MAYBE SOMEBODY IS LISTENING.  Cold Spring Shops, last August.

Metra will be rebuilding the old Chicago and North Western Milwaukee Division commencing later this month. When this line hosted Streamliner 400s to the Twin Cities and points north, it was a three track railroad. After the 400s quit and Metra took ownership of the line, it became a two track railroad. As part of the rebuilding, the century-old overpasses (with space for three tracks) will be replaced with new bridges that might last that long. But they are being built with two, rather than three, tracks in mind. A third track on a commuter line can be useful for intermingling express, limited, and local trains (the Burlington line starting trains at about the same time from several outer locations, they each make a few pickups and turn into nonstoppers on the center track). 

The rebuilding project began, with a very unpopular schedule change, and then stopped.

It will begin again, with no disruption of the existing service.

As WBBM Newsradio 780′s Bob Roberts reports, Metra promised Friday that the project won’t require schedule changes and should cause minimal service disruptions, if any.

“We’ve thrown out that train schedule that we ran for a couple of months,” said Metra Deputy Executive Director Bill Tupper.

The commuters -- the North Line does not serve a poverty pocket, and one of the trains still features a subscription club car, persuaded the authorities to rebuild their railroad in a way less inconvenient to the passengers.

The key is keeping two tracks open at all times, just as Metra did when rebuilding Rock Island District and Union Pacific Northwest Line bridges.

Tupper said those projects went well.

“I don’t want to say we had absolutely no delays, but any delays we had were very minimal,” he said. “This is typical of what we’ve done before so we’re not anticipating delays.”

That's standard enough. Some of those influential commuters might have long memories, or perhaps, just perhaps, Someone In Authority Agrees With Me.

The cost is higher than the now-discarded one-track plan — an extra $40 million to install a new retaining wall on the west side of the 2-1/2 miles of right-of-way, all on Chicago’s north side, and the work will take till 2019 to complete. But Tupper said that by keeping both tracks along the west side of the right-of-way, planners will create room for re-installation of a third express track, if the money becomes available.

The third track, which ran as far north as Evanston, was pulled up by the Chicago & North Western Ry. in 1984 as an economy move, and long-time riders say service on the line has not been quite as good since.

Tupper said Metra will consult with city officials, aldermen and area residents to minimize disruption in the neighborhoods surrounding the tracks, and will work with them to put in new vegetation, including ivy along the new embankment wall.

There's no reason a railroad must be unsightly. There is every good reason for a railroad to move passengers.  Parking charges and real gasoline prices are likely to keep increasing.  That third track is going to make economic sense eventually.