Metra BNSF | The Racetrack, Metra’s Busiest Line 

Amtrak used to stop at Aurora and not Naperville but when the old train station closed and moved to the new one it was no longer a through station.

This is the Metra line I've taken the most. It always amazes me how close the stations are to one another in the west suburbs. The parking for one station and morphs right into the parking for the next one.

Rode this line from Aurora to Chicago and back everyday for 12 years...brought back good memories!

Fellow City of Lights man here. Its nice to have a termini station here that goes into the city. Lot’s of history to remember on the famous BNSF line, and thank goodness the line remained online after the railroad strike was averted.

The return footage was out of this world. Great work.

I lived right across from the BN Harlem Ave station from 1989-1995 . There was a group of professional railroaders and railfans that met every Saturday night on the platform. After watching some action, we'd head into Connie's Restart for some talk. Wonderful memories.

Nice video! I've taken the BNSF Line a few times, as I occasionally use Metra after going on long bike rides to get home. (For instance, the Illinois Prairie Path is a rail-to-trail bike network, with multiple branches running on the former right of way of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad. The Illinois Prairie Path network is served by the BNSF, UP-W, and MD-W trains, and the main branch near Wheaton and Glen Ellyn even runs adjacent to the Metra UP-W line.) Also, a few things of note about the BNSF: 1. The station immediately east of Hollywood (Zoo Stop) is Riverside, designed by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted in 1869. It is one of the first planned communities in the United States, and the town's plan called for curvilinear streets, following the land's contours and the winding Des Plaines River. The village was incorporated in 1875, and the majority of the village was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. 2. There are very few grade separated roadway crossings along the BNSF between Cicero and Hinsdale. Two of the grade-separated crossings were once one lane bi-directional roads, with stoplights at either end to control traffic. One of them was upgraded to a two-lane bridge in 2015 (Oak St in Hinsdale, IL - next to the Highlands station), but there is still a one-lane underpass at Tilden Ave/Hazel Ave in La Grange, located a few blocks east of the La Grange Metra/Amtrak station. 3. The Route 59 station lies on the border of Naperville and Aurora. There are two official parking lots for the station - the north lot is in Naperville, and the south lot is in Aurora. As of 2018, Route 59 was the busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 6,339 weekday boardings. 4. Metra has studied the feasibility of extending the BNSF Line into Kendall County, as that area has experienced rapid population growth within the past 20 years, and was the fastest growing county in the United States between 2000-2010. One proposal involves adding stations (from east to west) in Montgomery, Oswego, Yorkville, and Plano (home to an Amtrak station), with the line terminating in Sandwich. One of the issues with extending the service into Kendall County is that the Regional Transportation Authority (which governs Metra, CTA, and Pace) does not serve Kendall County, nor does it collect sales tax from the county. The RTA does have routes entering Kenosha, Wisconsin (via the Metra UP-N line) and Hammond, Indiana (Pace Bus Routes 350 and 364), so an extension would be still be feasible.

The BNSF line was always my favorite line to railfan. So many trains that it spoiled me. The railfan term Racetrack was more for the speed of the CB&Q passenger trains more than for the volume of trains on the line. The Metra express trains keep this tradition alive by doing 80 MPH on the line. My favorite stations to railfan from were Riverside and Stone Ave. The Riverside station is in the "downtown" section of the town and the area was developed to look like an old European town with a unique town hall and library close to the station. The to arches of the Stone Ave, station afforded a great framing element for photographing trains. My most visited railfan spot was La Verge, just west of the Cicero Yard. Day or night. My friends and I, after a ling day of working on a model RR, would head out for a break to La Vergne. Nothing better than sitting in a lawn chair on the station platform, around midnight with a couple of sacks of White Castles watching trains go by. The home signal for the yard was just west of the platform so we would have a heads up when a train was going to head west. Those were the days.

AMTRAK used to stop in Aurora years ago. The station was in a different location, further west.

Lol, Caution the doors are about to close. That never gets old

My uncle made this commute for decades and occasionally I’d join if I was sightseeing or whatever in the city. Still awesome to see that Metra car design! I do remember eating lunch in the roundhouse as well in the late 90s.

I Love your videos. they are so cool. something is cool about metra BNSF.

I love railfanning the BNSF line at Naperville. Tons of action, all day, especially on weekdays. I saw 36 trains in 4.5 hours.

Thank you for a great ride ! Good to see so much freight activity on both of your rides !

I live by Plano IL, and take the Aurora BNSF into CHI regularly! I hope you enjoyed your route!

Whenever I visit Chicago, I always park my car in Aurora, and take the train in. It's better than parking my car in downtown Chicago.

6:36 NS 1065! You just casually caught a Norfolk Southern heritage unit there

Running from Stone Ave to La Grange Road because you realize your train doesnt stop at Stone is a rite of passage

I actually seen the BNSF Racetrack in person during my visit in LaGrange, Illinois and Riverside, Illinois. Both of those that I visited took place in 2023, which is last year.

What a delightful video!!! I just love this railway, especially the ZooStop. Thanks for sharing this!!!

My home line, so many times I’ve commuted between the western suburbs at Union

Been riding the BNSF most of my life (although these days I prefer the Union Pacific West). It wasn’t until I started watching videos like these I realized that people have such an issue with Metra’s service and things like the layout of the gallery cars. Is Metra perfect? No, but I feel like they get a lot of unwarranted hate. For the most part service is great on the two lines I rely on. There’s definitely room for improvement on other lines, and starting around 2024 we should start to see the gallery cars begin to be phased out (although I personally will miss them, but I guess that’s just personal nostalgia)

I live in Naperville, take BNSF to downtown all the times. Before moving here I took UP west line.

I think it is great you get to ride at the very front of the train on the way back to Chicago- so much more to see. Never knew that BNSF also ran a passenger service - I wonder why? Anyway seemed like a nice train trip on a nice day Thom. Thank you for sharing.

Well done young man.

Excellent.👍👍

I loved being inside Union Station when I needed to go to stations that I needed to travel out of Union Station from

I grew up near the cb&q westmont ty for covering it

I love the BNSF line! Keep going! I think all you have left is SWS, NCS, MDN, UPN, UPW, and you're done!

Thank you for the great video Thom! I've noticed myself while watching some cab videos how La Grange Road and Stone Av are so close to eachother! Some of the express trains are fast - first/last stop Naperville. Loving the double decker trains! Looks a great line to spot at! :-)

this video is the first one I've seen on your channel and i really enjoy it because trains are awesome is my favourite channel i went and watched some of your oldest videos and it is great to see how far you've come and you are making great videos i like them very much

Used to railfan the racetrack(bnsf line) on the eola road bridge overlooking eola yard, as well as the the former E.J. and E. Line at the neck of the yard. Other history facts about the line Just east of Naperville station at the Loomis St railroad crossing on April 25, 1946, a cb&q expedition flyer rear ended a stopped cb&q advance flyer, causing 45 deaths and 127 injuries, the accident happened to occur outside the old Kroehler funiture factory, so over 800 Kroehler employees rushed to scene and turned the western half of the 4 story building into a temporary triage. it was the reason why most passenger trains in the US are restricted to 79 mph The most recent station to close was Clyde in 2007, the youngest station on the line is Belmont which opened in 1996 The bnsf line is the busiest line on the Metra network seeing 64000 peak weekday riders. The bnsf line was the last metra line to use E units, being retired in 1992 Despite being in downers grove, Fairview avenue is in fare zone three, instead of fare zone 4 The bnsf line has connections to 13 pace bus lines, the Grove commuter shuttle west line and 25 cta bus routes Despite being named Brookfield zoo, the zoo is actually closer to Hollywood station than Brookfield 5 stops are rush hour only these being West hinsdale Highlands Congress park La vergne And Halsted street There have been proposals to extend to line to sandwich , IL, serving Montgomery, Oswego Yorkville and plano along the way, but the plan was dropped because it's outside the RTA's service area The bnsf line may soon be the only metra line that's operated by a freight railroad Downers Grove Fairview avenue was the place where the 1991 "train girl " incident took place, which a 41 year old mother of 3, who's name shall be redacted, was tragically hit by a metra express train, the incident in it's gory details were unfortunately recorded by a railfans camcorder

I have an old bnsf original railroad spike rare bought by warren Buffett it has J HC on top

Where are Riverside and Harlem Avenue stops? I grew up near those stops and took them into the city. The Riverside train station was used in the movie The Lake House starring Sandra Bullock.

The 2 Bros round house was built by the CB&Q a predecessor to BNSF it is now a distillery, gastro-pub and coffee shop that you should have went into.

Another great video, Thom! While I have never rode this Metra route, I have ridden another passenger train that runs down the racetrack. #California Zephyr runs the whole route of Metra / BNSF

The line seldom has freight train delays for passenger trains for four reasons, foremost of which is that BN always took pride in the operation and I'm sure BNSF has continued to do so--its smooth operation is a great advertisement for the freight as well as the passenger operation. That pride is why BN chose to continue to operate the line itself. Secondly, of great importance is that the line is three main tracks reverse-signaled, so that any train can be routed by the dispatcher on any main in either direction--you will notice how frequent are the full-universal crossover sets. Thirdly, in BN days the dispatcher was located on the second floor of the offices at Freighthouse 9 in Cicero, which was also the Division Superintendent's office location, and the dispatcher only had to deal with Chicago-Aurora--the rest of the Division was dispatched elsewhere. I believe this dispatching function is now with that for the rest of BNSF, at the Network Operations Center in Fort Worth, Texas, but I suspect there is still a separate dispatcher just for this segment. Fourthly, BN observed what was called a curfew for freight trains during rush hours in the suburban zone, in which freight trains were normally not operated--I suspect BNSF still does that. I'm sure certain priority trains might operate now since there's capacity to handle them without delay, but in general I think it's still avoided. On another BNSF Chicago-Aurora subject, you are always commenting on the gallery cars--they were invented by the Burlington and Budd Company in 1949 for this operation, and the idea later spread to other railroads in Chicago, foremost case being Chicago & North Western. Finally, an amusing sidelight-- the crew scheduling used to be such (and I suspect still is) that some crews were given a four hour rest period downtown, which would allow then to comply with the Hours of Service law and still cover both morning and afternoon rush hour trains. So, several of them bought seats on the Chicago Commodities Exchange which is just on the other side of the Chicago River from Union Station, and supplemented their income (or lost some it depending on their luck and acumen) in trading in commodity futures. I was a CB&Q employee (industrial engineer) March 1969-March 1970 and commuted from Westmont station, then was relocated to St. Paul with the 1970 merger but came back to Chicago in 1971-72 as regional manger IE for the Chicago and Omaha Regions and resumed the same commute; worked for BN in several places after that until 1985. --Jerry Pinkepank, Seattle

I've missed your videos lately Thom! Glad you're back... And I like the new intro music, not so much the panpipes one 😆 So let me get this straight, there's 5 stations with he same name, in the same city?! Crazy America! And I always find it strange having honking great diesel locos on commuter lines! A beautiful little city too 🥰 Another informative video, well done mate, I enjoyed it 🙏🏻

Love all your videos. Glad you moved to Chicago, as I have moved away to Paw Paw Michigan and miss the trains there. One thing Burlington Northern did not take over C, B, & Q. Burlington (as it was known) , Northern Pacific, Great Northern all merged in March 1970 to create the Burlington Northern Railroad. BN then bought Santa Fe in 1996 and in 2009 BNSF was bought by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway making it a wholly owned subsidiary of that investment fund.

Regarding why Amtrak doesn't stop at Aurora - they used to, until 1985, when the city closed the old station and opened the current terminal, which wasn't built with Amtrak in mind. Amtrak consequently shifted service to Naperville instead.

Fun fact: The wall on your right with windows was, at one time, a passageway to the Canal Street Station, when the Blue Line was the Garfield Park 'L" line.

5:30 Im excited to see that video come out!

i live by the racetrack

I noticed how long these trains are. It looked like almost all of them are carrying 8+ cars. This is significantly higher than the rest of the Metra lines even during peak hours. I know the longest train metra operates has 14 cars. It runs rush hour on the BNSF. The shortest is 2 cars on the metra electric.

Fun fact - an average adult standing at the west edge of the platform at Naperville would be able to only just see a train as it pulls into the east end of the station at Route 59 due to the curvature of the Earth.

Their would be little if no parking in downtown Aurora, plus Aurora wanted the area around the old station for redevelopment

The racetrack is my favorite to Railfan at

NS 1065 is a part of Norfolk Southern's heritage fleet

Nice video

The original Aurora Burlington station was torn down long ago.

Are you aware of the fact that the Santa Fe (the SF) was once one of the elite passenger lines to the southwest? The Chief and Superchief were right up there with the City of New Orleans and the 20th Century Limited. Rode on three of the four when I was little.

The lights turn off on Metra's Bnsf line is not because the train is living it's because of un HEP faller. Un HEP faller happens because Metra Locomotives are old on the bnsf line.

I wonder if this would be a good way to run Amtrak where they don't own tracks. It might even help Midwest lines to come up with their own branding. Amtrak is known for being unreliable everywhere except for the NE Corridor.

Cool video

Very nice and informative video !! I would like to know which floor of the Union station do you board the BNSF trains ?

Wow, deserted stations, deserted trains. Where are the people? And all those cars on those trains with so few passengers?

Truly wonderful and detailed video! If I board the train in Union station and go towards Aurora, do I need to buy ticket at the Union station, or can I purchase it onboard?

I railfanned the BNSF line before

Can you do UP-N next?

Lol I was probably on the 1267

How train travels in reverse direction for such a long distance how loco pilot gets view of front?

Very busy route. How did you manage to film at the front, on the way back ? The coaches didn't look to have a driver cab for reverse use. And why do so many Metra trains have 2 locos ? I notice one was using just 1 loco. Good video thanks !

6:34 What’s NS 3640 doing on the BNSF Railroad?

How about a Metra Electric video?

I don't know why lines are crossed out in the comment I just made--they are not supposed to be.

Thanks for another fine video. Thoughts on the Western Ave station?

UK TRAINS ARE BETTER!!!