The closure kind of sucks for Illinois, but maybe it will bring some fresh ideas to Metra. I was soooo hoping that the newer Metro North (iirc) cars would have mysteriously been lost en route to NYC and stayed in Chicago for MED over the bilevels - if Metra ever really needs to increase service they will need cars with more doors than they have to speed up dwell times, but that is REALLY off topic.
As an aside, what I understood about the current highliners is they basically took the gallery car and made the shell into an EMU. Obviously, there was just a bit more to it. The South Shore's highliners are slightly different - wider doors with no pillar and a third door at one end (like the old highliners had).
The traps are used at the yard daily on some runs for crew and staff Dropovs and Pickups (yeah, I mangled Car Talks chauffeurs).