Metra wants answers on Union Pacific commuter snafu

Passengers on Metra's Union Pacific West Line can expect trains to operate on schedule Tuesday after a shortage of UP train engineers ruined the morning commutes of nearly 15,000 riders Monday.

Six West Line commuter trains were canceled Monday and others had long delays because there were not enough UP employees to operate them.

Metra officials called the snafu “unacceptable” and said they were examining the contract with UP to see if there is any recourse.

“We've communicated our dissatisfaction to the upper levels of management at UP,” said Metra Director Paul Darley, who lives in Elmhurst, one of the towns affected by the mix-up.

The error left commuters such as Matt Olinski and Gabe Gomez sitting in a holding pattern at the Lombard station at 9:40 a.m. Monday, waiting for their 8:18 a.m. train.

“I'll be an hour and a half late for work,” Gomez, of Lombard, said. “I've got a late night ahead of me.”

Likewise for Olinski of Glen Ellyn. “This will take away from my day,” he said. “I'll have to make that time up. Metra's usually pretty good so I'm a little surprised.”

Despite initial speculation the problem was related to labor issues, it appears UP simply dropped the ball in terms of scheduling enough engineers, Metra spokesman Tom Miller said.

“It's not a work stoppage or anything like that,” Miller said. “It sounds like it's poor manpower planning, which of course, is unacceptable to us.”

As a result, the railroad scrambled to round up staff to fill three empty job slots on Monday.

UP spokesman Mark Davis said it was a perfect storm of 13 people being off for vacation time, family leave, training and illnesses.

“Everything was legitimate. The key focus is to find out from the crew management side what happened to not have enough people at work — why was there a disconnect,” Davis said.

Service was returned to normal for the afternoon rush hour. In the morning, four inbound and two outbound trains were canceled.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen officials said they were not aware of any UP West Line engineers calling in sick Monday.

Doug Davidson, assistant director of arbitration for the BLET national division, said employees are stretched thin because UP is taking on extra work due to other railroads experiencing flooding problems elsewhere. UP also brought in engineers over the weekend while a new switching system was being worked on in Lombard.

UP has a list of engineers that can be called in for such emergencies but the number of workers is insufficient and the union has recommended it be beefed up, Davidson noted.

UP's Davis said staffing is one issue the railroad will look at but noted that this is the first time such a shortage has happened.

“We apologize to all of our West Line customers for any inconvenience this has caused. We know how much our customers rely on our service. We're sorry we let them down,” Davis said.

UP is reviewing what went wrong and is expected to meet with Metra to give an accounting.

“We'll be looking for them to explain how this kind of thing can never happen again,” Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile said.

Asked if riders would receive any compensation for the inconvenience, Davis said “it's something to take into consideration with our Metra partners.”

Workers heading to Chicago weren't the only ones disrupted by the messup Monday morning.

College of DuPage student Mike Heidecke of Addison peered eastward looking for signs of a westbound train. His hopes of connecting with a COD-bound bus in Glen Ellyn gradually dimmed by about 9:30 a.m.

“I'm not going to enjoy standing around for an hour in Glen Ellyn” and waiting for the next bus, he said.

The Union Pacific West Line runs between Elburn and the Ogilvie Transportation Center, with stops in Geneva, Wheaton, West Chicago and Lombard, among others.