width of platform can be shared by riders using either track. In some stations, the two side platforms are connected by a footbridge running above and over the tracks. While a pair of side platforms is often provided on a dual-track line, a single side platform is usually sufficient for a single-track line. Layout Where the station is close to a level crossing (grade crossing) the platforms may either be on the same side of the cross ...
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Metra
Metra is the commuter rail system in the Chicago metropolitan area serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs via the Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, and other railroads. The system operates 242 stations on 11 rail lines. It is the fourth busiest commuter rail system in the United States by ridership and the largest and busiest commuter rail system outside the New York City metropolitan area. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . The estimated busiest day for Metra ridership occurred on November 4, 2016—the day of the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series victory rally. Metra is the descendant of numerous commuter rail services dating to the 1850s. The present system dates to 1974, when the Illinois General Assembly established the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) to consolidate all public transit operations in the Chicago area, including commuter rail. The RTA's creation was a result of the anticipated failure of commuter s ...
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Heritage Corridor
The Heritage Corridor (HC) is a Metra commuter rail line in Chicago, Illinois, and its southwestern suburbs, terminating in Joliet, Illinois. While Metra does not refer to its lines by colors, the Heritage Corridor appears on Metra timetables as "Alton Maroon," after the Alton Railroad, which ran trains on this route. The name Heritage Corridor refers to the Illinois and Michigan Canal Heritage Corridor. Established in 1984, it runs parallel to the line. Unlike other Metra lines, the Heritage Corridor runs during weekday rush hours only in the peak direction–to Chicago in the morning and Joliet in the afternoon. The Heritage Corridor takes less than 1 hour to reach Joliet, significantly faster than the Rock Island District which also serves Joliet. However, with the Fair Transit South Cook pilot program cutting Rock Island fares, a ticket from Joliet to Union Station via the Heritage Corridor is more expensive than a ticket from Joliet to on the Rock Island District. As of D ...
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Union Station (Chicago)
Chicago Union Station is an intercity and commuter rail terminal located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The station is Amtrak's flagship station in the Midwest. While serving long-distance passenger trains, it is also the downtown terminus for six Metra commuter lines. The station is just west of the Chicago River between West Adams Street and West Jackson Boulevard, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. Including approach and storage tracks, it covers about nine and a half city blocks (mostly underground, buried beneath streets and skyscrapers). The present Chicago Union Station opened in 1925, replacing an earlier station on this site built in 1881. The station is the fourth-busiest rail station in the United States, after Pennsylvania Station, Grand Central Terminal, and Jamaica station in New York City. It is Amtrak's overall fourth-busiest station, and 120,000 daily Metra riders and the busiest outside of its Northeast Corridor. It handles about 140, ...
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Illinois And Michigan Canal
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933. Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath, a collection of eight engineering structures and segments of the canal between Lockport and LaSalle-Peru, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. and   Portions of the canal have been filled in. Much of the former canal, near the Heritage Corridor transit line, has been preserved as part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor. ...
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Chicago Sanitary And Ship Canal
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago River, which now flows out of Lake Michigan rather than into it. The related Calumet-Saganashkee Channel does the same for the Calumet River a short distance to the south, joining the Chicago canal about halfway along its route to the Des Plaines. The two provide the only navigation for ships between the Great Lakes Waterway and the Mississippi River system. The canal was in part built as a sewage treatment scheme. Prior to its opening in 1900, sewage from the city of Chicago was dumped into the Chicago River and flowed into Lake Michigan. The city's drinking water supply was (and remains) located offshore, and there were fears that the sewage could reach the intake and cause serious disease outbreaks. Since the sewer systems were already ...
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Chicago And Alton Railroad
The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 and was controlled until 1942 when the Alton was released to the courts. On May 31, 1947, the Alton Railroad was merged into the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Jacob Bunn had been one of the founding reorganizers of the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company during the 1860s. Main lines included Chicago to St. Louis and a branch to Kansas City. The former is now part of Union Pacific, with Metra Heritage Corridor commuter rail service north of Joliet (owned by the Canadian National Railway but used by UP). Today, the Kansas City line is part of the Kansas City Southern Railway system. History The earliest ancestor to the Alton Railroad was the Alton and Sangamon Railroad, chartered February 27, 1847, in Illinois to connect the Mississippi Riv ...
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Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United States, contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ''Amtrak'' is a portmanteau of the words ''America'' and ''trak'', the latter itself a sensational spelling of ''track''. Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U.S. passenger rail routes, Amtrak receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit corporation, for-profit organization. The United States federal government, through the United States Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Transportation, owns all the company's Issued shares, issued and Shares outstanding, outstanding preferred stock. Amtrak's headquarters is located one block west of Washington Union Station, Union Station in Washington, D.C. Amtrak serves more th ...
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Lincoln Service (Amtrak)
The ''Lincoln Service'' is a higher-speed rail service operated by Amtrak that runs between Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. The train is a part of the ''Illinois Service'' and is partially funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The train uses the same route as the long-distance '' Texas Eagle'', which continues to and . A connection with the -bound ''Missouri River Runner'' is available in St. Louis. , the average trip time between Chicago and St. Louis was 5 hours 17 minutes. Future infrastructure upgrades are expected to reduce the time to under 4 hours. During fiscal year 2016 (ending September '16), the ''Lincoln Service'' trains carried 548,955 passengers, a decrease of 4.8% from FY2015. The service had a total revenue of $14,266,964, a decrease of 1.3% from FY2015. History Prior to the ''Lincoln Service'', Amtrak had been operating the ''State House'' between Chicago and St. Louis since 1973. Originally intended to connect Chicago and ...
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Texas Eagle
The ''Texas Eagle'' is a daily passenger train route operated by Amtrak between Chicago and San Antonio in the central and western United States. Prior to 1988, the train was known as the ''Eagle''. Trains #21 (southbound) and 22 (northbound) also convey a sleeping car and a coach (designated internally as Trains #421 and 422) to/from the ''Sunset Limited'' between San Antonio and Los Angeles on the days that tri-weekly train operates. However, the Texas Eagle itself was reduced to tri-weekly service from October 2020 to March 2021 and again from January 2022 until March 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When operating in conjunction with the ''Sunset Limited,'' the westbound continuing cars join with the ''Sunset Limited'' in San Antonio; the eastbound continuing cars split off in San Antonio for the journey to Chicago. These cars traverse a total of , the longest route in the Amtrak system. During fiscal year 2019, the ''Texas Eagle'' carried 321,694 passengers, a 4.2% dec ...
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