The Chicago Subdivision or Chicago Sub is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

line in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

that runs about from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

and hosts

Metra Metra is the commuter rail system in the Chicago metropolitan area serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs via the Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, and other railroads. The system operates 242 stations on 11 rail lines ...

BNSF Railway Line The BNSF Line (also known informally as the "Racetrack") is a Metra commuter rail line operated by the BNSF Railway in Chicago and its western suburbs. In 2010, the BNSF Line continued to have the highest weekday ridership (average 64,600) of t ...

commuter service. It is operated by

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

as the easternmost part of the railroad's

Northern Transcon The Northern Transcon, a route operated by the BNSF Railway, traverses the most northerly route of any railroad in the western United States. This route was originally part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Northern Pacific Railway ...

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

. This line is known as the Racetrack because it is mostly triple-tracked and supports fairly fast trains. It had been operated by a BNSF ancestor, the

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illin ...

, which introduced high-speed '' Zephyr'' passenger trains in 1934 and ran many of them along this subdivision from Chicago to points west. The Chicago Subdivision meets the

Aurora Subdivision The Aurora Subdivision or Aurora Sub is a railway line in Wisconsin and Illinois operated by BNSF Railway. It is part of BNSF's Chicago, Illinois, to Seattle, Washington, Northern Transcon. This segment runs about from the St. Croix Subdivision ...

and

Mendota Subdivision Mendota can refer to any of the following places in the United States: * Mendota, California * Mendota, Illinois, a city in LaSalle County * Mendota Township, LaSalle County, Illinois * Mendota, Minnesota * Mendota Heights, Minnesota * Mendota, Vi ...

in Aurora. Commuter service ends at the

Aurora Transportation Center The Aurora Transportation Center is a station on Metra's BNSF Line in Aurora, Illinois. The station is from Union Station, the east end of the line. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Aurora is in zone H. As of 2018, Aurora is the 13th busiest ...

, though

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

trains continue southwest on the Mendota Subdivision. Triple-tracking runs from where track leading to the Aurora station and Metra Yard joins the subdivision eastward to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, where multiple tracks from a yard join. It is then quadruple-tracked for the rest of the way until the turn to

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

. weekday traffic on the subdivision was 94 Metra commuter trains, eight Amtrak intercity trains, and 60 BNSF freight trains. After the introduction of the CB&Q ''Zephyrs'', train speeds increased significantly around the country for the next decade or so, but the

Naperville train disaster The Naperville train disaster occurred April 25, 1946, on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad at Loomis Street in Naperville, Illinois, when the railroad's ''Exposition Flyer'' rammed into the '' Advance Flyer'', which had made an unschedu ...

along these tracks in 1946 was one event that contributed to the federal government restricting speeds in later years. Trains that had once traveled at or above were soon restricted to a maximum of . Much of this line has a speed limit of for passenger trains, while freight trains run slower.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline
BNSF Subdivisions
BNSF Railway lines Rail lines in Illinois

See also

References

External links