The Milwaukee District West Line (MD-W) is a

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. ...

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

line in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and its western suburbs. Metra does not refer to any of its lines by a particular color, but the timetable accents for the Milwaukee District West line are dark "Arrow Yellow," honoring the Milwaukee Road's '' Arrow'' passenger train. Trains are dispatched from Canadian Pacific's American headquarters in Minneapolis. The line runs from

Chicago Union Station 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 ...

in downtown Chicago through the western suburbs to

Elgin, Illinois Elgin ( ) is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Elgin is located northwest of Chicago, along the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 114,797, the seventh-large ...

. As of December 12, 2022, the public timetable shows 52 trains (26 in each direction) operating on weekdays. Of these, 19 inbound trains originate from , three from , one from , and three from . Three outbound trains terminate at Franklin Park, one at National Street, and the remainder terminate at Big Timber Road. On weekends, Metra operates 12 roundtrips on Saturdays and nine on Sundays and holidays, all running from Union Station to Elgin. There is no weekend or holiday service to Big Timber Road. The line runs on the Canadian Pacific Railway Elgin Subdivision (Ex- Milwaukee Road line to Omaha). In 1982, this line was sold to the newly created Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Rail Corporation which ran commuter trains for the Milwaukee Road while the latter underwent reorganization. The Milwaukee Road retained ownership of the line until 1986. Metra formally purchased the Milwaukee District lines from the Soo Line Railroad (which took the bankrupt Milwaukee Road under its wing in 1985) in 1987. The Soo Line Railroad then ran freight trains on the line via trackage rights before its absorption into the CP in 1990. Metra has included the possibility of extending the Milwaukee District West Line along one of two routes in their Cost Benefit Analysis report. If this were to happen, the line could continue west via Canadian Pacific trackage to

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, with an additional stop in Pingree Grove. Alternatively, the line could switch to the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

's Belvidere line and travel northwest from Big Timber Road to Marengo, with additional stops in

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, Huntley, and

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

Ridership

Between 2014 and 2019, annual ridership declined 15% from 6,946,268 to 5,904,808. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, ridership dropped to 1,480,973 passengers in 2020.

Rolling stock

The MD-W line's locomotive fleet consists of mainly MPI MP36PH-3C diesel-electric locomotives, with some

EMD F40PH The EMD F40PH is a four-axle B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division in several variants from 1975 to 1992. Intended for use on Amtrak's short-haul passenger routes, it became the backbone of Amtrak's ...

locomotives. The line also operates ex-

GO Transit GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...

EMD F59PH The EMD F59PH is a four-axle B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division from 1988 to 1994. A variant, the F59PHI, was produced from 1994 to 2001. The F59PH was originally built for GO Transit commuter oper ...

locomotives. The fleet is pooled with the fleets for the

North Central Service The North Central Service (NCS) is a Metra commuter rail line running from Union Station in downtown Chicago through northwestern and far northern suburbs to Antioch, Illinois. In June 2018, the public timetable shows 10 weekday departures from ...

and the Milwaukee District North Line. As of 2016, three of these locomotives are in operation. Coaches, or passenger railcars, consist mostly of Nippon Sharyo railcars built in the early 2000s. Cab cars are Nippon Sharyo built. Budd-built railcars also operate on the line, but the cab cars built by Budd have not been in use since the delivery of the newer railcars.

Stations

References

External links

Metra Milwaukee District/West
service schedule {{DEFAULTSORT:Milwaukee District West Line Metra lines Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Elgin, Illinois