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garmon757

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3 hours ago, Pace831 said:

I was going to say before that it seems like the UPNW has a disproportionate number of fatal accidents than the other lines. Recalling the Tribune from a few years ago, there's some truth to that. Now is @Busjack going to make a crack about Phil Pagano?

I don't know about Busjack, but I will.

It was that bigamist's suicide by Metra on May 7, 2010, that set off a rash of Metracides that has yet to end. I had the misfortune to witness one exactly a week later at Edgebrook.

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14 hours ago, Pace831 said:

I was going to say before that it seems like the UPNW has a disproportionate number of fatal accidents than the other lines. Recalling the Tribune from a few years ago, there's some truth to that. Now is @Busjack going to make a crack about Phil Pagano?

 

10 hours ago, strictures said:

I don't know about Busjack, but I will.

It was that bigamist's suicide by Metra on May 7, 2010, that set off a rash of Metracides that has yet to end. I had the misfortune to witness one exactly a week later at Edgebrook.

I'm not going to say that Phil Pagano started it. I'm only going to say that there is a certain irony or hypocrisy that someone who was the head of the agency, and a face of Operation Lifesaver did it. Sort of like if Forrest Claypool peed and fried himself on a third rail in Ravenswood Manor.

The chart is skewed by rail line length and frequency. You can discount the ME because one has to climb the embankment, and NCS, SW, and HC because it is a lot easier to be run over by a freight train. As indicated on the chart, Metra UPNW has an average of 57 trains and is 70 miles. UPW has 97 trains but only 43.6 miles, and BNSF has 134 trains but only 37 miles. In short, there's about twice as many places to commit suicide on the UPNW. Rate on each is about 0.5 per mile. If you take into account that city trackage is usually on embankment, and most suicides are in the suburbs (although there was a BNSF one in the city), the UPNW would have a lower rate per mile than the other two lines.

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2 hours ago, Busjack said:

 

I'm not going to say that Phil Pagano started it. I'm only going to say that there is a certain irony or hypocrisy that someone who was the head of the agency, and a face of Operation Lifesaver did it. Sort of like if Forrest Claypool peed and fried himself on a third rail in Ravenswood Manor.

The chart is skewed by rail line length and frequency. You can discount the ME because one has to climb the embankment, and NCS, SW, and HC because it is a lot easier to be run over by a freight train. As indicated on the chart, Metra UPNW has an average of 57 trains and is 70 miles. UPW has 97 trains but only 43.6 miles, and BNSF has 134 trains but only 37 miles. In short, there's about twice as many places to commit suicide on the UPNW. Rate on each is about 0.5 per mile. If you take into account that city trackage is usually on embankment, and most suicides are in the suburbs (although there was a BNSF one in the city), the UPNW would have a lower rate per mile than the other two lines.

In terms of the number of fatalities leading to train delays, the UPNW still beats the other lines for the reasons given (length, train frequency, number of grade crossings). Note that non-suicide fatalities are included in that assessment.

Here are the annual suicide numbers for Metra-owned and UP Metra (there doesn't seem to be a separate category for BNSF/Metra).

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2 hours ago, west towns said:

Better call out the all mighty uber  now metra is partnering with them.  uber will save the day

I guess you were referring to this.

Note that the deal is that Uber is paying Metra for promotional consideration. Metra isn't doing anything to encourage Uber providing feeder service, although the article does say that Metra will talk to employers about providing pooled rides, something Pace already does through the employer vanpool program.

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8 hours ago, Pace831 said:

That's crazy! 7424 has the new seats! Now featuring bullet holes too.

The stories have been updated with more details, but still don't explain how the South Suburban Task Force tracked him on the Metra train, but at least point out that the police boarded the train at Lake-Cook, instead of the suspect getting on there after working late at Suntory, for instance.

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1 hour ago, garmon757 said:

New Metra F40 Locomotive #217 was spotted today on the Rock Island Line while I was driving on the Dan Ryan. The weird part about it that it was disabled allowing #184 to be the lead locomotive. 

Cool! Maybe it's just like that for testing. The F59PHs were seen like that for a while.

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2 hours ago, trainman8119 said:

217 isn't exactly new. 216 and 217 were purchased a while back from Amtrak and have been up on the Milwaukee.

My guess is that it was at 47th Street for some rehab work.

215 and 216 were the ones purchased from Amtrak. 217 must be the fourth used locomotive that was announced around the same time as F59's 97-99. I'm not sure where 217 came from.

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On 4/1/2017 at 1:30 PM, Pace831 said:

215 and 216 were the ones purchased from Amtrak. 217 must be the fourth used locomotive that was announced around the same time as F59's 97-99. I'm not sure where 217 came from.

215 and 216 were Amtrak 258 and 375. 217 which I thought was purchased for spares only, was VRE V32 and originally Amtrak 364.

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