1.
MPI MPXpress
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MPXpress is a series of diesel-electric passenger train locomotives designed for commuter rail service. To date, MPI has offered five variants, MP36PH-3S, MP36PH-3C, MP40PH-3C, MP32PH-Q. The line also meets APTA crashworthiness standards, numerous public transit agencies in Canada and the United States have ordered MPXpress locomotives for their commuter rail services. GO Transit is currently the largest client for MPI MPXpress locomotives with 67 in their fleet, the MP36PH-3S uses a 16-cylinder EMD 645F3B diesel engine as its prime mover, capable of generating 3,600 hp. Head-end power is generated by a static inverter that receives its power through connections to the prime mover, compared to a locomotive with a separate HEP generator, the prime mover must constantly maintain a higher RPM in order to supply power to the passenger cars. The setup is simpler but leads to noise levels and higher fuel consumption. When providing the maximum 500 kW HEP load, maximum power is reduced to 2,930 hp since HEP generation diverts some power from the prime mover. The MP36PH-3S was the first variety of MPXpress locomotive to be built and the customer was Metra. Metra ordered 27 of these locomotives in 2001, which were built, fourteen were to replace the railroads aged F40C fleet, while the rest were for fleet expansion. Metra is currently the operator of the MP36PH-3S variant of the MPXpress. When the locomotives were first delivered, the computer systems proved problematic. At one point in 2004, because Metra had so many MPXpress locomotives out of service, after fixes were implemented, the locomotives became the workhorses of Metras fleet. Starting in 2015, Metra is converting its MP36PH-3S locomotives to the MP36PH-3C specification by removing the static inverter and this is being done in an effort to reduce noise pollution and boost fuel efficiency. There are plans to convert at least ten, if not all MP36PH-3S locomotives, Metras MP36PH-3C locomotives all have extended radiators to supply the extra cooling for the Caterpillar generators. The MP36PH-3C has the same EMD 645F3B prime mover as the MP36PH-3S model, but with a separate head-end power generator, a Caterpillar C-27 diesel engine. In this arrangement, when providing HEP, the full 3,600 hp from the mover is available for traction. Having two engines is more complex, but results in lowered noise emissions and lower fuel consumption, the launch customer for the MP36PH-3C was Caltrain, a commuter railroad in the San Francisco Bay Area. Caltrain ordered 6 of these locomotives in 2003, which were built and this locomotive has gone on to become the most popular MPXpress variant, with 100 delivered to nine different customers
2.
Chicago Union Station
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Chicago Union Station is a major railroad station that opened in 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, replacing an earlier station built in 1881. It is the only remaining intercity rail terminal in Chicago, as well as being the primary terminal for commuter trains. The station stands on the west side of the Chicago River between West Adams Street and West Jackson Boulevard, just outside the Chicago Loop, including approach and storage tracks, it is about nine and a half city blocks in size. Its facilities are underground, buried beneath streets and skyscrapers. Chicago Union Station is the third-busiest rail terminal in the United States, after Grand Central Terminal and it is Amtraks overall fourth-busiest station. It handles approximately 120,000 passengers on a weekday and is one of Chicago’s most iconic structures, reflecting the city’s strong architectural heritage. In addition to standing out architecturally, Union Station has features that reflect its commitment to sustainability, in 2011, its lighting system was replaced with more energy-efficient light bulbs and motion sensors, reducing the station’s carbon footprint by 4 million tons annually. Chicago Union Station was designated as one of America’s “Great Places” in 2012 by the American Planning Association. The “Great Places” program by APA highlights places streets, neighborhoods, and public spaces around America that exhibit “exemplary character, quality, and planning. ”These places are unique in their cultural and historical significance, sense of community, and vision. Other criteria include “architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement. ”Chicago Union Station is considered a “Great Public Space” by APA and these spaces are safe and inviting, well-maintained, and attractive, both visually and in functionality. In addition, local culture and history are reflected within the space, Union Station is laid out with a double stub-end configuration, with 10 tracks coming into the station from the north and 14 from the south. Because passenger trains do not pass through Union Station, all passengers traveling through Chicago must change trains to reach their final destination. There are 2 through tracks to allow out-of-service equipment moves between the north and south side, including one with a platform to allow extra long trains to board, between the north and south sides of the station is a passenger concourse. Passengers can walk through the concourse to get from any platform to any other without stairs or elevators, odd-numbered platforms are on the north half of the station, and even-numbered platforms on the south half. The north tracks are used by Amtrak for the Hiawatha Service and the Empire Builder, and by Metra for the Milwaukee District West, Milwaukee District North, the south tracks are used for all of the other Amtrak and Metra services. Two station management structures, one on side of the terminal, monitor train-to-track assignments. The concourse also has a level between platform and street level, containing a food court featuring local vendors as well as national chains. Located west of Canal Street, Union Stations headhouse occupies a city block
3.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
4.
Regional Transportation Authority (Illinois)
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RTA serves Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. The chief executive officer is the director, who is appointed by the Chairman with the concurrence of 11 of the other directors. The RTA system provides nearly 2 million rides per day, making it the third largest public transportation system in North America. The RTA provides several services to the public, including the RTA Travel Information line at 836-7000 from all Chicago area area codes, an automated Trip Planner, and try transit advertising. The RTA has the authority to enter into agreements to provide service between points within the region and outside of its territory, including into Indiana and Wisconsin. RTA was created after a referendum in 1974, however, RTA no longer provides service directly, as the Service Boards have the authority to determine the level, nature, and kind of public transportation to be provided, and to establish fares. Originally, RTA entered into purchase of service agreements with carriers, in 2004, the CTA, projecting a $55 million funding shortfall in its 2005 budget, called for a long term funding solution, involving a change to the sales tax distribution formula in the RTA Act. In response, the Illinois General Assembly appropriated $54 million to cover the cost of CTAs paratransit service for 2005, the General Assembly also directed the Illinois Auditor General to audit the RTA and the Service Boards, as part of its review of the funding issue. The RTA approved 2007 Service Board budgets premised on the assumption that a new funding source would be identified in 2007 to meet the requirements of budget. Nonetheless, the CTA budget recognized, Without this new funding source, with no legislative action by August,2007, CTA and Pace announced proposals for service cuts, popularly known as Doomsday Plans, to be implemented September 16. The September plans were postponed when the Governor proposed advancing 2008 state subsidies, a new Doomsday date was set for November 4, but that was avoided when the Governor engineered a transfer of capital funds. However, with a new Doomsday deadline of January 20,2008 approaching, the Governor called on the legislature to pass some bill, and he would improve it, presumably using the amendatory veto. The Legislature passed HB656 on January 10, to which the Governor affixed an amendatory veto allowing senior citizens to ride all transit systems in the state for free. The highlights of the 2008 amendments to the RTA Act include, The RTA sales tax was increased to 1. 25% in Cook County, and 0. The Act requires that the RTA establish an Innovation, Coordination, and Enhancement Fund, an ADA Paratransit Fund, and a Suburban Community Mobility Fund. The Act calls for the implementation of an Interstate 55 Bus Rapid Transit project, upon the vote of 9 Directors of the RTA, the Executive Director may intervene in a dispute among service boards or transportation agencies. The RTA must establish Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Contracting and Equal Employment Opportunity Programs, since the 2008 changes, there have been several proposals to reform the regions transit agencies more dramatically. In the wake of Metras 2013 patronage scandal, state senators Daniel Biss, in 2014 a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development also recommended combining Metra, the CTA, and Pace to improve coordination
5.
Chicago metropolitan area
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The Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Chicago, Illinois, and its suburbs. With an estimated population of 9.4 million people, it is the third largest metropolitan area in the United States, Chicagoland is the area that is closely linked to the city through geographic, social, economic, and cultural ties. The Chicago metropolitan area is one of the world’s largest and most diversified economies, with more than four million employees, the region is home to more than 400 major corporate headquarters, including 31 in the Fortune 500. The Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area was originally designated by the United States Census Bureau in 1950 and it comprised the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, along with Lake County in Indiana. As surrounding counties saw an increase in their population densities and the number of their residents employed within Cook County, the Chicago MSA, now defined as the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the third largest MSA by population in the United States. The 2015 census estimate for the MSA was 9,427,676 and this loss of population has been attributed to taxes, political issues, and other factors. A breakdown of the 2009 estimated populations of the three Metropolitan Divisions of the MSA are as follows, The OMB also defines a larger region as a Combined Statistical Area. The Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area combines the areas of Chicago, Michigan City. This area represents the extent of the market pool for the entire region. The CSA has a population of 9,928,312, the Chicago urban agglomeration, according to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report, lists a population of 9,545,000. The term “urban agglomeration” refers to the contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels. It usually incorporates the population in a city plus that in the surrounding area, Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area. The term Chicagoland has no definition, and the region is often considered to include areas beyond the corresponding MSA. Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, mcCormicks conception of Chicagoland stretched all the way to nearby parts of four states. The first usage was in the Tribunes July 27,1926 front page headline, Chicagolands Shrines, A Tour of Discoveries and he stated that Chicagoland comprised everything in a 200-mile radius in every direction and reported on many different places in the area. The Tribune was the dominant newspaper in a vast area stretching to the west of the city, today, the Chicago Tribunes usage includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties, and the two Indiana counties of Lake and Porter. Illinois Department of Tourism literature uses Chicagoland for suburbs in Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties. For example, many residents who live in some of the more distant satellite counties nonetheless refer to themselves as being from Chicago or Chicagoans
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
Commuter rail
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Trains operate following a schedule, at speeds varying from 50 to 200 km/h. Distance charges or zone pricing may be used and they primarily serve lower density suburban areas, and often share right-of-way with intercity or freight trains. Some services operate only during peak hours and others uses fewer departures during off peak hours, average speeds are high, often 50 km/h or higher. These higher speeds better serve the longer distances involved, some services include express services which skip some stations in order to run faster and separate longer distance riders from short-distance ones. The general range of commuter trains distance varies between 15 and 200 km, sometimes long distances can be explained by that the train runs between two or several cities. Distances between stations may vary, but are much longer than those of urban rail systems. In city centers the train either has a station or passes through the city centre with notably fewer station stops than those of urban rail systems. Toilets are often available on trains and in stations. Their ability to coexist with freight or intercity services in the same right-of-way can drastically reduce system construction costs, however, frequently they are built with dedicated tracks within that right-of-way to prevent delays, especially where service densities have converged in the inner parts of the network. Most such trains run on the standard gauge track. Some light rail systems may run on a narrower gauge, some countries, including Finland, India, Pakistan, Russia, Brazil and Sri Lanka, as well as San Francisco in the USA and Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia, use broad gauge track. The fact that the terminology is not standardised across countries further complicates matters, most S-bahns typically behave like commuter rail with most trackage not separated from other trains, and long lines with trains running between cities and suburbs rather than within a city. The distances between stations however, are usually short, in larger systems there is usually a high frequency metro-like central corridor in the city center where all the lines converge into. Typical examples of large city S-Bahns include Munich and Frankfurt, S-Bahns do also exist in some mid-size cities like Rostock and Magdeburg but behave more like typical commuter rail with lower frequencies and very little exclusive trackage. A similar network exists in Copenhagen called the S-tog, in Hamburg and Copenhagen, other, diesel driven trains, do continue where the S-Bahn ends. Regional rail usually provides rail services between towns and cities, rather than purely linking major population hubs in the way inter-city rail does, Regional rail operates outside major cities. Unlike Inter-city, it stops at most or all stations between cities and it provides a service between smaller communities along the line, and also connections with long-distance services at interchange stations located at junctions or at larger towns along the line. Alternative names are local train or stopping train, examples include the former BRs Regional Railways, Frances TER, Germanys DB Regio and South Koreas Tonggeun services
8.
Union Pacific Railroad
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The Union Pacific Railroad is a freight hauling railroad that operates 8,500 locomotives over 32,100 route-miles in 23 states west of Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Union Pacific Railroad network is the largest in the United States and it is also one of the worlds largest transportation companies. Union Pacific Railroad is the operating company of Union Pacific Corporation. Union Pacific Corporations main competitor is the BNSF Railway, the second largest freight railroad. Together, the two railroads have a duopoly on all freight rail lines in the U. S. The original company was incorporated on July 1,1862, under an act of Congress entitled Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. The act was approved by President Abraham Lincoln, and it provided for the construction of railroads from the Missouri River to the Pacific as a war measure for the preservation of the Union. It was constructed westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa to meet the Central Pacific Railroad line, the line was constructed primarily by Irish labor who had learned their craft during the recent Civil War. The two lines were joined together at Promontory Summit, Utah,53 miles west of Ogden on May 10,1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Under the guidance of its dominant stockholder Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, the namesake of the city of Durant, Iowa, the first rails were laid in Omaha. It built or purchased local lines that gave it access to Denver, Colorado, to Portland, Oregon and it also owned narrow gauge trackage into the heart of the Colorado Rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas. UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872 and its independent construction company the Crédit Mobilier had bribed congressmen. The UP itself was not guilty but it did get bad publicity, the financial crisis of 1873 led to financial troubles but not bankruptcy. The company was reorganized as the Union Pacific Railway on January 24,1880, the new company declared bankruptcy during the Panic of 1893. When it emerged in 1897 it reverted to the original name, the corporate headquarters of the Union Pacific Corporation were located in New York City from its initial founding in the 1860s until Drew Lewis became CEO in the mid-1980s. He relocated it to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, later the headquarters was shifted to Dallas, Texas, before relocating to Omaha to join the operating headquarters. From the ICC annual reports, except 1979 is from Moodys, on December 31,1925 UP-OSL-OWRN-LA&SL-StJ&GI operated 9,834 route-miles and 15,265 track-miles. At the end of 1980, Union Pacific operated 9,266 route-miles and 15,647 miles of track, Moodys shows 220,697 million revenue ton-miles in 1993 on the expanded system
9.
BNSF Railway
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The BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroad networks in North America, second to the Union Pacific Railroad, and is one of seven North American Class I railroads. It has 44,000 employees,32,500 miles of track in 28 states and it has three transcontinental routes that provide rail links between the western and eastern United States. BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles in 2010, more than any other North American railroad, the BNSF and UP have a duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western U. S. and share trackage rights over thousands of miles of track. According to corporate press releases, the BNSF Railway is among the top transporters of intermodal freight in North America, for instance, the railroad hauls enough coal to generate roughly ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the railroad is an owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The creation of BNSF started with the formation of a holding company, on January 24,2005, the railroads name was officially changed to BNSF Railway, using the initials of its original name. The United States Surface Transportation Board placed a 15-month moratorium on all rail mergers, the company is investing an estimated $34 billion in BNSF and acquiring $10 billion in debt. On February 12,2010, shareholders of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation voted in favor of the acquisition, BNSFs history dates back to 1849, when the Aurora Branch Railroad in Illinois and the Pacific Railroad of Missouri were formed. The Aurora Branch eventually grew into the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, a portion of the Pacific Railroad became the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway was chartered in 1859 and it built one of the first transcontinental railroads in North America, linking Chicago and Southern California, major branches led to Texas, Denver, and San Francisco. The Interstate Commerce Commission denied a proposed merger with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in the 1980s and it absorbed the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway in 1980. Its main lines included Chicago-Seattle with branches to Texas and Montgomery, Alabama, on June 30,1994, BN and ATSF announced plans to merge, they were the largest and smallest of the Super Seven, the seven largest of the then-twelve U. S. The long-rumored announcement was delayed by a disagreement over the disposition of Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation and this announcement began the next wave of mergers, as the Super Seven were merged down to four in the next five years. The Illinois Central Railroad and Kansas City Southern Railway, two of the five small Class Is, announced on July 19 that the former would buy the latter, but this plan was called off on October 25. The Union Pacific Railroad, another major Western system, started a war with BN for control of the SF on October 5. The UP gave up on January 31,1995, paving the way for the BN-ATSF merger, subsequently, the UP acquired the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in 1996, and Eastern systems CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway split Conrail in 1998. UP was satisfied with a segment of trackage rights from Abilene, Kansas to Superior, Nebraska. KCS gained haulage rights to several Midwest locations, including Omaha, East St. Louis, and Memphis, in exchange for BNSF getting similar access to New Orleans
10.
Reporting mark
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A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks. In North America the mark, which consists of an code of one to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment. The Association of American Railroads assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U. S, surface Transportation Board, Transport Canada, and Mexican Government. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name, as it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code, the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. In another example, the mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX because the state transportation agency owns the equipment used in these services. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation, which is a railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR, the standard ISO6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When the owner of a mark is taken over by another company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway in the 1990s, some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If the acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas, CMO originally belonged to a predecessor of the CNW, which passed it on to them, from which the UP inherited it. Some of these still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on the first letter of the reporting mark, railinc, a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Railinc offers a free online look-up of reporting marks and other industry reference files through the Railincs Freight Rail 411 website, a railway vehicle must be registered in a national vehicle register using a 12-digit number derived from the old UIC system of vehicle numbering. The number contains the country in the third and fourth digit. The VKM must not contain special signs or digits, the VKM is preceded by the code for the country, where the vehicle is registered and a hyphen. Some examples, When a vehicle is sold it does not normally be transferred to another register, the Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD, the UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number
11.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
12.
Standard gauge
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The standard gauge is a widely used railway track gauge. Approximately 55% of the lines in the world are this gauge, all high-speed rail lines, except those in Russia, Uzbekistan, and Finland, are standard gauge. The distance between the edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States. It is also called the UIC gauge or UIC track gauge, as railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge to be used. The result was the adoption throughout a large part of the world of a gauge of 1435 mm. In North East England, some lines in colliery areas were 4 ft 8 in. All these lines had been widened to standard gauge by 1846, parts of the United States, mainly in the Northeast, adopted the same gauge, because some early trains were purchased from Britain. However, until well into the half of the 19th century, Britain. The American gauges converged as the advantages of equipment interchange became increasingly apparent, notably, all the 5 ft broad gauge track in the South was converted to standard gauge over the course of two days beginning on 31 May 1886. See Track gauge in the United States, snopes categorized this legend as false, but commented that. It is perhaps more fairly labelled as True, but for trivial, the historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles approximately 5 feet apart probably derives from the width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts. Others were 4 ft 4 in or 4 ft 7 1⁄2 in, the English railway pioneer George Stephenson spent much of his early engineering career working for the coal mines of County Durham. He favoured 4 ft 8 in for wagonways in Northumberland and Durham, the Hetton and Springwell wagonways also used this gauge. Stephensons Stockton and Darlington railway was primarily to transport coal from mines near Shildon to the port at Stockton-on-Tees. The initial gauge of 4 ft 8 in was set to accommodate the existing gauge of hundreds of horse-drawn chaldron wagons that were already in use on the wagonways in the mines. The railway used this gauge for 15 years before a change was made to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge, George Stephenson used the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, authorised in 1826 and opened 30 September 1830. The success of this led to Stephenson and his son Robert being employed to engineer several other larger railway projects. Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, authorised 1824 and opened 1825, used 4 ft 6 in, Dundee and Newtyle Railway, authorised 1829 and opened 1831, used 4 ft 6 1⁄2 in
13.
Train station
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A train station, railway station, railroad station, or depot is a railway facility where trains regularly stop to load or unload passengers or freight. It generally consists of at least one platform and a station building providing such ancillary services as ticket sales. If a station is on a line, it often has a passing loop to facilitate traffic movements. The smallest stations are most often referred to as stops or, in parts of the world. Stations may be at level, underground, or elevated. Connections may be available to intersecting rail lines or other modes such as buses. In British usage, the station is commonly understood to mean a railway station unless otherwise qualified. In the United States, the most common term in contemporary usage is train station, Railway station and railroad station are less frequent. Outside North America, a depot is place where buses, trains, or other vehicles are housed and maintained and from which they are dispatched for service. The two-storey Mount Clare station in Baltimore, Maryland, which survives as a museum, first saw service as the terminus of the horse-drawn Baltimore. The oldest terminal station in the world was Crown Street railway station in Liverpool, built in 1830, as the first train on the Liverpool-Manchester line left Liverpool, the station is slightly older than the Manchester terminal at Liverpool Road. The station was the first to incorporate a train shed, the station was demolished in 1836 as the Liverpool terminal station moved to Lime Street railway station. Crown Street station was converted to a goods station terminal, the first stations had little in the way of buildings or amenities. The first stations in the modern sense were on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, manchesters Liverpool Road Station, the second oldest terminal station in the world, is preserved as part of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. It resembles a row of Georgian houses, dual-purpose stations can sometimes still be found today, though in many cases goods facilities are restricted to major stations. In rural and remote communities across Canada and the United States, such stations were known as flag stops or flag stations. Many stations date from the 19th century and reflect the architecture of the time. Countries where railways arrived later may still have such architecture, as later stations often imitated 19th-century styles, various forms of architecture have been used in the construction of stations, from those boasting grand, intricate, Baroque- or Gothic-style edifices, to plainer utilitarian or modernist styles
14.
2016 World Series
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The Indians had home-field advantage because the AL had won the 2016 All-Star Game. The Cubs defeated the Indians 4 games to 3 to win their first World Series in 108 years, the Cubs, playing in their eleventh World Series and their first since 1945, won their third championship and first since 1908. It was the Indians sixth appearance in the World Series and their first since 1997, the two teams entered their matchup as the two franchises with the longest World Series title droughts, a combined 176 years without a championship. The Cubs made their appearance in the World Series, their only previous two championships were in 1907 and 1908, both against the Detroit Tigers. The division title was their sixth since division play began in 1969 and it was also Maddons third World Series appearance overall – in 2002, he was bench coach with the Anaheim Angels when they won the World Series in seven games. The Indians made their appearance in the World Series. They won their first two championships in 1920 against the Brooklyn Robins and in 1948 against the Boston Braves. They lost their three most recent appearances in the Fall Classic, losing to the New York Giants in 1954, the Atlanta Braves in 1995, the Indians qualified for the postseason by winning the American League Central, their eighth division title and their first since 2007. They defeated the Boston Red Sox in three games of the AL Division Series before clinching the pennant with a victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Championship Series. For Indians manager Terry Francona, it was his appearance in the World Series. Francona has won two World Series championships, in 2004 and 2007, both with the Red Sox, former Indians and Cubs player Kenny Lofton threw the ceremonial first pitch before Game 1. Corey Kluber started for the Indians, and Jon Lester started for the Cubs, Schwarber struck out twice, but also doubled and drew a walk. The double made Schwarber the first non-pitcher to get his first hit of the season in the World Series, Kluber made World Series history by striking out eight hitters in the first three innings. In the first, the Indians loaded the bases off of Lester on a single, Perezs home run in the fifth made it 3−0 Indians. In the eighth, Justin Grimm walked Guyer with two outs and allowed a single to Lonnie Chisenhall, then Hector Rondon allowed Perezs second home run of the night. Andrew Miller and Cody Allen finished the victory for the Indians despite Miller having to pitch out of a jam in the seventh. Franconas World Series winning streak reached nine with this victory, leading off the 1st inning, Dexter Fowler became the first African-American to play for the Cubs in a World Series. Former Indians player Carlos Baerga threw the ceremonial first pitch before Game 2, the start time for the game was moved up an hour, because of the possibility of heavy rain in the forecast
15.
Illinois General Assembly
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The Illinois General Assembly is the state legislature of the U. S. state of Illinois and comprises the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818, the State Senate has 59 members while the House has 118. A Senate district is formed by combining two adjacent House districts, the current General Assembly is Illinoiss 100th. The General Assembly meets in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield and its session laws are generally adopted by majority vote in both houses, and upon gaining the assent of the Governor of Illinois. They are published in the official Laws of Illinois, the Illinois General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Initially, the state did not have organized political parties, but the Democratic, future U. S. President Abraham Lincoln successfully campaigned as a member of the Whig Party to serve in the General Assembly in 1834. He served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, supporting expanded suffrage. The Illinois Republican Party was organized at a conference held in Majors Hall in Bloomington, the Democratic Party-led legislature investigated the states war expenditures and the treatment of Illinois troops, but with little political gain. Voters rejected each of the provisions, except the bans on black settlement, voting. The Democratic Party came to represent skepticism in the war effort, until Illinois Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas changed his stance, the Democratic Party swept the 1862 election. In 1864, Republicans swept the state legislature and at the time of Lincolns assassination, in 1922, Lottie Holman ONeill was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, becoming the first woman to serve in the Illinois General Assembly. By the 1990s, Illinois had started to become more Democratic in state elections, in 1996, the Democratic Party gained control of the Illinois House of Representatives. In 2002, a Democratic candidate became Illinois governor for the first time in 26 years, with the exception of 2010,2014 and 2016, Illinois Democrats have consistently gained more and more power in every election year in Illinois since the mid-1990s. Members of the House of Representatives are elected to a term without term limits. The term cycle for the Illinois Senate is staggered, to avoid complete turnovers in membership, not all districts elect senators simultaneously. Every Senate district elects its members to serve two terms and one two-year term per decade. The placement of the term in the decade varies from one district to another, with each districts terms defined as 2-4-4, 4-2-4. Like House members, Senators are elected without term limits, the officers of the General Assembly are elected at the beginning of each even number year
16.
Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
17.
Contract
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A contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law as a binding legal agreement. Contract is a branch of the law of obligations in jurisdictions of the civil law tradition, Contract law concerns the rights and duties that arise from agreements. A contract arises when the parties agree that there is an agreement, formation of a contract generally requires an offer, acceptance, consideration, and a mutual intent to be bound. Each party to a contract must have capacity to enter the agreement, minors, intoxicated persons, and those under a mental affliction may have insufficient capacity to enter a contract. Some types of contracts may require formalities, such as a memorialization in writing, at common law, the elements of a contract are offer, acceptance, intention to create legal relations, and consideration. Not all agreements are necessarily contractual, as the parties generally must be deemed to have an intention to be legally bound, a so-called gentlemens agreement is one which is not intended to be legally enforceable, and which is binding in honour only. In order for a contract to be formed, the parties must reach mutual assent and this is typically reached through offer and an acceptance which does not vary the offers terms, which is known as the mirror image rule. An offer is a statement of the offerors willingness to be bound should certain conditions be met. If a purported acceptance does vary the terms of an offer, it is not an acceptance but a counteroffer and, therefore, the Uniform Commercial Code disposes of the mirror image rule in §2-207, although the UCC only governs transactions in goods in the USA. As a court cannot read minds, the intent of the parties is interpreted objectively from the perspective of a reasonable person and it is important to note that where an offer specifies a particular mode of acceptance, only an acceptance communicated via that method will be valid. Contracts may be bilateral or unilateral, a bilateral contract is an agreement in which each of the parties to the contract makes a promise or set of promises to each other. For example, in a contract for the sale of a home, less common are unilateral contracts in which one party makes a promise, but the other side does not promise anything. In these cases, those accepting the offer are not required to communicate their acceptance to the offeror, in a reward contract, for example, a person who has lost a dog could promise a reward if the dog is found, through publication or orally. The payment could be conditioned on the dog being returned alive. Those who learn of the reward are not required to search for the dog, but if someone finds the dog and delivers it, the High Court of Australia stated that the term unilateral contract is unscientific and misleading. In certain circumstances, a contract may be created. A contract is implied in fact if the circumstances imply that parties have reached an agreement even though they have not done so expressly, quantum meruit claims are an example. Carbolic, a firm, advertised a smoke ball marketed as a wonder drug that would, according to the instructions
18.
Rolling stock
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The term rolling stock originally referred to any vehicles that move on a railway. It has since expanded to include the vehicles used by businesses on roadways. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for locomotives, railroad cars, coaches, and wagons. Rolling stock is considered to be an asset, or close to it, since the value of the vehicle can be readily estimated. The term contrasts with fixed stock, which is a term for the track, signals, stations, other buildings, electric wires. In Great Britain, types of rolling stock were given code names and these codes were telegraphese, somewhat analogous to the SMS language of today. List of railway vehicles Great Western Railway telegraphic codes Great Western Railway wagons The dictionary definition of rolling stock at Wiktionary
19.
Burlington Northern Railroad
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The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U. S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996 and that corporation was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway in 2009 which is controlled by investor Warren Buffett. The merged railroad was going to be called Great Northern Pacific & Burlington Lines. The merger was approved in 1970 even though a challenge occurred in the Supreme Court. To further expand the Burlington Northern railroad, a track was constructed in 1972 into the Powder River Basin to serve various coal mines. On November 21,1980, the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway was acquired, in 1971, BN/C&S/FW&D carried 64116 million revenue ton-miles of freight, in 1979 the total was 135004 million. Most of the increase was Powder River coal from Wyoming, a fount of traffic unprecedented in United States railroad history, the Burlington Northern, along with handling freight trains, briefly operated inter-city passenger trains. The BN also operated a commuter line inherited from the CB&Q from Chicago Union Station to the suburb of Aurora. On September 22,1995, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway merged with the Burlington Northern to create the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, on January 24,2005, the railroad shortened its name to BNSF Railway. The Burlington Northern traversed the most northerly routes of any railroad in the western United States and these routes started at Chicago, Illinois and ran west-northwest to La Crosse, Wisconsin. From here the routes continued northwest through Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota to Grand Forks, from Grand Forks the routes ran west through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho to Spokane, Washington. At Spokane the routes split into three, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle ran southwest to the Tri-Cities, then followed the north bank of the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington. With the acquisition of the St. Louis – San Francisco Railway the route was extended into the South Central and Southeastern United States. Transport Statistics shows BN operated 23609 miles of line and 34691 miles of track at the end of 1970, it shows 4547 SLSF miles of line not including QA&P, at the end of 1981 BN showed 27374 miles of line and 40041 miles of track. The livery of the Burlington Northern traces its history to Chicago, Burlington, EMD GP40 #629 was painted in a green, black and white scheme that introduced the BNs lettering and logo. The green color was known as Cascade Green due to the reflections of pine trees. As the final approval of the merger was approaching the Spokane, Portland, by the 1980s the locomotives and rolling stock had an unfortunate habit of camouflaging into the scenery and causing accidents at railroad crossings. By 1987 the study did not show vast improvement of the visibility and was dropped
20.
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
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The eastern half of the system merged into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1,1986. The company went through several names and faced bankruptcy several times in that period. The company incorporated in 1847, but changed its name to the Milwaukee and its first line, all of 5 miles, opened between Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, on November 20,1850. Extensions followed to Waukesha in February 1851, Madison, and finally the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien in 1857. As a result of the panic of 1857, the M&M went into receivership in 1859. In 1867, Alexander Mitchell combined the M&PdC with the Milwaukee and St. Paul under the name Milwaukee, critical to the development and financing of the railroad was the acquisition of significant land grants. Prominent individual investors in the line included Alexander Mitchell, Russell Sage, Jeremiah Milbank, in 1874, the name was changed to Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. By 1887, the railroad had lines running through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, the company General Offices were later located in Chicagos Railway Exchange building until 1924, at which time they moved to Chicago Union Station. In the 1890s the Milwaukees directors felt they had to extend the railroad to the Pacific in order to remain competitive with other roads, a survey in 1901 estimated costs to build to the Pacific Northwest as $45 million. In 1905 the board approved the Pacific Extension, now estimated at $60 million, the contract for the western part of the route was awarded to Horace Chapin Henry of Seattle. Construction began in 1906 and was completed in 1909, the two main mountain ranges that had to be crossed required major civil engineering works and additional locomotive power. The completion of 2,300 miles of railroad through some of the most varied topography in the nation in three years was a major feat. Some historians question the choice of route, since it bypassed some population centers, much of the line paralleled the Northern Pacific Railway. It was primarily a long-haul route, Trains magazine called the building of the extension egregious and a disaster. George H. Drury listed the Pacific Extension as one of several decisions made by the Milwaukees management which contributed to the companys eventual failure. Operating conditions in the regions of the Pacific Extension proved difficult. In winter, temperatures dropped to −40 °F, making it challenging for steam locomotives to generate sufficient steam, the line snaked through mountainous areas, resulting in long steep grades and sharp curves. Electrification provided an answer, especially with abundant hydroelectric power in the mountains, between 1914–1916, the Milwaukee implemented a 3,000 volt direct current overhead system between Harlowton, Montana and Avery, Idaho, a distance of 438 miles
21.
Chicago and North Western Transportation Company
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The Chicago and North Western Transportation Company was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the North Western, the railroad operated more than 5,000 miles of track as of the turn of the 20th century, and over 12,000 miles of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s. Until 1972, when the company was sold to its employees, it was named the Chicago and North Western Railway. The C&NW became one of the longest railroads in the United States as a result of mergers with other railroads, such as the Chicago Great Western Railway, Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway and others. By 1995, track sales and abandonment had reduced the total back to about 5,000. The majority of the abandoned and sold lines were lightly trafficked branches in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Large line sales, such as those that resulted in the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad further helped reduce the railroad to a core with several regional feeders. The company was purchased by Union Pacific Railroad in April 1995, the Chicago and North Western Railway was chartered on June 7,1859. It had purchased the assets of the bankrupt Chicago, St. Paul, on February 15,1865, it officially merged with the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, which had been chartered on January 16,1836. The Winona and St. Peter Railroad was added to the network in 1867, the North Western had owned a majority of the stock of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway since 1882. On January 1,1957 it leased the company, and merged it into the North Western in 1972. The Omaha Roads main line ran from an interchange with the North Western at Elroy, Wisconsin, to the Twin Cities, down to Sioux City, Iowa, the North Western picked up several important short railroads during its later years. It finalized acquisition of the Litchfield and Madison Railway on January 1,1958, the Litchfield and Madison railroad was a 44-mile bridge road from East St. Louis to Litchfield, Illinois. On July 30,1968, the North Western acquired two former interurbans — the 36-mile Des Moines and Central Iowa Railway, and the 110-mile Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern Railway. The DM&CI gave access to the Firestone plant in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 1,1960, the North Western acquired the rail properties of the 1, 500-mile Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. In spite of its name, it ran only from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Peoria and this acquisition provided traffic and modern rolling stock, and eliminated competition. On July 1,1968 the 1,500 mi Chicago Great Western Railway was merged into the North Western and this railroad went from Chicago to Oelwein, Iowa. From there lines went to the Twin Cities, Omaha, Nebraska, a connection from Hayfield, Minnesota, to Clarion, Iowa, provided a Twin Cities to Omaha main line
22.
Illinois Central
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A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa. There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska, west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, the Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety. The Canadian National Railway acquired control of the IC in 1998, riding on the City of New OrleansIllinois Central Monday morning rail Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders Three conductors and 25 sacks of mail. Good morning America, how are you, – Steve Goodman, City of New Orleans,1970 The IC is one of the early Class I railroads in the US. Its roots go back to abortive attempts by the Illinois General Assembly to charter a railroad linking the northern and southern parts of the state of Illinois. In 1850 U. S. President Millard Fillmore signed a grant for the construction of the railroad. The Illinois Central was chartered by the Illinois General Assembly on February 10,1851, senator Stephen Douglas and later President Abraham Lincoln were both Illinois Central men who lobbied for it. Douglas owned land near the terminal in Chicago, Lincoln was a lawyer for the railroad. Upon its completion in 1856 the IC was the longest railroad in the world and its main line went from Cairo, Illinois, at the southern tip of the state, to Galena, in the northwest corner. A branch line went from Centralia, to the growing city of Chicago. In Chicago its tracks were laid along the shore of Lake Michigan and on an offshore causeway downtown, in 1867 the Illinois Central extended its track into Iowa, and during the 1870s and 1880s the IC acquired and expanded railroads in the southern United States. IC lines crisscrossed the state of Mississippi and went as far as New Orleans, Louisiana, to the south and Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1880s, northern lines were built to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Omaha, Nebraska. Further expansion continued into the twentieth century. The Illinois Central, and the other Harriman lines owned by E. H, Harriman, was the target of the Illinois Central shopmens strike of 1911. Although marked by violence and sabotage in the south, midwest, and western states, the railroads simply hired replacements and withstood diminishing union pressure. The strike was called off in 1915. The totals above do not include the Waterloo RR, Batesville Southwestern, Peabody Short Line or CofG, on December 31,1925 IC/Y&MV/G&SI operated 6,562 route-miles on 11,030 miles of track, A&V and VS&P added 330 route-miles and 491 track-miles. At the end of 1970 IC operated 6,761 miles of road and 11,159 of track, on August 10,1972, the Illinois Central Railroad merged with the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad to form the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad
23.
Passenger car (rail)
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A passenger car is a piece of railway rolling stock that is designed to carry passengers. The term passenger car can also be associated with a car, baggage, dining, railway post office. Up until about the end of the 19th century, most passenger cars were constructed of wood, the first passenger trains did not travel very far, but they were able to haul many more passengers for a longer distance than any wagons pulled by horses. As railways were first constructed in England, so too were the first passenger cars, one of the early coach designs was the Stanhope. It featured a roof and small holes in the floor for drainage when it rained, the only problem with this design is that the passengers were expected to stand for their entire trip. The first passenger cars in the United States resembled stagecoaches and they were short, often less than 10 ft long and had two axles. British railways had a start on American railroads, with the first bed-carriage being built there as early as 1838 for use on the London and Birmingham Railway. Britains early sleepers, when made up for sleeping, extended the foot of the bed into a section at the end of the carriage. The cars were too short to allow more than two or three beds to be positioned end to end. Britains Royal Mail commissioned and built the first Travelling Post Office cars in the late 1840s as well. These cars resembled coaches in their short wheelbase and exterior design, when not in use, the hook would swivel down against the side of the car to prevent it from catching obstacles. As locomotive technology progressed in the century, trains grew in length. Passenger cars, particularly in America, grew along with them, first getting longer with the addition of a second truck, early American sleeping cars were not compartmented, but by the end of the 19th century they were. The compartments in the sleepers were accessed from a side hall running the length of the cars. Many American passenger trains, particularly the long ones, included a car at the end of the train called an observation car. Until about the 1930s, these had a platform at the rear. These evolved into the end car, usually with a rounded end which was still called an observation car. The interiors of observation cars varied, many had special chairs and tables
24.
EMD F40PH
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The EMD F40PH is a four-axle 3, 000–3,200 hp B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division in several variants from 1975 to 1992. Intended for use on Amtraks short-haul passenger routes, it became the backbone of Amtraks diesel fleet after the failure of the EMD SDP40F, the F40PH also found widespread use on commuter railroads in the United States and with Via Rail Canada. Additional F40PH variants were remanufactured from older locomotives by Morrison-Knudsen and MotivePower Industries between 1988–1998, in addition, Amtrak has kept a number of de-engined F40PHs in use as Non-Powered Control Units. Amtrak inherited an aging and mechanically-incompatible fleet of locomotives from various private railroads on its startup in 1971. The most modern locomotives remained in hands to operate the various commuter services which, by law. To replace these Amtrak ordered 150 EMD SDP40F locomotives, which entering service in 1973. These were supplemented by 25 GE P30CHs which entered service in 1975, the SDP40F was a troubled design, problems with weight distribution led to a series of derailments in the mid-1970s. Meanwhile, the truck design of the P30CH curtailed further orders of that unit when Amtrak found itself needing more short-. The design of the F40PH was based on the EMD GP40-2 freight locomotive and shared that locomotives turbocharged EMD 645E3 V16 cylinder, two-stroke, the prime mover developed 3,000 hp at 893 RPM. The main generator converts mechanical energy from the prime mover into electricity distributed through a high voltage cabinet to the traction motors, each of the four traction motors is geared to a pair of driving wheels, the gear ratio determines the maximum speed of the locomotive. A standard F40PH has a ratio of 57,20. Some Amtrak F40PHs were delivered with a 56,21 gearing for 110 mph, the first thirty locomotives were built with a 1, 500-US-gallon fuel tank, all subsequent units were built with a 1, 800-US-gallon tank. Beginning with the EMD F40PH-2, introduced in 1985, the prime mover developed 3,200 horsepower, many of the original F40PHs were updated to match that output. The locomotives were 56 feet 2 inches long, a standard F40PH weighs 260,000 lb. For passenger service the F40PH has another electrical alternator, the head-end generator, the HEP unit generates three-phase AC power at 480 V for lighting, heating and air-conditioning the train. Power to the motors was controlled by varying the field excitation of the main generator. On some later versions of the F40PH, a small diesel engine at the rear of the locomotive powers the HEP alternator. In these engines, the speed varies in the usual way, they can be identified by the diesel exhaust at the rear of the locomotive
25.
North Central Service
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The North Central Service is a Metra commuter rail line running from Union Station in downtown Chicago through northwestern and far northern suburbs to Antioch, Illinois. In April 2013 the public timetable shows 11 weekday departures from Chicago, one to Lake Villa, about a mile west of the River Grove, this route turns north at a junction known as tower B-12. The rest of the route operates on track owned and dispatched by the Canadian National Railway, a single daily inbound train, #120, uses a combination of the North Central Services trackage and the Milwaukee District North lines trackage by using a crossing with that line in Grayslake. The CN assumed ownership of this route on September 7,2001 when the CN absorbed the Wisconsin Central Railroad, the WC operated this route after it was purchased from the Soo Line Railroad in April 1987. Metra provides its own crews for service and operates under a trackage rights agreement with the CN. As of 2006, this is the new line in the Metra system since its formation. Prior to the start of NCS, the last passenger service on this route ended in 1965, the North Central Service serves OHare International Airport, but a limited number of trains. Metra does operates one train from Union Station to OHare Transfer daily. The North Central Service, the Heritage Corridor, and SouthWest Service are the only Metra lines that are fully ADA-accessible, no tickets are sold at any North Central Service stations outside Chicago. On January 30,2006 four new stations on the North Central Service opened, Franklin Park, Schiller Park, Rosemont, another station, at Grand and Cicero Avenues in Chicago, was scheduled to be completed by the end of as of 2006. Service doubled from 10 to 20 trains per day with this change in the timetable, on September 11,2006 service expanded from 20 to 22 trains when Metra split one rush-hour local train in each direction into two express trains. Notably, the line goes through Des Plaines but does not have a station there, the station in Des Plaines was on Thacker Street and closed in 1965. J. David Ingles, Ready or not, here we come, Trains November 1996 Media related to Metra North Central Service at Wikimedia Commons Metra North Central Service schedule
26.
Union Pacific / Northwest Line
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The Union Pacific / Northwest Line is a commuter rail line provided by Metra and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in Chicago, Illinois and its surrounding suburbs. The line runs from the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago to endpoints in McHenry, Illinois and Harvard, Illinois, overall, this is Metras longest route and one of three lines with branches. The line has many riders from southern Wisconsin due to its proximity to places like Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has funded studies on extending the line from Harvard to into Janesville, with potential stops along the way. This line is used by a handful of commuters from the Rockford area. There has been talk of rebuilding the KD Line from Rockford to Harvard, the Union Pacific / Northwest Line is Metras second busiest line, with an average of 38,600 boardings on a weekday. It is second only to the BNSF Railway
27.
Union Pacific / West Line
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The Union Pacific West Line is a Metra commuter rail line operated by Union Pacific Railroad in Chicago, Illinois and its suburbs. In April 2013 the public timetable shows 30 trains leaving Chicago each weekday, all weekend trains run to Elburn. Of the 8 trains on weekdays that do not run through to Elburn,4 terminate at Elmhurst,2 at Geneva,1 at West Chicago, all weekend trains run through to Elburn. Until 2006, all trains terminated at Elburn today terminated at Geneva. The line runs from the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago through the suburbs to Elburn. This is the oldest railway route in Chicago, the route of the Galena, in late spring 2009 Union Pacific began an upgrade to the line. Work will be completed by late December 2010, speculation exists that the line could be extended from Elburn west through Maple Park and Cortland to DeKalb. This would provide access for North-Central Illinois Residents to the Chicago area. Maple Park has indicated that adding a Metra stop in the town is in the Countys 2040 transportation plan, Union Pacific has already said that these plans are unlikely to go through if Geneva does not allow a third track to go through their town. This is due to the usage of the rail for both freight and passenger trains. Freight trains currently back up in rural Elburn for a half-hour or more waiting for a line to West Chicago
28.
Michael Madigan
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Michael J. Madigan is the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Except for Solomon Blatt, Madigan is the leader of any state legislative body in the history of the United States, having held the position for all. He has been a member of the Illinois House since 1971, representing the 22nd District, Chicago Magazine named Madigan the fourth-most-powerful Chicagoan in 2012 and second in 2013 and 2014, calling him the Velvet Hammer—a. k. a. Chicagos 13th Ward surrounds Midway International Airport and includes the Clearing neighborhood on Chicagos Southwest Side, in the 1980 United States Census, the population of the 13th Ward was 61,249,95. 58% of whom were White and 57 of whom were African American. Madigans father, Michael, was a very strong Democrat, a product of the Great Depression and he carried with him very strong feelings in favor of the New Deal. Michael Flynn was the Cook County Clerk, and also the Democratic committeeman of Chicagos 13th Ward, Madigans father was a precinct captain in the 13th Ward and worked in the Cook County Clerks office, where he befriended a young Richard J. Daley. Madigan later characterized the relationship between his father and Richard J. Daley as political friends, the elder Michael Madigan later worked for 25 years as the 13th Ward superintendent for the City of Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation. Madigan was born on April 19,1942 and was raised in the Clearing neighborhood of Chicago, Madigan graduated from Saint Adrians Elementary School, St. Ignatius College Prep on the west side of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame. Within months, at Madigans fathers request, Mayor Daley appointed Madigan to a job with the city law department between his first and second years of law school. Madigan also met Daleys son Richard M. Daley, while both were law students, Madigans father suffered a heart attack at age 58, and a fatal heart attack at age 60, in 1966. Madigan graduated from Loyola Law School in 1967, Madigan and Neil Hartigan worked together in the city law department. Madigan and Richard M. Daley were delegates to the 1970 Illinois constitutional convention, their first elected public offices, and became good friends. In 1972, Madigan founded the law firm of Madigan and Getzendanner with Vincent J. Bud Getzendanner, Jr. a fellow Loyola law graduate. In 1976, Madigan married Shirley Murray, a law firm receptionist with a young daughter, Lisa. Madigan joined Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne in endorsing Alderman Edward M. Burke in the 1980 Democratic primary race for Cook County States Attorney, in 1986, Madigan urged Adlai Stevenson III to enter the Democratic primary for Illinois Governor. Hartigan withdrew and Stevenson prevailed in the primary and was defeated by James R. Thompson for the second time. In 1969, the 13th Ward precinct captains elected Madigan their committeeman, making him, at 27 years of age, Madigans ward organization has been called the most disciplined in Chicago. In 1998, the Illinois Democratic Partys Central Committee elected Madigan chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, Madigan succeeded his protégé and former chief of staff, Gary LaPaille
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Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, at the end of 1970 it operated 7183 miles of road on 10669 miles of track, that year it reported 20557 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 118 million passenger-miles. The song Rock Island Line, a spiritual from the late 1920s first recorded in 1934, was inspired by the railway, construction began October 1,1851, in Chicago, and the first train was operated on October 10,1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22,1854, the Mississippi river bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22,1856. In 1857, Abraham Lincoln represented the Rock Island in an important lawsuit regarding bridges over navigable rivers, the suit had been brought by the owner of a steamboat which was destroyed by fire after running into the Mississippi river bridge. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge, the M&M was acquired by the C&RI on July 9,1866, to form the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company. The railroad expanded through construction and acquisitions in the following decades, the Rock Island stretched across Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas. The easternmost reach of the system was Chicago, and the system also reached Memphis, Tennessee, west, it reached Denver, Colorado, and Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Southernmost reaches were to Galveston, Texas, and Eunice, Louisiana while in a direction the Rock Island got as far as Minneapolis. The heaviest traffic was on the Chicago-to-Rock Island and Rock Island-to-Muscatine lines, in common with most American railroad companies, the Rock Island once operated an extensive passenger service. The primary routes served were, Chicago-Los Angeles, Chicago-Denver, Memphis-Tucumcari, the Rock Island ran both Limited and Local service on those routes as well as locals on many other lines on its system. In 1937, the Rock Island introduced Diesel power to its passenger service, in competition with the Santa Fe Chiefs, the Rock Island jointly operated the Golden State Limited with the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1902–1968. On this route, the Rock Islands train was marketed as a low altitude crossing of the Continental Divide, the Rock Island did not concede to the Santa Fes dominance in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market and re-equipped the train with new streamlined equipment in 1948. At the same time, the Limited was dropped from the trains name, the local run on this line was known as the Imperial. The 1948 modernization of the Golden State occurred with some controversy, in 1947, both the Rock Island and Southern Pacific jointly advertised the coming of a new entry in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market. The Golden Rocket was scheduled to match the Santa Fes transit time end-to-end and was to have its own dedicated trainsets, one purchased by the Rock Island. As the Rock Islands set of streamlined cars was being finished. The Rock Islands cars were delivered and would find their way into the Golden States fleet soon after delivery, the Golden State was the last first-class train on the Rock Island, retaining its dining cars and sleeping cars until its last run on February 21,1968
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Geneva station (Illinois)
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Geneva is a Metra commuter railroad station in Geneva, Illinois served by Metras Union Pacific/West Line. The station is 35.5 miles away from Ogilvie Transportation Center, in Metras zone-based fare structure, Geneva is in zone H. The station consists of two platforms and a waiting room, with a ticket agent booth staffed on weekday mornings. Trains go east to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and west to Elburn, until the lines extension to Elburn in 2006, Geneva was the western terminus of the Union Pacific/West Line. Until 2006 and the extension, half of the weekend trains started at West Chicago. Since then, all trains were moved to Elburn, leaving all trains to serve Geneva. Metra – Stations – Geneva station
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Ogilvie Transportation Center
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It occupies the lower floors of the Citigroup Center. The building occupies two blocks, bounded by Randolph Street and Madison Street to the north and south and by Canal Street. It is the second busiest rail station in Chicago, after Union Station, the Chicago and North Western Railway built the Chicago and North Western Terminal in 1911 to replace its Wells Street Station across the North Branch of the Chicago River. The new station, in the Renaissance Revival style, was designed by Frost and Granger, the stations 16 tracks were elevated above street level and reached by six approach tracks and sheltered under an 894-foot-long Bush train shed. The upper level of the house housed a concourse and other facilities for intercity passengers, including dressing rooms, baths, nurses and matrons rooms. The centerpiece of the level was a stately waiting room, measuring 201 by 202 feet. In addition to the concourse on the upper level, there was a street-level concourse for commuters. Until October 30,1955, it was also the Chicago terminus of the trains the Union Pacific ran in conjunction with the C&NW, including the Overland Limited, see below for some of the best known of the trains served by this station. In 1984 the 1911 head house was razed and replaced with the glass-and-steel 42-story Citicorp Center, the station was renamed the Ogilvie Transportation Center in 1997, two years after the C&NW merged into the Union Pacific Railroad. The station was named for Richard B, Ogilvie, a board member of the Milwaukee Road and a lifelong railroad proponent, who, as governor of Illinois, created the RTA, which is the parent agency of Metra. In 1991 Metra purchased the train shed from Chicago and North Western, the examination included necessary repairs to improve its structural integrity and redesign measures to bring the station up to modern mass-commuting standards. During the rehabilitation project, which lasted four years and cost $138 million, over 60 contractors spent more than 800,000 man-hours performing repairs, the station has 16 tracks with eight island platforms, each island platform servicing two tracks. Not all the platforms are the length, the platforms on the western part of the station are significantly longer than the eastern platforms. In general, West Line trains depart from the platforms, Northwest Line trains depart from the middle tracks. Just north of the station, the number of tracks reduces from 16 to six, switches allow for trains on any of the 16 station tracks to end up on any of these six tracks, and vice versa. About a third of a mile from the station, the six tracks split into two mainlines of four tracks, one mainline turns west, while the other turns northwest. West Line trains take the west tracks, while Northwest and North Line trains take the northwest tracks, the Chicago and North Western Terminal has served as a terminal for all the commuter and intercity trains of the Chicago and North Western Railway. Those trains, which used the C&NWs branch to the St. Charles Air Line west of Western Avenue, last ran on April 30,1971, Amtrak services over the lines of those two railroads have run into Union Station
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Rock Island District
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The Rock Island District is a Metra commuter rail line from Chicago, Illinois, southwest to Joliet. Metra does not refer to its lines by color, but the timetable accents for the Rock Island District line are Rocket Red and this refers to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroads Rocket passenger trains. The November 2015 timetable shows 34 trains out of Chicago each weekday, of which 9 terminate at Blue Island,24 at Joliet, originally the train that terminates at Tinley Park terminated at New Lenox. Weekend express trains run through to Joliet, while local trains make a short run to Blue Island. The track is owned by Metra, bought from the bankrupt Chicago, Rock Island, the Regional Transportation Authority had signed a contract with the Rock Island in 1976 to fund service, and in 1980 the Chicago and North Western Railway began operating the Rock Island District. In spring 1981 the C&NW stepped away, and the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation was formed to take over operations, through freight trains on the line are operated by CSX and Iowa Interstate Railroad on a trackage rights agreement. The Rock Island District consists of the former Rock Island main line to Joliet, most trains use the latter, the two stations on that part of the main line are served only during rush hour and during weekend express operations. The crossing of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway midway along 99th was known as Dummy Crossing. In the early 1890s the line was extended north to 89th Street in conjunction with the expansion of the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad, a new station at 35th Street and Federal Street opened on April,32011 to serve U. S. Cellular Field and the Illinois Institute of Technology and it was named 35th Street/Lou Jones/Bronzeville Station after Lovana Jones who was an Illinois State Representative in the Bronzeville neighborhood. In June 2015, Metra began weekend service on the Rock Island District. The six express trains operate on both Saturday and Sunday run express from 35th Street to Blue Island-Vermont Street before making all stops to Joliet. Local trains run as well, making all stops on the Beverly branch and this cuts about 20 minutes off the trips from Blue Island to downtown. On August 23rd,2015, Metra announced that the express service would become permanent upon completion of the trial period on November 29th,2015. The Rock Island District runs a few empty equipment move trains, inbound deadheads are scheduled between the Joliet, Mokena-Front Street, and Tinley Park stations and run to Blue Island-Vermont Street
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LaSalle Street Station
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LaSalle Street Station is a commuter rail terminal at 414 South LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago. It was an intercity rail terminal for the New York Central Railroad until 1968, and for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad until 1978. The present structure became the station on the site when its predecessor was demolished in 1981 and replaced by the new station. The Chicago Board of Trade Building, Willis Tower and Harold Washington Library are close by, the first station on the site opened on May 22,1852 with the completion of the Northern Indiana and Chicago Railroad. On October 1,1852, the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad began using the station, the two railroads later became the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway and Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. North of a junction at Englewood Station, both companies lines ran parallel to the terminal, in December 1866 a new station opened. The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 destroyed the station, which was shortly afterwards. The post-fire station was demolished to make way for a new designed by the architectural firm Frost & Granger which opened July 1,1903. This station was a set for Alfred Hitchcocks 1959 North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, the LS&MS quickly gained control of the Nickel Plate, and later allowed it into its LaSalle Street Station as a tenant. In July 1916 the LS&MS sold the Nickel Plate to the Van Sweringens, most intercity rail service at La Salle ended on May 1,1971 when Amtrak consolidated long-distance services at Union Station. Rock Island opted out of Amtrak and continued to operate intercity service from LaSalle until 1978, now only commuter trains on Metras Rock Island District serve the station. From 1972–75 the Rock Island operated a restaurant called Track One using two former railroad cars parked on track 1 at the station, the two cars, the dining car Golden Harvest and the club-lounge Pacific Shore, had previously served on the Golden State Limited. Although only Metras Rock Island District trains now use LaSalle, additional service is planned, Metras proposed SouthEast Service would terminate at LaSalle, and Chicagos massive CREATE infrastructure improvement program would allow trains from Metras SouthWest Service to use the terminal. LaSalle still serves trains on Metras Rock Island District. Approximately 17,000 people board Metra trains at LaSalle each day
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Metra Electric District
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The Metra Electric District is an electrified commuter rail line owned and operated by Metra which connects Millennium Station, in downtown Chicago, with the citys southern suburbs. As of 2014, it is the second busiest of Metras 11 lines, after the BNSF and it is the only Metra line that is solely a commuter route, which means no freight trains operate on this route. Instead, freight trains operate on tracks that are adjacent to the route and its suburban operations line is the shortest on Metras system, only running to fare zone G. If all the branches were combined, they would reach to zone J and it is also the only line with two downtown stations. During rush hours some trains do not reach Van Buren Street or Millennium Station and it is the only Metra line powered by overhead catenary, and the only one with three branches. Trains operate on 1500 volts direct current, and all stations have high-level platforms and its main line north of Kensington is shared by NICTDs South Shore Line, an electric interurban line through northern Indiana to South Bend. It is the only Metra line with significant off-peak and Saturday service, in total,92 trains depart Millennium Station according to the Monday-Saturday public timetable. Of these,39 run on the main line, of these,29 reach University Park, with 5 terminating at Flossmoor and 5 terminating at Harvey. The stretch of the line from Millennium Station to 55th-56th-57th Street is the most heavily traveled section on the entire Metra system, suburban operations along the line are the most frequent in the entire Metra system. The Metra Electric District also has the best on-time performance of all Metra lines, the line was built by the Illinois Central Railroad, one of the first commuter services outside the major metropolitan areas of the northeastern United States. It opened on July 21,1856 between the ICs downtown station and Hyde Park, part of the line was elevated for the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Jackson Park. The line predates the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and ran on a trestle just offshore in Lake Michigan. After the fire, remains of buildings destroyed by the fire were dumped into the lake, creating landfill that forms the foundation of Grant Park, by the early 20th century the IC operated up to 300 steam trains each day. In 1919, the IC and the Chicago government collaborated to build a berm from the far suburb of Homewood into the city. They also dug a trench from the south side into the city proper. The University Park extension required the line to cross a long private driveway. The South Chicago branch runs at grade, crossing many city streets, the grade crossing elimination project was followed by electrification. The IC electrified the tracks in 1926, from downtown to Matteson
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Millennium Station
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Located under Millennium Park, the terminal was established in the 1800s by the Illinois Central Railroad. It was rebuilt in the early 21st century and is now owned by the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, not counting commuters on the South Shore Line, over 18,000 people board Metra trains at Millennium Station each day. During peak periods, trains leave the terminal as frequently as twice a minute and it still received many trains thereafter, but was of secondary importance. Its importance increased dramatically in 1926 with the electrification of services on ICs main line and its Blue Island. Commuter trains from all three branches were now routed into the Randolph Street terminal, while intercity traffic continued to terminate at Central Station, originally, the station platforms were exposed and the ticketing facilities and the waiting room were located in the attached facility. The construction of Millennium Park gradually placed the station underground. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill was the architect for the station redesign, the pedway itself hosts a number of shops, eateries and services. Smurfit–Stone Building Chicago Cultural Center The Heritage at Millennium Park Randolph/Wabash L station Macys Lake/State L station Block 37 Washington/Dearborn L station Richard J
36.
Chicago Loop
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The Loop is the central business district of Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the citys 77 designated community areas, the Loop is home to Chicagos commercial core, City Hall, and the seat of Cook County. In the late century, cable car turnarounds and prominent elevated railway encircled the area. In what is now the Loop, on the bank of the Chicago River, near todays Michigan Avenue Bridge. It was the first settlement in the sponsored by the United States. Other research has concluded that the Loop was not used as a proper noun until after the 1895–97 construction of the Union elevated railway loop, Loop architecture has been dominated by skyscrapers and high-rises since early in its history. Some of the buildings in this district were instrumental in the development of towers. Chicagos street numbering system – dividing addresses into North, South, East, Chicago is still the nations rail transportation hub and passenger lines once reached seven Loop-area stations by the 1890s. Transfers from one to the other was a business for taxi drivers until the long-distance lines gave way to Amtrak in the 1970s with the majority of trains concentrated at Chicago Union Station. This area abounds in shopping opportunities, including the Loop Retail Historic District and it includes Chicagos former Marshall Fields department store location in the Marshall Field and Company Building, the original Sullivan Center Carson Pirie Scott store location. Chicagos Downtown Theatre District is also found within this area, along with numerous restaurants, Chicago has a famous skyline which features many of the tallest buildings in the world as well as the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Chicagos skyline is spaced out throughout the area, giving it a graceful beautiful appearance. Chicagos third tallest building, the Aon Center, is located just south of Illinois Center, the complex is at the east end of the Loop, east of Michigan Avenue. Two Prudential Plaza is also located here, just to the west of the Aon Center, the Loop contains a wealth of outdoor sculpture, including works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alexander Calder, and Jean Dubuffet. Chicagos waterfront, which is almost exclusively recreational beach and park areas from north to south, the area also hosts the annual music festival Lollapalooza which features popular alternative rock, heavy metal, EDM, hop hop and punk rock artists. Trips down the Chicago River, including tours, by commercial boat operators are great favorites with both locals and tourists alike. The Loop is the seat of Chicagos government and it is also the government seat of Cook County, Illinois and houses an office for the governor of the State of Illinois. The century old City Hall/County Building houses the chambers of the Mayor, City Council, across the street, the Richard J. Daley Center accommodates a famous Picasso sculpture and the state law courts
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Reverse commute
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A reverse commute is a round trip, regularly taken, from an urban area to a suburban one in the morning, and returning in the evening. It is almost universally applied to the trip to work in the suburbs from home in the city and this is on opposition to the regular commute, where a person lives in the suburbs and travels to work in the city. The reverse commuter travels in the direction to the regular daily population flow. Train and bus routes may be sparse in the reverse direction. Hence, transit usage can be lower for reverse-commuters than regular commuters, in some cases, reverse commuting has become quite popular. For example, Metro-North Railroad runs rush hour New Haven Line trains from New York City to Stamford, CT, low unemployment rates in the suburbs may help to fuel the increase over the past years in reverse commuter ridership. But the very reasons commuting makes sense operate against the reverse commuter, for instance, on the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles, there are more vehicles in the morning peak hour heading westbound towards Santa Monica than into Downtown Los Angeles. An example of reverse commuting can be found in the Washington Metropolitan Area, companies desiring space in Washington often opt for space in Maryland or Virginia because of the great expense of office space downtown. As such, there are people who live in Washington and work in Maryland and Virginia, either driving, taking Metrobus, Metrorail
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Tourism
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Tourism is travel for pleasure or business, also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the travellers country, Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a countrys balance of payments. Today, tourism is a source of income for many countries. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2011, the ITB Berlin is the worlds leading tourism trade fair. The word tourist was used by 1772 and tourism by 1811. It is formed from the tour, which is derived from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare, to turn on a lathe. Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs, in 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours. Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945 and it includes movements for all purposes. In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home, in this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited, by contrast, traveler is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the values underpinning these distinctions. International tourist arrivals reached 1.035 billion in 2012, up from over 996 million in 2011, the World Tourism Organization reports the following ten destinations as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers in 2016. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.2 trillion in 2014, based upon air traffic, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index reports the following cities as the top ten most popular destinations of international tourism worldwide. MasterCard reports the following cities as the top ten biggest earners on international tourism worldwide in 2015, as early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building waystations for travelers. During the Roman Republic, spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae were popular among the rich, pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the 2nd century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, the Islamic hajj is still central to its faith and Chaucers Canterbury Tales and Wu Chengens Journey to the West remain classics of English and Chinese literature. The 10th- to 13th-century Song dynasty also saw secular travel writers such as Su Shi, under the Ming, Xu Xiake continued the practice
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BNSF Railway (Metra)
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The BNSF Railway Line is a Metra commuter rail line operated by the BNSF Railway in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. In 2010, the BNSF Railway Line continued to have the highest weekday ridership of the 11 Metra lines, in April 2014, the public timetable showed 47 trains leaving Chicago each weekday, of which 31 run to Aurora. Of the 16 trains that do not reach Aurora,3 terminate at Westmont,1 at Naperville,5 at Route 59,5 at Fairview Avenue,1 at Brookfield, during rush hours, many trains run express to Downers Grove and make all stops to Aurora. The east end is Union Station in downtown Chicago, the line traverses Chicago and its western and far western suburbs to Aurora. BNSF Railway operates it under a purchase of service agreement with Metra, management and crews are BNSF employees, the June 2007 timetable shows a 70 mph maximum allowed speed for passenger trains. Metra has studied the feasibility of extending the line beyond Aurora, possibly as far as Plano, the railroad between Chicago and Aurora was constructed in 1864 by the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, which later merged into the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The CB&Q operated the service until the railroad became part of the Burlington Northern in 1970. Burlington Northern merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1995 and it later changed its name to the abbreviation, BNSF. With three tracks, fast and frequent Amtrak and Metra passenger trains, and BNSF freight trains, the Clyde station at South Austin Boulevard and West 29th Street in Cicero was closed on April 1,2007 due to low ridership and its dilapidation. In the months before its closure, it was used by about 50 passengers a day, the BNSF Railways locomotive fleet consists mainly of the EMD F40PHM-2, with some EMD F40PH locomotives
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Aurora Transportation Center
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The Aurora Transportation Center is a station on Metras BNSF Railway Line in Aurora, Illinois. The station is 38.4 miles from Union Station, the east end of the line, in Metras zone-based fare system, Aurora is in zone H. There is a station building. Aurora is the west end of the BNSF Railway Line and is served by numerous Pace bus routes and it served as a Greyhound bus stop until September 7,2011. Amtrak trains do not stop here, there has been speculation that the line will be extended to the Plano Amtrak station. The station replaced the former Aurora Train Station, at the corners of South Broadway and that station was smaller with considerably less parking area, but Amtrak trains as well as Metra trains stopped here. The station opened in the early 1900s and closed in the mid-1980s, the building was torn down in April 2013. Aurora is a terminal, which means the Metra tracks actually stop here. Amtrak and BNSF freights use the two tracks east of the station, Pace Route 521 – East Circulator. Route 528 – Aurora Transportation Center/Rush-Copley Medical Center, Route 529 – Randall Road/5th Street. Route 530 – West Galena/Westfield Shoppingtown Fox Valley Center, Route 907 – Oswego/Aurora Metra Shuttle. Media related to Aurora Transportation Center at Wikimedia Commons Metra – Stations – Aurora Transportation Center
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Currently operating commuter rail systems in the United States