Chicago: Metra looks to lease rail cars from other states

Metra looks to lease rail cars from other states
Winter weather has exacerbated agency's shortage of spare coaches; patrons complain about crowding

By Richard Wronski, Tribune reporter
7:11 a.m. CST, February 20, 2014


With standing-room-only a common sight on Metra trains this winter because many cars were out of service for weather-related maintenance, the rail agency wants to lease extra coaches from other cities.

The blasts of arctic air exacerbated a long-standing problem: Metra has relatively few spare cars, and during rush periods especially, nearly every one of them is in use.

Metra officials said Wednesday that the agency has only about 36 "usable" spare cars out of a fleet of 837. Metra Executive Director Don Orseno said the agency wants to increase the number of spares to about 10 percent of the fleet, or about 80 to 85 cars.

That way, Metra would have more flexibility to remove cars from service for maintenance and other upgrades, as well as better handle winter storms like last month's. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-rta-metra-met-0219-20140220,0,3804390.story