Metra Highliners

The Metra Highliners inherited from the Illinois Central were retired in February of 2016 after 45 years of service. That was 10 years longer than their expectancy!!!

However, are there plans to preserve any in museums? It would be nice to preserve some of those workhorses!

According to this METRA press release, 24 have been sent to various museums: https://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/utility_landing/newsroom/newsroom/metra-electric_s-original-highliner-cars-officially-retired.html

That's quite an impressive number to me. Even considering they are married pairs, that's 12 pairs. Is 12 of any not-so-common type of equipment preserved anywhere?

Nice! At least they saved some of those reliable workhorses for preservation!

They look far nicer than the Sharyo trains.

I personally found the old highliners rode better and had more comfortable seats as well as being slightly more thoughtfully designed at the detail level - a lot of strange choices or poorly thought out choices were made in the new cars, such as no ventilation in the vestibules. That said, the new cars are new, have bigger windows and easier to navigate stairs - and most importantly, can operate, as I understand it, at higher speeds.

I was just in Chicago on June 20-22nd and there was a train of Highliners parked at Van Buren Street Station. One car had graffiti on it but the others looked to be in good condition.

Metra Electric Rider said:

I personally found the old highliners rode better and had more comfortable seats as well as being slightly more thoughtfully designed at the detail level - a lot of strange choices or poorly thought out choices were made in the new cars, such as no ventilation in the vestibules. That said, the new cars are new, have bigger windows and easier to navigate stairs - and most importantly, can operate, as I understand it, at higher speeds.

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I would think the most important "innovation" from the Highliners is that the new trains have washrooms. :giggle:

I don't think they are needed on the shorter routes - the South Chicago branch has a shorter run time than most of the el branches - the capacity would be better without the toilet.

After the past few hot and muggy days I can say that the old cars had a better AC system which included the vestibules which the new highliners lack.

Metra Electric Rider said:

I don't think they are needed on the shorter routes - the South Chicago branch has a shorter run time than most of the el branches - the capacity would be better without the toilet.

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I respectfully disagree.

(1) If I had a dime for every professed regular rider of the Metra Electric I've seen over the years kvetching online about the lack of onboard washrooms, I'd have one of the more expensive drinks at Starbucks.

(2) Washrooms may not be necessary on the South Chicago branch, but the Main Line to University Park is not short, and I doubt Metra would want to run two different fleets of Electric cars.

(3) I don't commute on the Electric, but my commute is only D zone, 30-45 minutes, and I've used the onboard washrooms a few times a year. Plus I see the washrooms used regularly by others during my relatively short commute.