Thanks for visiting and for the comment. Welcome, welcome.

As for your Metra woes, I feel your pain. 16 consecutive late trains! That’s ridiculous. I bet Metra would say that 5 minutes behind schedule isn’t late by their measure.

At least you didn’t have a Secret Service Agent causing you a 90-minute delay.

Good tip on seat selection. A little consideration for our fellow passengers can go a long way!

Heavy Passenger Load
Freight Train Interference
Waiting on Other Trains
Signal Problems

And while I am here, if you are getting off at one of the first stops, don’t sit in the big seat on the top level of the train and make everyone move for you.

I love the attempt to make the blatantly obvious seem more profound: late arrival of equipment. Ha-ha. Fantastic.

Is Metra still running that newsletter? It was the saving grace of the company as it was pretty funny. It might be worth emailing them about it …

I haven’t be on a Metra train in years, but when I did it was either the Northern Line (to Kenosha) or the one that went through Morton Grove (I’m afraid that I can’t remember the name of that line), depending on my schedule.

Choice one: “delayed due to late arrival of equipment (aka train)”. Great. Thanks. Didn’t know that.

BTW, what Metra line do you travel on? I take the MD-N line. The worst, if you ask me.

Luckily that train is in India For more discussion of which, please see above.

The average weight of a passenger in this film is definitely not worthy of being called ‘heavy’. For more references on link between passenger weight and delays and between passenger weight and fuel costs, see above.

Man, the comments section here is immensely valuable isn’t it?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-11/43162608.jpg

The previous 2 comments and the phrase “..heavy passenger load” reminds me of a piece of data which suggests that even adjusting for inflation and price fluctuations, the increase in the average American passenger’s weight means airlines are spending a larger % of their operating costs on fuel. So there is more than one way to slice and dice the ‘passenger load’ factor..

Welcome to chickenmonkeydog! Thanks for reading and for your comment. I am actually quite glad to have you here, since it was beginning to feel like a one-sided discussion!

You’re most certainly right that it is clear why additional passengers could cause delays. However, doesn’t it seem reasonable to expect that Metra would measure passenger loads and taken that into consideration when creating a schedule, so they could run on-time with the increased load?

I am glad we do have the commuter rail, but it isn’t as if this service is being provided by some gracious benefactor with no cost to me. Metra is a government funded operation, and I am a resident taxpayer, so I certainly feel like I have the right to expect a certain level of performance from the service. Shouldn’t the solution to heavy passenger load be addition of capacity, not simply placing the blame on the riders?