CHICAGO — The Belt Railway of Chicago has issued a Request for Proposals for preliminary signal design services for two portions of the 75th Street Corridor Improvement Project, a major element of the CREATE Project on the city’s South Side.
The proposal will cover Projects EW2 and P2. EW2 realigns Belt Junction, where four freight railroadsand Metra’s SouthWest Service experience conflicts. P2 will connect the SouthWest Service route to Metra’s Rock Island District tracks, allowing SouthWest Service trains to arrive and depart from La Salle Street station. More information on both projects is available at the CREATE website.
The full Request for Proposal is available here. A mandatory online pre-proposal meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Oct. 7; details on registration for that meeting are included in the download.
Proposals are due at noon CT on Nov. 11, 2022, with selection of a contractor anticipated for December.
Walter, not suggesting that at all. Southwest Service trains have used Union Station for years so moving them to LaSalle St is a significant change. Regarding Union Station capacity, there is capacity where the former mail car/post office tracks were.
Southwest Service into sleepy, ill-equipped LaSalle Street is a dud. While Union Station has it’s issues at least it offers amenities and is located in a more active area of downtown. LaSalle is especially inconvenient for making connections to Amtrak trains, since THERE ARE NONE!
I doubt that Union Station has enough spare capacity to handle the addition of all of the Lasalle St. trains.