Metra Prepares For Winter Storm

From the The Metra: With a major winter storm on the way, Metra will mobilize

all the crews and snow-fighting resources at its disposal this weekend to ensure a safe,
comfortable and reliable commute for customers throughout its six-county service area.
“Metra has made a variety of improvements that leave us well-prepared for winter’s
onslaught, including more and better switch heaters and better jet blowers to clear snow,” said
Metra Executive Director/CEO Don Orseno. “We’ve also taken several steps to improve
communications with our customers so they can always be up to date with the latest information
about their trains.”

Metra will take a variety of steps before and during the storm, including:

• Dispatching Metra signal/switch maintainers to key locations and staffing them
24/7. The switches must remain free of snow and ice, and while all mainline switches
have heaters to help keep them clear, sometimes the snow and ice falls too fast or falls
from a passing train and the switches need to be cleared manually with brooms, shovels
or picks.

• Dispatching about 350 workers to shovel and salt platforms and other areas that are
Metra’s responsibility to clear. Clearing platforms, stations and parking lots is often the
responsibility of BNSF, UP, Metra’s parking vendor or the municipality in which the
station is located and those entities also are gearing up.

• Putting crews and equipment in place to keep our 24 rail yards clear and
operational. Bottlenecks in yards can result in delays getting trains in place for timely
departures. Metra uses high-powered hot-air jet blowers and cold-air blowers in the yards
to clear the snow and prevent blowing and drifting. In the last two years, Metra has also
installed heaters on more than 40 of our most critical yard switches.

• Fueling our locomotives in outlying rail yards overnight. Fueling is normally done as
part of the midday servicing routine. But, because the locomotives must be disconnected
from their cars to be fueled, fueling them during winter storm conditions can take longer
and cause yard congestion and train delays. We’ll fuel them Sunday night to help with
operations Monday.

• Leaving our engines on overnight. Locomotives don’t like the cold any more than we
do. If it’s too cold we may keep the engines on so they are ready when we need them.

• Running extra “ice trains” overnight on the Metra Electric Line. We must prevent ice
from accumulating on the overhead power lines so the Highliner cars can continue to
draw power to operate. During major storms, we may run these extra trains around the
clock to ensure that the Metra Electric Line remains operational.
Equipment and materials

• Metra will begin this winter with 63,000 bags or more than 3.1 million pounds of salt to
cover the platforms and other areas under its responsibility.

• Metra has about 45 snow plows/blowers at its disposal, not counting the equipment used
by its parking vendor and the numerous municipalities responsible for clearing parking
lots and other areas around most of its suburban stations.

• Metra has five hot-air jet blowers and three cold-air blowers to clear its largest and
most critical yards. The truck-mounted cold-air blowers clear ice and snow with a 525
mph blast. Capable of traveling over roads or rails, this versatile tool can quickly clear
significant amounts of snow.

Customer communications:

Metra understands the importance of providing reliable, real-time communications to help our customers make decisions about their travel options during severe weather and offers a number of tools to give them access to the most up-to-date service information.

• Email alerts – Customers can sign up to receive service alerts via email for a specific rail
line during the times of day that are most important to them. Visit metrarail.com and
click on “Sign Up” to create an account and choose your alerts.

• Ventra App – Customers can download the app and use the Transit Tracker for
information about Metra trains, Pace buses and CTA trains and buses. The free app is
available in the App Store or Google Play.

• Rail-Time Tracker – Customers can visit metrarail.com and access real-time
information about train status and service alerts. This information is also reflected in the
Schedule Finder tool, which allows you to generate a schedule between two stops on a
line for a specific day.

• Twitter – Customers can visit www.twitter.com to follow each of Metra’s 11 rail lines or
receive more general information about agency operations.

• Passenger Services – Customers can call 312-322-6777 weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
with questions about train schedules and service. On evenings and weekends, call the
RTA Travel Information Center at 312-836-7000. Calls are answered from 6 a.m. to 7
p.m. every day.

Tips for traveling on Metra during winter weather:

• Give yourself plenty of time to travel to the station and park. Expect delays. More customers are likely to use Metra trains when the weather is severe. The addition of just 10 more people on each train can increase boarding time and cause trains to fall behind schedule.

• Visit the National Weather Service website for the latest weather and storm-related
information.

• Watch local television and listen to local radio stations for Metra travel and service
updates.

• Use caution when walking on wet or icy station platforms.

• If you are already traveling, listen for announcements at stations and onboard trains.

Image via Metra