Fail Week
Metra Feb. 8-12, 2016
Feb. 9-13, 2016 | By Michael Schmitt
Switch problems and fires are familiar causes for delay in winter for Metra riders, but the week of February 8-12 contained more than its fair share of problems. All told, 279 trains arrived to their final destination 6 minutes or more behind schedule and another 826 arrived 1-5 minutes late.
Late* Trains: Fail Week vs. Previous Week
On Monday, February 8, a train derailment impacted BNSF morning commuters. BNSF's OTP dropped to 43.2%.
The next day, on February 9, an electrical fire caused 1.5+ hour delays for UP-W commuters. Metra later stated the damage from the fire would cause UP-W delays of "up to 30 minutes... through the afternoon rush hour on Thursday, Feb. 11." UP-W's OTP dropped to 17.4% with an average late arrival of 51 minutes.
On Wednesday, February 10, Rock Island trains saw delays of 15-40 minutes due to switch issues. Meanwhile, UP-W continued to be slowed by the fallout from Tuesday's fire.
On Thursday, February 11, a mechanical failure on UP-N caused delays up to 62 minutes.
Fortunately Friday saw no major issues, though OTP dropped to 91% down from the previous week's 95.5%.
I've attempted to document some of the data from this week. It's these kinds of incidents - one after the other - that stick with Metra customers. These kinds of incidents also tend to get lost in overall, month-long performance reports.
UP-W On-Time Performance
Monday morning: BNSF
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Mon. 02/01/16 | 47 | 100% | 1.3 min | 0.6 min | 4 min |
| Mon. 02/08/16 | 44 | 43.2% | 7.6 min | 8.7 min | 40 min |
Tuesday morning: UP-W
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Tue. 02/02/16 | 23 | 100% | 1.6 min | 1.2 min | 5 min |
| Tue. 02/09/16 | 23 | 17.4% | 32 min | 51 min | 112 min |
Tuesday evening: UP-W
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Tue. 02/02/16 | 28 | 82.1% | 3.0 min | 4.5 min | 51 min |
| Tue. 02/09/16 | 24 | 12.5% | 8.5 min | 12.9 min | 28 min |
Wednesday morning: RI
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Wed. 02/03/16 | 18 | 94.4% | 1.0 min | 1.1 min | 8 min |
| Wed. 02/10/16 | 19 | 68.4% | 7.2 min | 9.7 min | 42 min |
Wednesday morning: UP-W
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Wed. 02/03/16 | 24 | 91.7% | 1.4 min | 1.9 min | 10 min |
| Wed. 02/10/16 | 19 | 52.3% | 3.4 min | 6.2 min | 16 min |
Thursday morning: UP-N
| Trains | OTA | Avg. Operating Delay | Avg. Late Arrival | Worst Delay | |
| Thur. 02/04/16 | 21 | 100% | 1.0 min | 1.2 min | 4 min |
| Thur. 02/11/16 | 28 | 71.4% | 6.2 min | 9.3 min | 62 min |
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