Metra apologizes for Monday’s rush-hour mess

Metra officials on Tuesday apologized for a frustrating afternoon rush BNSF Line passengers experienced Monday.

The agency blamed a faulty signal maintained by Amtrak at Union Station for the problems, which also affected the Southwest Service and Heritage Corridor lines.

Some trains were delayed for about 50 minutes on the BNSF, a Chicago-to-Aurora route. Crews started working on the faulty signal around 4:20 p.m. As commuters poured into the station, crowding and miscommunication about train rescheduling became an issue.

“Normally, such signal problems can be fixed relatively quickly, and we had no reason to think this situation would be any different,” officials said in a statement. “However, the repairs ended up taking 42 minutes, during an extremely busy period of the evening rush hour.”

The signal is a key location on the south end of Union Station where tracks intersect.

Metra administrators said they were talking to Amtrak and BNSF officials to try and eliminate or “at least limit” track and signal issues at Union Station.