Metra HO Scale Models

Metra is the commuter rail system serving Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, operating under the reporting mark METX as a public transit agency and the Commuter Rail Division of the Regional Transportation Authority of northeastern Illinois. The roots of Chicago commuter rail extend back to the 1850s, when early private railroads began offering service between downtown Chicago and outlying communities. By the early twentieth century, carriers including the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Chicago and North Western, the Milwaukee Road, the Illinois Central, and the Rock Island Line had established extensive suburban passenger networks radiating outward from the city in nearly every direction, making Chicago one of the most comprehensively served commuter rail markets in North America. The modern agency traces its formal origins to 1974, when the Illinois General Assembly created the Regional Transportation Authority to stabilize and fund public transit across the Chicago metropolitan area. Private railroads had been losing money on their passenger operations for years, and the financial situation grew more acute when the Rock Island Line and the Milwaukee Road both entered bankruptcy in the early 1980s. To maintain uninterrupted service on those corridors, the RTA established the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, which took over direct operation of the affected lines in 1981 and 1982 respectively. A broader legislative reorganization in 1983 restructured the RTA and created a dedicated Commuter Rail Division to oversee all suburban rail operations. In July 1985 that division adopted the unified brand name Metra, short for Metropolitan Rail, bringing a single public identity to what had been a patchwork of separately branded services. At its fullest extent, Metra has operated eleven lines serving 243 stations, with routes stretching from downtown Chicago terminals at Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center, Millennium Station, and LaSalle Street Station to destinations including Elburn, Manhattan, Antioch, Kenosha, and University Park. Some lines have been operated directly by Metra's own workforce while others have been run under purchase-of-service agreements by freight carriers, most notably Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway. Union Pacific long operated three lines on former Chicago and North Western trackage, though in May 2025 operational responsibility for those routes was transferred to Metra, leaving right-of-way ownership with Union Pacific. Metra owns all rolling stock system-wide, including a fleet of EMD F40PH locomotives delivered beginning in 1976, and the agency controls fares and staffing levels across the network. Metra ranks as the fourth busiest commuter rail system in the United States by ridership and the largest such system outside the New York City metropolitan area. Annual ridership reached approximately 38 million passengers as of 2025, with a record single-day count of more than 460,000 riders recorded on November 4, 2016, the day of the Chicago Cubs World Series victory parade. Over its history the agency has directed more than five billion dollars into capital improvements including new rolling stock, station construction and renovation, track rehabilitation, and signal system modernization. Proposed expansions have included an extension of the Milwaukee District West Line toward Rockford and potential new lines serving underserved corridors in the region, underscoring Metra's continuing significance to the transportation infrastructure of the greater Chicago area.