Ranking U.S. Commuter Rails (Part 2 - the South and Midwest)

Hi. I'm Sam, a railfan based out of Eastern Massachusetts. I film trains from all around the world and make narrated videos explaining how the railroad works. Thanks for watching and I'll see you out on the mainline!

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0:00 - Intro
2:49 - SunRail
4:30 - TriRail
5:43 - Trinity Railway Express
7:10 - WeGo Star
8:31 - GO Transit
9:46 - Metra
11:15 - Northstar
12:37 - South Shore Line
13:54 - Outro

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YouTube: WorldwideRailfan
Instagram: @worldwiderailfan
Flickr: Sam Dwyer Photo

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Outro song:
lost/url - its 4 in the morning

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Canon EOS Rebel T6
Canon VIXIA HF R800
DJI Mavic Mini
iPhone 11 Pro
GoPro Hero Session
GoPro Hero Plus

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©2024 WorldWideRailfan

[johnsmith]

I'm not necessarily opposed to including the railfan score, but it shouldn't be weighted the same as actual operations categories, especially since it's entirely subjective and old equipment that gives a system "railfan appeal" actively harms operations by being less reliable and more expensive to maintain and giving the system a public image of being outdated and unappealing that discourages ridership even if the service is good.

[jacobt]

I think the only thing I disagree is Metra's usefulness score.
Chicago's traffic has been worse than ever, and with this shift to cars happening as metra ridership is still below pre-2020 levels shows how vital the commuter lines are, and having Metra be less useful than SunRail even though there are 12 lines that radiate out from the city core, some of which nearly parallel said freeways, seems a little off.

[awesomemana]

GO Transit needs a higher score! They have both two-way all day service on almost every single line (except 2) and have frequencies of up to 15mins on weekends for three of the lines! How is it in the same tier as rail lines like exo who don’t have two way all day service :(

Also the longer trains aren’t causing less frequency, we need those long trains since it’s still so so packed sometimes

[szm-qflp]

The low frequency for some GO transit line is not due to the longer train but due to the class I owned tracks for those routes. Take Milton line as an example, CPKC only allow GO transit operates rush hour commuter services, that is trains for Union Station during the morning rush hours and Leaving Union Station during the evening rush hours on weekday. On the GO transit owned lines service is fairly frequent with lakeshore lines has a train at least every 30 minutes which is excellent by North American standard.

[Clerkenwell]

how are you gonna give northstar and metra the same usefullness score? 8 trains a day vs 700 that metra runs??

[Wholehogentertainment]

Putting GO in the same tier as trirail is insane

[joshuafalshaw]

That GO Transit score is criminal! How on earth is North America's third most used commuter rail system with one of the biggest networks on the same tier as EXO, TRE, or Tri Rail? Sure the Milton and Richmond Hill lines suck compared to the other five lines, and they all have their issues, but it is way better than C tier. High B tier I feel is WAY more appropriate

[packr]

Metra’s score is pure nonsense, it’s certainly a better railroad than MARC.

[Dodener]

My rant on Metra (i live in chicagoland so heres my bias)

Metras SD70MACH are brand new basically, they are using an older chassis but is still less than 20 years old, with the tech they built into it and well as matching the current emission standards, its better than alot in use across the states, they have ordered a few dozen of them to replace older F40PHs from the 70s. Metra also operates MP36PH which is also somewhat new.
Another thing i dont understand is how Metra got a very low usefulness rating when its one of the busiest commuter rail systems in the US(4th place). Its barely 2nd place for rail mileage, twice as many stations as any other system in the US. You stated that Metras northern lines suck, which in reality only 1 sucks, the other is moderately popular and the UP-NW line the 2nd most used line in the system. The state said they have plans to expand the MD-W to 2 new towns, Huntley and Rockford, with Rockford being the 2nd largest non chicagoland city in Illinois in the next handful of years, Rockford has 150k pop and doesnt even have amtrak access to Rockford to Chicago would be super useful. Theres other line extensions being talked about such as a line extension leading to DeKalb which has one of Illinois largest Unis.
This all might be foamer bias but i feel Metra belongs in the A, if not bigh B tier. Alot of what you said seems hypocritical compared to system that have 1 line and 8 trains a day getting the same usefulness score.

[BillS]

Northstar does not go to Saint Cloud, it ends at Big Lake. It was supposed to go to Rice, just west of Saint Cloud, but a lack of cash ended it at Big Lake.

[notarotomwithhair]

I don’t think south shore does street running anymore, someone correct me if I am wrong

[adalbertbuchaniec]

I think Metra has followed a substantial pattern akin to the Chicago and North Western. The funding(or lack there of) has Metra using motive power longer than necessary and is exemplified by these words, “Cheap and Nothing Wasted”

[AG-MTM]

I think GO deserves higher points - the huge trains are also a result of the success of the network and frequencies can be as low as 5 minutes in the peak direction on the Lakeshore lines. And I believe 80% of services are two-way, with the major ones being said services

[TwoRibbonRailvideos]

As someone who grew up buffing Tri-Rail, I think they could've earned a bit more in the frequency, usefulness and railfan categories. Peak rush hour frequencies is every 20 mins, new express train service just started and we also have our GP49H-3's, which are one of a kind. To each his own though, as these are just my own opinions.

[cushmanproductions]

I don't know how you possibly ranked Metra's usefulness as "4". Metra runs trains in almost every directions from downtown Chicago, most of which run 7 days a week, and yet some others in this list with only one line that serves a narrow strip of their respective metro area and operate only weekdays ranked higher. I don't know if it's because east coast people just love to hate on Chicago, but that's quite a BS rank.

[robk]

Putting GO and TRE in the same tier is a crime

[sgtdebones]

The South Shore Line no longer street runs

[ethancampbell]

4:07 Yep and here’s that better example for terrible horns 😂😂😂

[youwereprettylasttimeisawy]

you screwed over metra and go transit pretty god damn hard bro

[Absolute_Zero]

"GO Transit has poor frequency because of long trains", mate really?

A quick look at the network will show you that A) Most trains don't actually run full 12 car consists outside of specific times (usually rush hours), and B) the reason why frequencies are often bad are due to limited infrastructure (single tracking, single platform stations, etc). We are building tons of upgrade and improvements to fix this, many stations have been double tracking over the past several years in order to allow for improvements, but the last thing you can accuse GO of doing is sacrificing frequency in favour of longer trains, because that's just completely wrong.