About Metra

You may think there’s an easy answer to that question, and in one sense, there is. Metra is the service mark used for rail service in northeast Illinois since 1985. But behind that simple name lies a convoluted history and a complex, multi-layered system. To understand how Metra operates, it really helps to know how Metra came about.

Chicago has always been the railroad center of the nation, and it has had commuter rail service almost as long as it has had trains. Rail service peaked in the 1930s when Chicago had the largest public transportation system in the world.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s the system was failing, with the CTA, private suburban bus companies, and commuter railroad companies experiencing big financial losses. To keep the system running, the General Assembly created the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in 1974.

At first the RTA was purely an oversight and funding agency. It did not directly operate rail service but instead paid private railroad companies through purchase-of-service agreements to do so. It also began to reverse decades of disinvestment in the overall rail system.

In 1980, the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Rail Corporation (NIRCRC) was created as a separate operating unit to run commuter rail service on behalf of the RTA. In 1982, after the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road railroads went bankrupt, NIRCRC was directly operating commuter service on those lines (Rock Island, Milwaukee District West and Milwaukee District North).

In 1983, the General Assembly reorganized the structure and funding of the RTA and also placed the operating responsibilities on three separate service boards: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the Suburban Bus Division (PACE), and the Commuter Rail Division (CRD). The CRD was now responsible for supervising all commuter rail transportation in northeast Illinois through purchase of service agreements with various railroad companies, including NIRCRC, which continued to operate as a separate public corporation.

Due to the complicated and patchwork nature of commuter rail at the time, the CRD in 1985 came up with the name “Metra” as a service mark for the system as a whole (short for “Metropolitan Rail”). The idea was to bring a unifying identity to all the various components, no matter who owned or operated them. Therefore, CRD and the entities it contracts with to operate the rail services in the northeast Illinois region, including NIRCRC, all use the “Metra” service mark.

That system still is in place, although the ownership and/or operators of several lines have changed.

Today, NIRCRC operates commuter service on the Metra Electric, Rock Island, Southwest Service, Heritage Corridor, North Central Service and the two Milwaukee lines. The three UP lines are operated by Union Pacific, and the BNSF line is run by  BNSF Railway.

Illinois Central Railroad started offering commuter service to Hyde Park in 1856. It operated on trestles in Lake Michigan just offshore until after the 1871 Chicago Fire, when debris was dumped in the lake and the landfill surrounded the tracks and created Grant Park. The branch lines were added in 1883 (South Chicago) and 1892 (Blue Island) and the commuter service was extended south, eventually to what is now University Park in 1977. The line was grade-separated starting in 1892 and then electrified by 1926. Metra bought the line for $26 million and started operating its service in 1987. It is Metra’s only electric line. Metra Electric timetables are “Panama Orange” in honor of the IC’s old Panama Limited trains.

Many Metra Electric riders still refer to that line as the IC, since that is the name it was known by for more than 100 years. Through its suburban and intercity trains, the Illinois Central Railroad played a key role in the development of Chicago, Illinois and the United States.

The IC was chartered by the Illinois General Assembly in 1851 to build a railroad from Cairo to Centralia (named for the railroad) and then branch from Centralia to Chicago and to Galena. The 700 miles of track were completed in 1856, making the IC the longest railroad in the world at that time.

When the IC was planning its route into Chicago, the city was trying to pay for a breakwater to protect the lakefront just south of the Chicago River from storms and erosion. The IC agreed to pay for the breakwater if it could build its tracks along the lakefront. The city agreed and established a route 400 feet east of Michigan Avenue. Due to erosion, some of the route was in the lake, a problem the IC solved by putting the tracks on trestles just offshore. The railroad filled in the lake near Randolph St. and built its Grand Central Station, the largest building in Chicago when completed in 1856.

The lakefront route took the IC through an area seven miles south of downtown named Hyde Park, then being developed by real estate speculator Paul Cornell. In exchange for land for the railroad, Cornell insisted the IC build a station and operate passenger service to the area. The IC reached Chicago in 1854 and the new “suburban service” to Hyde Park started on July 21, 1856. (Hyde Park didn’t become part of Chicago until 1889.)

The suburban service was extended to Woodlawn in 1858 and to Oak Woods Cemetery at 67th St. a few years later. But the service didn’t really catch on until after the Chicago Fire of 1871. The South Side was largely untouched and many displaced residents relocated there. (Another result of the fire was that debris was used to fill in the water between the shore and the trestles, creating parts of Grant Park.) Commuter service extended to Riverdale in 1872 and the first Sunday service on the line started in 1873.

The IC opened the South Chicago branch line in 1883 and the Blue Island branch in 1892. And the mainline reached Harvey in 1890, Flossmoor in 1900 and Matteson in 1912. The line was later extended to Richton (now Richton Park) in 1946 and Park Forest South (now University Park) in 1977.

The World’s Columbian Exposition on 1893 played a critical role in the IC’s history. To eliminate unsafe grade crossings, Chicago required all railroads to elevate their tracks, starting with the IC in 1892 in preparation for the fair. The IC also built new tracks to run express trains for fairgoers. And stations for the express trains had high-level platforms, a feature the IC eventually adopted for all its stations.

The success of the IC – and its location along the lakefront – directly led to the electrification of the line. It was bad enough that the 300 or so daily trains were belching smoke, but they were belching it into the city’s front yard. In 1919, the city required electrification by 1940. The work, which also included grade-separating the line to Richton Park, was completed in 1926.

In 1927, the first full year of electrified operation, the suburban lines carried 26 million passengers. Ridership rose to 35 million in 1929, and reached an all-time peak of 47 million in 1946. But a variety of factors caused ridership to decline from there. Population shifts and competition from the car and later the CTA’s Red Line all drew riders away.

By the 1970s, the IC’s suburban service was in the same boat as other area commuter lines that were operating by freight railroads. It was losing money and the IC couldn’t afford upgrades to the system or rolling stock. In response, the Chicago South Suburban Mass Transit District was created in 1969 to use federal dollars to buy the Highliner cars that were in use until 2016, when Metra completed the replacement of the entire Metra Electric fleet with new Highliner cars.

The RTA was formed in 1974 to help freight railroads pay for their commuter operations. Subsidies to the IC began in 1977. But then the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road railroads went bankrupt and the RTA was forced to operate those commuter operations directly. That led to the reorganization of the RTA and the creation of Metra, which started in 1984.

At first Metra paid the IC to run the suburban service. But in 1987, the IC offered to sell its electrified suburban line and the two branches to Metra for $28 million. That’s when the line was renamed the Metra Electric.

Train service to Joliet was begun by the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad in 1852. The branch was built in the 1870s and extended north in the 1880s. The Rock operated service on the line until it went bankrupt. The RTA bought it in 1982. For a short time, service on the line was run by Chicago & North Western but eventually the RTA and then Metra started running it. Rock Island timetables are “Rocket Red” for the Rock Island’s Rocket trains.

On October 10, 1852, a brightly painted locomotive coupled to six shiny yellow coaches chugged over new railroad tracks between Chicago and Joliet. It was the first train on the first completed section of what would become the immense Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

Now, more than 160 years later, the Rock Island Railroad is gone, but that original route retains the Rock Island name, as Metra’s Rock Island Line.

While the Rock is famous for its Rocket locomotives, the popular folk song and its role in the development of the Midwest, its commuter service in Chicago is also notable for the part it played in Chicago history. The communities of Beverly and Morgan Park, for instance, would not exist as they do today if not for the Rock Island Railroad.

There was passenger service on the route from the very beginning, with a few stops between Joliet and Chicago, and maybe a small number of people used it for a daily commute north to the fast-growing city. But the true commuter service can be traced to 1869, when the Blue Island Land and Building Company was set up to develop land centered on Prospect Ave. and what is now 103rd Street.

At the same time that what is now Morgan Park/Beverly was being developed, a branch line of the Rock Island was built through the area. The new branch track left the mainline at about 97th St., ran west along 99th for about a mile and then turned south to rejoin the mainline at Blue Island. The branch was completed in 1870, but even before then the appeal of train service was spurring development in the area.

The Chicago Fire of 1871 burned down the Rock Island line’s LaSalle Street Station (the present station is the fifth at that site). But it further increased demand for passenger service on the line, because outlying communities became more popular alternatives to city living. Morgan Park was marketed as an exclusive residential community served by frequent train service.

By 1883 the railroad was operating 10 suburban trains each way every day, mostly on the branch line to Blue Island, and there were numerous stops between the branch line and LaSalle St. Station.

In 1889, the branch line was extended north to serve more of Beverly. Rather than leaving the mainline at 97th, it now left the mainline at 89th and followed the route it still follows today to Blue Island. A year later, the railroad had 19 trains each way between Chicago and Blue Island.

In the 1890s, work began to elevate the tracks in Chicago, which allowed for a speedier operation but also resulted in the elimination of most of the closer-in stops. That work continued into the first decades of the 1900s.

The first decades of the century also saw the addition of service to towns between Blue Island and Joliet. By 1905 one could commute from Midlothian, New Lenox, Tinley Park and Mokena, and Oak Forest was added in 1911. In October 1912, Rock Island worked with other railroads to build Joliet Union Station.

Sometime around 1917-1918, the railroad started using “Beverly Hills” in the names of stations at 95th (formerly called Longwood), 99th (Walden) and 103rd (Tracy). Beverly Hills-107th (Belmont) and Morgan Park-115th St. (Raymond) were put in use several years later.

Other key dates in the history of the Rock’s suburban service include:

1948: The railroad emerged from a long bankruptcy and began an effort to make capital improvements.

1949: The first diesel engines began to replace steam locomotives.

1957: The Jet Rocket and, slightly later, the Aerotrains – sleekly designed, air-conditioned trains – started serving riders on the commuter route.

1965: The first bi-level cars were delivered from Budd Company, including cab cars that enabled a push-pull operation on the Rock for the first time.

1974: Area voters approved the creation of the RTA to assist all public transportation.

1975: The Rock Island Railroad entered bankruptcy.

1980: The bankruptcy judge initiated the liquidation of the railroad. The RTA eventually bought the commuter service.

1983: The RTA was reorganized and the Commuter Rail Board was created to operate commuter trains (the Board first met in 1984 and branded its service as Metra in 1985).   

Most information for this story on the Rock Island Line comes from company-issued histories and articles by Robert E. Stewart and Thomas J. Mitoraj.

The Milwaukee West and Milwaukee North lines, which date from the 1870s, are Chicago area remnants of the once-mighty Milwaukee Road, which had a long and storied history that ended in bankruptcy in 1980. At that point, the RTA started operating service on the routes. Metra took over and ended up buying the lines in 1987. One historical oddity is that while Metra owns and operates the Milwaukee lines, dispatching duties are performed by Canadian Pacific. That was the arrangement in place with CP’s predecessor at the time. Milwaukee West timetables are “Arrow Yellow” for the Milwaukee Road’s Arrow train, while Milwaukee North timetables are “Hiawatha Orange” for the famed Hiawatha trains.

The Milwaukee North and Milwaukee West lines are so named because they were once part of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad – known as the Milwaukee Road – the historic railroad system whose financial problems in the 1970s contributed to the creation of Metra.

The moniker is more appropriate for the Milwaukee North line, however. When the tracks that make up most of today’s Milwaukee North were laid in 1872, they brought a Wisconsin railroad into Illinois. The railroad that caused those tracks to be laid, the Milwaukee & St. Paul, added Chicago to its name in 1874 after the connection was completed.

By contrast, what is now the Milwaukee West line was built by the Chicago & Pacific Railroad, which fell under the control of the CM&StP in 1879.

The history of the Milwaukee Road starts in 1847, when a charter was issued for the Milwaukee & Waukesha Railroad. By 1850 that name had changed to the Milwaukee & Mississippi to reflect a more ambitious plan. The first rails were laid on Sept. 12, 1850, and they reached Waukesha by the following February and Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi by 1857.

The Panic of 1857, however, caused the M&M and many other railroads to go bankrupt. It was sold in 1861 and reorganized as the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien, which was soon gathered up with a number of other lines to create the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. By 1868, the M&StP had 825 miles of track, 135 locomotives, more than 130 units of passenger equipment and more than 2,400 freight cars.

But it didn’t have a line to Chicago, which had emerged as a major railroad hub with key connections to eastern railroads. So in 1872, it built one, crossing the state line just east of where Interstate 94 now crosses. The newly named CM&StP used a station at Clinton and Carroll until the first Union Station opened in 1881.

There were no large towns along the new line, but the railroad did help several smaller towns grow. It also helped establish Morton Grove’s famous greenhouses and Northbrook’s brick businesses (bricks were in high demand following the 1871 Chicago fire).

In 1881, a three-mile spur to Libertyville was built from the mainline at Rondout. A second track was added to the mainline in 1892 in time for the World’s Columbian Exposition a year later. By 1895, there were about 17 trains running in each direction between Chicago and Morton Grove, Libertyville or Milwaukee.

Extension of the Libertyville spur to Fox Lake and Janesville, Wis., began in 1899. Commuter rail service grew slowly over the years, with the spur to Fox Lake eventually becoming the main commuter route. A 1935 timetable shows seven weekday trains from Chicago to Deerfield, and six more from Chicago to Fox Lake.

In 1960, the Milwaukee Road announced that it would start modernizing its Chicago suburban operations by introducing its first double-deck, air conditioned coaches, something the Burlington and Chicago & North Western had started using a few years earlier. The railroad even put out a pamphlet to riders, telling them that buying 75 new coaches at $175,000 each would result in “more seats, shorter trains and speedier suburban service.” The railroad requested, and received, permission from the Illinois Commerce Commission to raise fares for the purchase of the first cars.

The Milwaukee Road, of course, was more than a commuter railroad. It was a major freight and intercity passenger railroad with more than 10,000 miles of track in the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In the 1930s it became famous around the globe when it introduced its 100-mph Hiawatha streamliners. In the 1950s it took over operation of the famous “Cities” trains such as the City of Los Angeles.

But the 1950s also marked the start of a slow decline, not only at the Milwaukee Road but at other railroads, due to a variety of factors. Railroads shed their intercity passenger trains after the creation of Amtrak in 1970 and looked to get rid of their unprofitable commuter operations as well. In the Chicago area this led to the creation of the RTA in 1973 to subsidize those operations with purchase-of-service agreements.

But the Milwaukee Road still couldn’t stem the tide and filed for bankruptcy in 1977. That set off a long process that led to the RTA assuming direct control of the two Milwaukee commuter routes in 1982 through a new subsidiary, the Northeast Illinois Railroad Corporation, which had also taken over the Rock Island line. A reorganization of the RTA a year later led to the creation of Metra to operate the commuter rail system, either directly or through purchase-of-service agreements.

Most of this information is taken from official Milwaukee Road histories and from articles in The Milwaukee Railroader, published by the Milwaukee Road Historical Association.

The Milwaukee West and Milwaukee North lines, which date from the 1870s, are Chicago area remnants of the once-mighty Milwaukee Road, which had a long and storied history that ended in bankruptcy in 1980. At that point, the RTA started operating service on the routes. Metra took over and ended up buying the lines in 1987. One historical oddity is that while Metra owns and operates the Milwaukee lines, dispatching duties are performed by Canadian Pacific. That was the arrangement in place with CP’s predecessor at the time. Milwaukee West timetables are “Arrow Yellow” for the Milwaukee Road’s Arrow train, while Milwaukee North timetables are “Hiawatha Orange” for the famed Hiawatha trains.

The ancestor of today’s Milwaukee West line was chartered as the “Atlantic & Pacific Railroad” on Feb. 16, 1865. Its name was more ambitious than its stated goal of crossing Illinois, by way of Chicago, to the town of Savanna on the Mississippi River just south of Galena.

By 1871, when the railroad was finally organized and the name was changed to the “Chicago & Pacific Railroad,” it was ready to join a growing list of railroads connecting Chicago to the rest of the continent. To head out of Chicago, it selected a route between two existing railroads, the ones now known as the UP West and UP Northwest lines.

In a description of the route that seems to have been written by the railroad to encourage investment, the author boasted about the towns that would be reached by the line, including Jefferson, Leyden, Addison, Bloomingdale, Hanover and Elgin.

“These towns are thickly settled by an intelligent, industrious and thrifty population. The land is cut up into small farms, which are not only well improved but fully stocked with everything which makes agriculture profitable; and nearly every acre of the ground is under a high state of cultivation.”

The first tracks were laid on July 10, 1872, and by the time that description was published on May 1, 1873, the railroad had nearly reached Elgin. Suburban service – in other words, a commuter train operation – was envisioned from the very beginning, along with freight.

“Arrangements are already making for building several suburban towns along the line of the road between Chicago and Elgin by the capitalists of Chicago, which will at once make a large business for the suburban trains which will be placed up the road and run regularly,” the description said.

Included was a list of the stations or towns to be served and brief summaries. Those stops were Humboldt, Almira, Pacific, 46th St. crossing and Kelvyn Grove, Galewood, Mont Clare, Orison (Elmwood Park), River Park (River Grove), Roselle and Elgin. (It noted that Roselle would be only one of several stops between River Park and Elgin.)  In its description of River Park, the railroad again boasted about its suburban trains.

“The company have [sic] determined to run hourly trains, equipped with all the modern improvements, from the city to River Park, stopping at every station and carrying passengers at low rates of fare. They are assured of a large and paying business for their suburban trains at once, from the fact that hundreds of families are preparing to move on to the line of the road to avail themselves of the advantages offered by the company, as it is understood that one of the specialties of the Chicago & Pacific Railroad will be the accommodation of the suburban travel…”

An 1874 timetable for the railroad shows that it was offering four round trips daily between its Chicago passenger terminal at Chicago and Larrabee and Elgin. The one-way fare for the 34-mile trip was $1.25.

In its original route out of Chicago, the line headed northwest from Chicago and Larrabee to Bloomingdale Ave, where it turned directly west. In 1879, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad acquired a controlling interest in the C&P and leased it in perpetuity a year later. That was the name adopted by the Milwaukee & St. Paul in 1874 after it entered the Chicago market by building what is now part of the Milwaukee North line. One result of the acquisition was that some Elgin trains were rerouted; at the crossing of the CM&StP and C&P five miles northwest of downtown they started using the CM&StP route downtown. That intersection is still where the Milwaukee West and North lines diverge.

The Bloomingdale segment east of the junction, which eventually was elevated, continued to be used for freight and some commuter trains but eventually fell into disuse. In 2015, that section was turned into a recreational trail known as the 606.

Commuter trains were added over the years, some of them originating from closer-in stations and some from Elgin. (There was even an express train from Elgin by 1915.) By 1930 there were 14 round-trip trains from Elgin.

The route was operated by the CM&StP, known as the Milwaukee Road, until 1982. That’s when the RTA and later Metra assumed control of the route from the bankrupt Milwaukee Road.

Most of this information is from “The Chicago & Pacific Railroad: A Description of The New Railroad Line Across the State of Illinois” and articles that appeared in The Milwaukee Railroader, published by the Milwaukee Road Historical Association.

Parts of this line originated with the Wabash Railway, which built a link to Chicago in 1880. That section, south of 74th, eventually ended up belonging to Norfolk Southern. Another part, from 21st to 74th, belonged to the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad (which was owned by Wabash and other railroads) and parts are now owned by Metra or NS. Metra controls none of the six intersections with freight railroads on this line. Wabash and the NS operated commuter trains on the route to Orland Park. Metra assumed operations in 1993, renaming it the SouthWest Service. Commuter service was extended to Manhattan in 2006. Metra leases the route from NS, and trains are dispatched from Dearborn, Mich. Timetables are “Banner Blue” to commemorate the Wabash Railroad’s Banner Blue trains.

In 2006, the town of Manhattan, Ill., had long been off railroading’s beaten path. The farm village still boasted just two traffic lights and a quiet, weatherworn section of ex-Wabash Railroad mainline that saw only sporadic use. Passenger service had ended long before, and Manhattan’s tiny depot was rapidly succumbing to the elements. But on Jan. 30, 2006, a stainless steel streamliner led by modern diesels once again prowled the Wabash main, bringing passengers to Manhattan on scheduled commuter service for the first time since 1971.

This was not a return of the Wabash back from railroading’s graveyard. Instead, Metra had started a new commuter service on 12 miles of line that soon became known as the “Wabash Extension.”

The tracks over which Metra operates the SouthWest Service (SWS) date to the mid-to-late 19th century and were built as the Wabash mainline running north from Strawn, Ill., to a connection with the Chicago & Western Indiana near downtown. From there, the road’s passenger trains ran into Dearborn Street Station. The track, laid in 1880, was a relatively late addition to the Wabash system, an attempt to capture freight and passenger business headed to the Windy City.

The Wabash’s origins date to 1834 as the Northern Cross Railroad. In 1858, the Toledo and Illinois was chartered, and from there, what eventually emerged as the Wabash went through the mergers, bankruptcies and changes of ownership that characterize late 19th century railroading. Proxy control (via stock ownership) by the Pennsylvania Railroad came in 1927, and in 1941 the Pennsy solidified its grip, though the Wabash remained more or less independent. Finally, in 1964, the Wabash merged with the Norfolk & Western, and eventually, following the 1982 merger of N&W and Southern, the Norfolk Southern (NS).

Wabash existed as a “paper railroad” as late as 1991, when NS finally merged it completely out of existence. The mainline out of Chicago ran south to Bement, Ill., where it joined Wabash’s east-west mainline across south-central Illinois. A 1990 trackage rights agreement with nearby Illinois Central (since 1999, Canadian National) allowed NS to operate over one of the IC’s secondary lines between Gibson City and Gilman, then on the IC mainline to Chicago. This allowed NS to abandon the Wabash main between Gibson City and Manhattan. NS maintained ownership of the 41-mile portion of the line that ran from Chicago south to Manhattan. The primary reason for the railroad’s continued existence was Metra’s operation over the northern part of the line.

At one time, the line had been home to famous Wabash passenger trains like the “Banner Blue,” “Blue Bird,” and “Midnight Limited.” Commuter service appears to have begun as early as 1893, operating as far south as Orland Park. By the 1930s, service on the line declined but the Wabash did continue to operate a small commuter service to Chicago: the “Chicago Express” ran north in the morning and the “Decatur Express” rolled south in the evening. Following the N&W merger in 1964, this service was cut back to serve just the north end of the line, terminating in Orland Park.

In 1976, the RTA began to assume control of the various privately owned commuter services. At the same time, the line’s Chicago terminus was moved from Dearborn Station to Union Station via a new connection at 21st St. RTA subsidies to N&W began in 1978. Metra, which assumed control of commuter operations from the RTA in 1984, took over full operation of the service in 1993. The line became known as the SouthWest Service. NS still owns the track but leases it to Metra.

By the mid-1990s, Metra had extended service from the line’s original commuter terminus at 143rd St. to 179th St. To add more capacity, Metra decided to extend service south approximately 12 miles to Manhattan. At the same time, track and stations north of Manhattan would be upgraded to handle almost double the traffic from 16 to 30 trains daily. In October 2000, the extension project obtained final funding approval. Total program costs worked out to slightly more than $198 million.

Metra planned to nearly double service on the line, requiring a significant upgrade of signaling systems as well as some additional track and sidings. The portion south of Orland Park also needed upgrades to accommodate Metra’s 79 mph operating speeds .

Metra began the expanded service in 2006, marking the first passenger trains to Manhattan in more than 30 years. Starting in March 2009, service on the line was extended to Saturdays as well.

This is a highly condensed version of “Follow the Flag: Chicago’s Metra ‘Wabash Extension,’” by Paul Burgess, from the Spring 2013 edition of First & Fastest, published by the Shore Line Interurban Historical Society.

The line originated with the Chicago and Alton Railroad, then was part of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, which merged with Illinois Central. Lemont (1858) and Lockport (1863) are the oldest depots in the Metra system and were there when President Lincoln’s funeral train passed through. For many years there was only one weekday round trip on the line. The RTA added a second trip in each direction in 1979. When the Illinois Central Gulf sold the Metra Electric line to Metra in 1987, it also handed over commuter operations on the Chicago-Joliet route, although it still owned the tracks. Metra renamed the line the Heritage Corridor. Metra still operates the service (it added a third round-trip in 1999 and an extra outbound trip in 2016) but the tracks are now owned by CN and trains are dispatched from Homewood. Metra controls none of the five intersections with freight railroads on this line. Heritage schedules are “Alton Maroon” for a color used by the Alton Railroad.

In 1856, the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad still hadn’t achieved its goal of reaching Chicago. The railroad, built north from Alton and Springfield starting in 1851, had made it as far north as Joliet, where its trains either switched to the Rock Island tracks into Chicago or transferred their freight to boats heading up the Illinois & Michigan Canal.

That year, the Illinois Legislature issued a charter for the Joliet & Chicago Railroad, which would parallel the canal between the two cities. A prime backer of the J&C was the city of Lockport, whose town fathers feared they were overly dependent on the canal and sought a rail link to ensure future growth. Lacking the political power and railroad experience to do the job, they turned to Illinois Gov. Joel Matteson, who had risen to power from the Joliet area, for help. Matteson, believing that the J&C would not succeed unless it served as the CA&St.L’s extension into Chicago, hired the established railroad to survey and then build the new segment. It was understood that the J&C would be leased to the CA&St.L.

The timing was not good, however. The CA&St.L’s finances were in bad shape. The unusually severe winter of 1854-55 had left the railroad in need of expensive repairs, and fraudulent wheeling and dealing by railroad executives had drained resources. No work was done until June 1857, but by October the first five miles were completed to Lockport. A special train was commissioned to mark the occasion. Next to be completed was a seven-mile segment to Lemont, noted for its limestone quarries that were started after the construction of the canal. (The Lockport and Lemont stations were made of Lemont limestone.)

Work on the remaining segment to Chicago was completed in March 1858. On March 18, a nine-car CA&St.L train left Joliet, carrying two brass bands and a large number of invited guests for a ceremonial first trip. The train derailed twice en route, the roadbed having been eroded by wet weather, but eventually the train made it to the big city. It’s not clear where it stopped downtown, since at that point the J&C had no terminal in Chicago. (Eventually it started using a terminal opened by the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago at Madison and Canal.)

In 1864, the larger railroad, now known as the Chicago & Alton, signed a permanent lease for the J&C, making it part of the Chicago & Alton system.

On May 2, 1865, a nine-car train bearing the body of Abraham Lincoln left Chicago bound for his final resting place in Springfield. Thousands of crowds lined the route and met that train in Summit, Willow Springs, Lemont and Lockport, and 12,000 people waited in Joliet. The Lemont and Lockport stations that were passed by that train remain standing, the oldest stations in our system.

In 1871, the C&A’s losses in the Chicago Fire included its general offices at 53-55 Dearborn, its freight house between Van Buren and Congress just west of the river and 113 boxcars and flatcars.

In 1881, the C&A was one of several railroads to begin using the new Union Station at Canal and Adams. Likewise, in 1912, the Alton was one of three railroads to open the new Joliet Union Station. And in 1925, when the current Chicago Union Station opened, the C&A was an original tenant.

In 1931, the Chicago & Alton came under the control of the Baltimore and Ohio and started operating as the Alton Railroad. That lasted until 1947, when the Gulf Mobile & Ohio assumed ownership of the Alton Railroad. Then in August 1972, the Illinois Central absorbed the GM&O and formed the Illinois Central Gulf.

Throughout its history, the route between Joliet and Chicago primarily served freight trains and intercity passenger trains. For many years, there was only one weekday commuter train in the morning and another one returning in the evening, though it’s not clear when that service began. Under the GM&O, the service was operated by a former intercity engine and three coaches, and it was called the “Plug.”

The ICG tried to discontinue the service in 1974, but it was unsuccessful. In 1978, after the RTA was formed and began subsidizing commuter rail operations, the “Plug” was replaced by a more modern locomotive and bi-level coaches, and a second round-trip train was added in 1979.

In 1987, the ICG sold its electrified commuter line to the newly formed Metra, and Metra renamed that line the Metra Electric. As part of the deal, Metra began operating the commuter service on the ICG route between Joliet and Chicago, although the ICG retained ownership of the line itself. That line was named the Heritage Corridor to reflect its passage through the new I&M Canal National Heritage Corridor.

In 1998, the line was sold to CN, so our trackage rights agreement to operate Metra trains is now with that railroad. In April 1999, Metra added a third daily round-trip to the line. In 2016, Metra added a fourth afternoon outbound train.

Most information in this article is from The Chicago & Alton Railroad: The Only Way by Gene V. Glendinning.

The three Chicago area commuter lines that are now owned by Union Pacific spent much of their existence as part of Chicago & North Western. Each began independently before becoming part of C&NW:

• The Northwest Line, which started as the Illinois & Wisconsin in 1854, became part of C&NW when that system was formed in 1859.
• The West Line, which began as the Galena & Chicago Union in 1848, became part of C&NW system in 1864.
• The North Line, which started as the Chicago & Milwaukee in 1854, was leased by C&NW starting in 1866 and was bought by the C&NW in 1883.

Commuter service on all three lines developed gradually, particularly in the years following the Civil War and the Chicago fire of 1871. The fire especially made living in the suburbs, away from the congestion and noise of the city, more appealing, and the railroad promoted and benefited from the trend.

By the end of the century, the railroad’s passenger terminal at Kinzie and Wells had become too small for the number of commuters and intercity passengers using it. The railroad spared no expense on a new $23 million facility, which opened on June 4, 1911, on a site bounded by Madison, Lake, Clinton and Canal.

It featured a three-story, 202-by-117-foot main waiting room, a dining room, women’s rooms with writing desks and hairdressing services, smoking rooms for men, a barber shop, hospital rooms and a variety of other features.

In 1915, a committee sponsored by the Chicago Association of Commerce recommended that C&NW electrify its tracks between Chicago and Waukegan, Des Plaines and Elmhurst. The company considered it in the 1920s, particularly after the Illinois Central electrified its commuter service (today’s Metra’s Electric Line) in 1926. But the cost – at least $60 million – and fact that the commuter trains were money-losers deterred implementation.

Also in the 1920s, the railroad improved several suburban depots and introduced some new aluminum-alloy commuter cars. It also leased a private car, the Deerpath, to wealthy businessmen on its North line in 1929. (The descendant of that car is still in service.) But during that same decade, the company was noticing a severe drop in local train passengers due to the growing popularity of the automobile.

Like the rest of the country, the railroad was battered by the Depression in the 1930s, leading to a nine-year bankruptcy starting in 1935. C&NW’s introduction of its famed “400” intercity trains that decade was one of the few bright spots.

In the 1940s and 1950s, passenger trains continued to lose riders to the automobile and airplane. Commuter trains fared better than intercity trains but still were generally losing money. 

C&NW sought to reverse that trend under new leader Ben Heineman, who came aboard in 1956. The Heineman era included catching up on deferred maintenance, modernizing ticketing and collection methods, revising schedules and adjusting fares. The railroad also replaced the commuter fleet with new bi-level coaches and shuttered about 20 close-in stations so it could concentrate on suburban service. And it rehabbed several locomotives and instituted a push-pull operation into and out of Chicago.

Like other railroads in the 1960s and 1970s, C&NW sought to deal with losses by diversifying, and by 1970 the railroad was a money-losing component of a much larger corporation. In 1972, Heineman sold C&NW to an employee-led investment group.

Two years later, the RTA was formed and it began to subsidize the region’s commuter trains. C&NW entered a purchase-of-service agreement with the RTA, an arrangement that continues for the three lines, although the agreement is now between Metra, which started in 1984, and UP, which bought C&NW in 1995.

In 1984, the grand old headhouse of the North Western Station was razed to make way for the 42-story Citigroup Center (now Accenture Tower), which was completed in 1987 and now serves as the main station entrance. The passenger platforms and adjoining facilities were renovated starting in 1992, after Metra bought them from C&NW. Upon completion of the $141 million project, the station was renamed the Richard B. Ogilvie Transportation Center, after the former governor who championed mass transit.

C&NW’s long history came to an end when Union Pacific bought it in April 1995. The two railroads had long collaborated on connections to the West Coast and buying C&NW gave Union Pacific a connection to Chicago to help it compete with other railroads.

Most information in this history is from “The North Western: A History of the Chicago & North Western Railway System” by H. Roger Grant. 

In February 1851, the Illinois Legislature incorporated the Illinois Parallel Railroad Company, giving it the power to lay tracks north from Chicago along the shore of Lake Michigan to Waukegan and then to the Wisconsin state line. The line was soon renamed the Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad and the route it took would evolve into today’s UP North Line.

A month later, the Wisconsin Legislature authorized the Green Bay, Milwaukee & Chicago Railroad Company to build several routes, including one from Milwaukee south to Racine and Kenosha and then to the Illinois state line.

The Chicago & Milwaukee reached Waukegan in 1854, and passenger service began immediately. The railroad soon reached the state line, where it linked up with the Wisconsin railroad to connect Chicago and Milwaukee (for a short time passengers and freight traveling between the two cities had to change trains at the state line).

The meeting of the railroads was celebrated by Chicagoans and Milwaukeeans during a major “last spike” ceremony in Kenosha in 1855. Among the dignitaries was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, who delivered a speech, "taking as his subject the manifest destiny of the Northwest to become the dominant section of the entire country. Chicago was to be the greatest city on the continent and Milwaukee was to be a close second.” That quote is from a history of the Chicago & North Western Railroad, which started leasing the Chicago & Milwaukee in 1866 and bought it outright in 1883.

In 1857, the Wisconsin half of the line was renamed the Milwaukee & Chicago Railroad. Six years later the Chicago & Milwaukee and the Milwaukee & Chicago joined forces, with the moniker Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad winning out as the name for the combined operation.

A local train for North Shore residents began in 1856. Early commuter service was so unprofitable that the directors of the railroad nearly gave up to concentrate on freight. But the superintendent convinced them to give the commuter trains more time for business to pick up. Eventually it did – and one of the beneficiaries was the railroad’s president, Walter Gurnee, a former Chicago mayor who with his partners did well buying up and selling land around stations in what would become Lake Bluff, Highland Park, Ravinia, Glencoe and Winnetka. (The far north suburban village of Gurnee is named after him, but he never lived there and may not have ever set foot in the area.)

In 1869, service between Chicago and Kenosha consisted of seven trains each way daily. Downtown, most of those trains terminated at a station at Wells and Kinzie that had been built in 1853. The trip from Kenosha, making stops in Waukegan, Rockland (Lake Bluff), Lake Forest, Highland Park, Glencoe, Winnetka, Evanston, Calvary (cemetery), Rosehill (cemetery) and Ravenswood, took about two hours and 10 minutes.

The Great Fire of 1871 destroyed the downtown depot and it took 10 years to build a new one at the same location. During that decade many suburbs grew quickly, in part because the fire increased the desirability of living away from the congested city but also due to economic and demographic trends that contributed to the growth of all suburbs. Commuter service grew accordingly.

As David Young notes in "The Iron Horse and the Windy City," Evanston was the only incorporated town along the line in 1870, “but within a decade there were six suburbs with a combined population of 11,833, and by 1900 the combined population of the corridor had quadrupled.”

In 1896, work began to elevate the C&NW tracks on the north side of Chicago to comply with a city ordinance aimed at eliminating grade crossing accidents. (Evanston later passed a similar ordinance.) The bridges that were built over city streets back then are the ones now being replaced in Metra’s UP North bridge replacement project.

In 1906, land acquisition began for a new passenger terminal in Chicago at the site where Ogilvie now is located. Work began in 1908 and the facility was completed in 1911.

When the terminal opened, the headhouse featured an immense waiting room with a three-story barrel-vaulted skylight, as well as dressing rooms, baths, nurses and matrons rooms, and a doctor’s office. Tracks were on the second level, above a mail substation and other facilities.

The head house was razed in 1984 to make way for the 42-story Accenture Tower, which was completed in 1987. The second-level platforms survive as part of Ogilvie.

Most of this information is from a history of the C&NW that was issued by the railroad in 1910; "The Iron Horse and the Windy City" by David M. Young; and "Forty Years on the Rail" by Charles B. George. Metra timetables for the UP North are “Flambeau Green”; green for the C&NW’s historical green and yellow locomotives and Flambeau for one of its passenger trains.

In February 1851, the same month the ancestor of today’s UP North line was chartered, the State of Illinois chartered the railroad that would evolve into today’s UP Northwest line. That charter authorized the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad to lay tracks between McHenry County and a point on the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad (today’s UP West line) in Cook County.

The line opened with passenger train service in 1854, with one train daily leaving a depot near Canal and Kinzie at 9 a.m., serving stops at Jefferson, Canfield (Edison Park), Des Plaines and Bradley and arriving at Deer Grove at 11 a.m. The return trip left Deer Grove at 4 p.m. and arrived in Chicago at 5:40 p.m.

Some of those stops are unfamiliar to us today. Bradley, for instance, was an early name for Arlington Heights. Early settler William Dunton offered some of his land to the railroad to make sure it came to the area. The route plotted by the railroad ended up passing through the living room of his two-story house, which he had to move. When a town grew around the depot, he named it Bradley, after a friend. But since there already was a Bradley in Illinois the name was quickly changed to Dunton. The name of Arlington Heights was suggested by real estate developers trying to lure Chicagoans to the suburb in the 1870s, and the name became official in 1887.

The Deer Grove station didn’t last long. When farmers around the station objected to selling land for a town to be developed there, the railroad put the station building on a flatcar and moved it two miles northwest, where settlers around what is now Barrington were more accommodating.

In 1855 the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad merged with Wisconsin’s Rock River Valley Railroad to form the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad. By March 1857, the number of daily passenger trains had increased to two each way between Chicago and Janesville, Wis., and they were making additional stops at towns like Palatine, Cary, Crystal Lake, Woodstock and Harvard. In the early years the railroad also had to convert the original strap-rail (metal straps nailed to wooden ties) to metal rails.

Crystal Lake residents had believed the railroad would connect to them without any local investment. They were wrong, and the tracks were placed a mile north. At about same time, the Fox River Valley Railroad was being built through the area north from Elgin and Algonquin, passing through Crystal Lake on the way to McHenry and Richmond. (The two track gangs actually attacked each other and the bad blood didn’t end until the Fox River Valley agreed to bridge over the intersection.) A town named Nunda developed at the intersection. Nunda and Crystal Lake were rivals for five decades until they merged to form present-day Crystal Lake in 1914.

Today’s McHenry branch of the UP Northwest line is a remnant of the Fox River Valley Railroad, and it’s also a remnant of passenger train service that once extended to Lake Geneva.

Like many other railroads, the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac did not survive the financial panic of 1857. The railroad went bankrupt and in 1859 it was reorganized into the Chicago & North-Western Railway, with former Chicago Mayor William B. Ogden as president. That was the start of a company that would play a significant role in the history of U.S. railroads and Chicago for more than 100 years. Five years later, in 1864, came the “Great Consolidation” with the older Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, creating a huge network that took the C&NW name.

Commuter service developed as suburbs sprang up in the years after the Civil War, aided by the Chicago fire, which made suburban living more desirable, as well as the same economic and demographic trends that fueled the growth of all suburbs. When the little area of Brickton, named after a brick factory that had built the local train depot in 1856, decided to incorporate in 1873, they gave their town the more appealing name of Park Ridge. The change – suggested by town’s first president, a refugee from the fire – symbolized its transition to a commuting suburb.

By 1874, there were eight trains in each direction operating every day. You could buy an annual pass from Palatine to downtown for $95. (Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $2,200. Monthly passes from Palatine now cost $2,520 a year.)

In 1892, a second track was added to the line. And by 1898, the C&NW had completed elevating the tracks of the Northwest line between Clybourn and Mayfair, a 4.6-mile segment, to meet a city requirement. By 1899, a third track existed from the downtown terminal to Mayfair and was extended to Barrington by 1930.

Most of this information is from a history of the C&NW that was issued by the railroad in 1910 and the online Encyclopedia of Chicago. UP Northwest timetables use “Viking Yellow,” for a color used by C&NW and from the name of one of its trains.

What is now the UP West line started as the Galena & Chicago Union in 1848, the first railroad in Chicago. The two other UP lines had different origins in the 1850s. Chicago & North Western owned all three for most of their existence. These lines passed to UP ownership when the C&NW merged with UP in 1995. UP now operates and dispatches trains from Omaha, Nebraska. The trains run on the left-hand side, thought to be a function of how the first track and depots were situated when a second track was added. The UP West line was extended to Elburn in 2006. UP West timetables are “Kate Shelley Rose,” named for a girl from Iowa who saved a train from disaster in 1881.

The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, which would become Chicago’s first railroad and eventually form the Union Pacific West Line, was chartered in 1836, when U.S. railroading was still in its infancy and the population of the new town was only about 4,000 people.

Backers of the railroad sought a connection to the mineral-rich lands of northwestern Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin. As with capital projects even to this day, a lack of funding held up progress. The Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression dried up funding sources, and the project languished for a decade.

The push for the railroad was renewed by a group that included William B. Ogden, who had served as Chicago’s first mayor from 1837 to 1838, and real estate developer Walter Newberry. They not only believed in the commercial promise of the railroad, but also thought if they built its Chicago terminal on the north side of the Chicago River, it would boost the value of land they owned there and halt the domination of commerce by owners of land to the south of the river.

They obtained the charter in 1847. But obtaining the funding was still difficult. Eastern investors were slow to back the railroad, and support from communities along the proposed route fell far short of the amount necessary to complete the entire length. The decision was made to build what they could afford to build and hope the remaining funding would come through as construction progressed west. That plan succeeded.

Work began in the summer of 1848 and by that fall track had been laid as far as the Des Plaines River. On Nov. 20, 1848, a small second-hand locomotive named the “Pioneer” – which arrived in Chicago by boat, since there was no rail connection to the east – made a publicity run to what is now Oak Park pulling a couple of cars fitted with about 100 seats. On the way back, two passengers bought some wheat and hides from a farmer and the first goods arrived in Chicago by rail. (The “Pioneer” is now at the Chicago History Museum.)

The Galena & Chicago Union progressed west from the Des Plaines River to what is now West Chicago, where it turned northwest to Elgin, opening for business there in January 1850. The railroad was completed to Huntley, Marengo and Belvedere in 1851, Rockford in 1852 and Freeport in 1853. (The G&CU never made it to Galena.)

Some towns that were narrowly bypassed by the Galena & Chicago built their own branch lines to connect to that railroad. For instance, a branch was built from Aurora and Batavia to what is now West Chicago. That branch evolved into the BNSF line. In 1854, the G&CU was already working on a second mainline from the West Chicago area to Geneva, DeKalb and Fulton.

The G&CU’s first downtown station in 1848 was near Canal and Kinzie, west of the north branch of the Chicago River. By 1853, there was a new depot at Kinzie and Wells, fulfilling the goal of having a terminal north of the Chicago River.

By 1855, the railroad started building a second track, which was completed to West Chicago by the end of 1857. The construction of the second track is thought to be responsible for the left-hand operation of the line. When the line was built, most of the depots were north of the tracks. When the second track was added, it therefore had to go south of the existing track (or else the depots would have had to be moved). The track closest to the depots naturally became the inbound track, because most people waiting in the depots are heading downtown, and you don’t want them to have to cross a track to board a train.

In 1864, the Galena & Chicago Union merged with the Chicago & North Western. Among the reasons for adopting the C&NW name for the combined company was that it more accurately described the range of the consolidated company – plus the fact that no part of the combined railroad reached Galena.

There was passenger service on the line almost from the beginning. The first passenger coach, built in Chicago for $2,000, arrived in 1849. But true commuter service evolved over the years, influenced by events such as the Chicago Fire in 1871 (which made suburban life more appealing) as well as economic and demographic trends that factored in the growth of all suburbs.

Most of this information is from an article in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society by Patrick E. McLear, a history of the C&NW issued by the railroad in 1910, and David M. Young’s 2005 book, “The Iron Horse and the Windy City.” 

The first rail service from Aurora to Chicago in 1850 chugged north from Aurora to the G&CU tracks (now the UP West) and then east to Chicago. When that line got too congested, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy built their own direct line, which opened with passenger service in 1864. Over the years, the name of the owner changed to Burlington Northern to Burlington Northern Santa Fe to BNSF. This line was the first to use bi-level coaches, built by Budd in 1950. BNSF dispatches trains from Ft. Worth, Texas. BNSF timetables are “Kelly Green” or “Cascade Green” for the color used on BNSF freight locomotives.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the western suburbs served by the BNSF line grew up with the railroad and that the railroad grew up with the suburbs. The two have been intricately linked since the very beginning, nearly 150 years ago.

The route had its origins in 1850 with a 12-mile railroad that connected Aurora to the recently completed Galena & Chicago Union, now the UP West Line, in what is now West Chicago. The Aurora Branch Line allowed trains from Aurora to head north to the G&CU and then east into Chicago. By 1855, the branch line became part of the Chicago Burlington & Quincy.

That route, however, proved to be short-lived. Traffic on the G&CU became so heavy that it moved to terminate its trackage rights agreement with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy to make way for more of its own trains. After trying to buy one of the two G&CU tracks, the Burlington decided instead to build its own direct route to Chicago.

Work began during the Civil War in October 1862. There were many hurdles, including the high cost of labor due to the war, a harsh winter that year and a “seemingly bottomless bog” between Hinsdale and Western Springs that had to be filled in. The work was done by May 1864, at a cost of about $1 million.

Although passenger trains started operating on the line immediately, the first trains primarily carried milk, hay and wheat to Chicago from small agricultural towns such as Naperville, Downers Grove, Hinsdale and La Grange. However, the towns soon began to take on a more residential character, with businessman from Chicago moving in. By the end of the decade, the first trains catering to commuters to and from Chicago started operating, and the towns along the line began to grow into the suburbs we know today.

The 1871 Chicago Fire further highlighted the advantages of living in the suburbs. (The Burlington’s offices at 2 S. Water were destroyed; but company records survived in a fireproof safe.) In the years following the fire, real estate developers and the railroad promoted suburban life over living in the city.

In 1881, Burlington trains began to use the original Union Station at Canal and Adams. Before this time, Burlington used the Illinois Central station at Randolph and Michigan, reaching the IC’s tracks via the St. Charles Air Line. In 1925, its trains started to use the current Chicago Union Station.

Other notable events in the BNSF Line’s history include:

1934: Burlington debuted its stainless steel, diesel-powered Zephyr “streamliner” locomotive in stylish fashion – it covered 1,015 miles from Denver to Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition in 13 hours, 5 minutes, half the time of a conventional train. The Zephyrs never pulled suburban trains, but diesel engines were here to stay – and the lightweight stainless steel was soon adopted for passenger cars.

1950: Burlington became the first Chicago area railroad to use stainless steel, bi-level, air-conditioned gallery cars, setting the standard for Chicago commuter rail lines. The “Suburbanaire Service” cars enabled Burlington to expand capacity without the need for more trains or longer trains. Some of the cars from the 1950s, manufactured by Budd, are still in use.

1952: The railroad completed the replacement of steam locomotives with diesel engines on the suburban line. At this time it also moved its Downers Grove terminal operation to Aurora, which resulted in more train service for the towns west of Downers Grove.

1965: Burlington started to use a push-pull operation into and out of Union Station.

1970: The Burlington Northern was formed by the merger of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane Portland & Seattle. Also that year, the railroad adopted a new schedule with more express trains to and from far western suburbs.

1972: The West Suburban Mass Transit District was formed by communities along the line to help BN secure funding for capital improvements.

1973: Area voters approved the creation of the Regional Transportation Authority to assist all public transportation.

1983: The RTA Act was amended; Metra and Pace were created.

1996: BN merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form BNSF Railway.

Today, BNSF Railway still owns the BNSF line, and operates the commuter rail service with its own crews under a purchase-of-service agreement with Metra.

At 5:27 a.m. on Monday, August 19, 1996, a regular service Metra train rolled south out of Antioch for the first time, inaugurating the first new commuter train line in the Chicago area in about 70 years: the North Central Service was born.

The 53-mile, $131.4 million new line got off to a good start – about 1,000 passengers rode on the first day, boarding one of the 10 trains on the initial timetable. Twenty years later, the line has matured into a vital transportation option for about 6,500 passengers and an economic catalyst for more than a dozen communities in northern Cook and Lake counties.

Like most tracks in Chicago, the tracks now used by the North Central Service have gone through many owners. They were first built by the original Wisconsin Central Railroad in the late 19th century, and the Soo Line took control in 1909. Soo operated freight and intercity passenger trains, but by 1965 all passenger service on the route had ceased. (There is no record of any real commuter service along the route.) In 1987, Soo, which was then a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific, sold the line to a new entity that revived the Wisconsin Central name. The new Wisconsin Central was then bought by Canadian National, the current owner, in 2001.

Metra began eyeing the freight line for a commuter route shortly after it was formed in 1984. The idea made its way into Metra and regional planning documents by the late 1980s and by the early 1990s Metra had forged a partnership with communities along the route, which agreed to fund stations and parking lots. That groundswell of support was key to getting about $75 million in federal funding to develop the line.

Much work had to be done to make the single-track line compatible for commuter trains. Rails and signals were upgraded to allow for 60-mph commuter trains. Sidings were added or elongated so freight trains could move out of the way of commuter trains and vice versa. Gates were upgraded at 69 crossings and rebuilt at 23 crossings. New stations and parking lots were built by the communities along the route.

Ridership was high enough by 1997 – more than 3,600 passenger trips a day – that Metra moved ahead with plans to add a second track and make other improvements, allowing it to operate more trains. That work cost $218 million and took until January 2006, when four new stations opened and 20 trains started to run daily. Two more trains were added that September.