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Permalink Reply by Lanterne Rouge on October 1, 2013 at 10:06am

You really are at the mercy of the particular conductor. 

Previous to this week, our old conductor didn't care at all how many bikes were on the car. We used to stack them properly (forward, backward, forward) and were able to 8-12 bikes on the car, as noted in this thread. 

This week, we've got a new conductor on my morning train. I tried to board this morning and he absolutely would not let me on - they had reached the 5 bike limit for that car. Yeesh. 5 bikes, in my opinion, is way under capacity.

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Permalink Reply by Elwood Gruschow on October 1, 2013 at 3:25pm

Thanks for the heads up that SOME conductors adhere closely to the five bikes in a car.  

 On Sunday I was told there was only one wheelchair/bike car on the train.  Metra said it was a 10 bike train.  By one interpretation of Metra regs we had to put ten bikes to a car.  We had a reasonable conductor.  It was such a lovely day for a ride.   I am glad some of my fellow cyclists were not left at the station. 

 

Lanterne Rouge said:

You really are at the mercy of the particular conductor. 

Previous to this week, our old conductor didn't care at all how many bikes were on the car. We used to stack them properly (forward, backward, forward) and were able to 8-12 bikes on the car, as noted in this thread. 

This week, we've got a new conductor on my morning train. I tried to board this morning and he absolutely would not let me on - they had reached the 5 bike limit for that car. Yeesh. 5 bikes, in my opinion, is way under capacity.

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Permalink Reply by Elwood Gruschow on August 4, 2014 at 4:21pm

Waking up an old discussion -- Bikes on Metra

 Has there been a policy change?  From the website last month I printed out the UPN station to station schedule from Kenosha station to Ogilvie station and across the bottom on afternoon trains there was 20 bikes per train.  Tonight I printed the same schedule, times are the same, but instead of number of bikes it says YES.  Does this mean that Metra policy has changed to a reasonable amount of bikes instead of hard limit??    Alternatively it could indicate a lazy website writer that just wrote YES or (blank) on website and you have to get the actual printed program to locate the number of bikes per train.  

  The common policy on Metra is (was?) five bikes are allowed in an ADA car at lower traffic times.  A  train with four (or more) ADA cars is listed on the schedule as 20 bikes per train.   Some conductors have allowed more per car particularly when the train had fewer ADA or occupied ADA places in other cars. (see above 

By the way -- last closure of the year --  during The Air Water Show, August 16 and 17th 2014,  there are NO bikes on any Metra train.  

     

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Evans on August 4, 2014 at 7:58pm

Don't take Metra BNSF to Aurora on the weekend for your 'rides'. Usually there are only 2 cars for bikes, and if there's station work, there might only be one. There's very little space for bikes on the weekend, and for every joyrider 'taking the train to the trails' there could be someone with a bike TRYING to take the train from Berwyn or La Grange to Naperville or wherever because it's the only way they can get to see their mother in the nursing home on Sunday. but the conductor tells them the train is 'full' of bikes and they can't board. That happened to me more than once. My mom's in a closer home now, so I don't have this problem anymore, but you joyriders should take Metra trains with more capacity for bikes. I think UP-West. Milwaukee West, Milwaukee North and Rock Island are the best bets for available space for bikes on the weekend. Stay off the Burlington Northern and the UP-North, they're packed already. I'm skeptical about the UP-NW. That's probably overloaded as well.

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