IDOT hosts information session on Chicago-Rockford rail service plan

The Illinois Department of Transportation hosted an informational meeting at the Centre of Elgin on Tuesday to share plans to restart a 90-mile passenger rail service between Chicago and Rockford.

The $275 million project – part of the Rebuild Illinois capital initiative – is to have two round trips daily, in the morning and evening. Metra will be the operator, and it will stop in Elgin, Huntley and Belvidere before getting to Rockford, ultimately connecting riders in Cook, Kane, McHenry, Boone and Winnebago counties.

The train will travel at a maximum of 79 mph, taking two hours between Chicago and Rockford.

Scott Speegle, passenger rail communications manager for IDOT, explained some of the history behind the project, noting that from 1974 to 1981, Amtrak operated the route called Blackhawk Service.

“Since the turn of the millennium, Amtrak’s been doing feasibility studies about getting trains out to Rockford,” Speegle said. “We’ve done some studying about options to get out to Rockford with IDOT. The program was put on hold in 2015. Then, in 2019, [Gov JB] Pritzker’s Rebuild Illinois committed $275 million toward getting the rail service to Rockford.”

Speegle said Rockford is the biggest city in the state that does not have a train service.

“Officials in Rockford have been strong advocates for getting train service out there,” Speegle said.

The timeline shows that Amtrak did a feasibility study in 2007, and IDOT studied options from 2010 to 2014 before reinitiating the Chicago to Rockford Intercity Passenger Program.

Preliminary engineering, with field review, environmental clearances and municipal coordination, started in 2023 and continues to 2025, when construction is expected to begin. The project is expected to be finished in 2027 with the start of the service after going through three construction seasons, according to the timeline.

Metra and Union Pacific tracks are close to each other but do not connect at the Big Timber, so one of the major infrastructure pieces to be built will be the connection between the tracks there, Speegle said.

The stop in Elgin likely will use the station at 109 E. Chicago St., Speegle said, which will require improvements.

Also new will be a control point with universal crossovers at the Bartlett Metra station.

A siding near Marengo also is proposed. Speegle said because trains going in both directions use a single track, a siding will allow one train to pull over to let the other train pass.

Other work includes enhanced grade crossing surfaces, highway approaches, warning devices and the evaluation of bridge conditions.

“Because of the history ... there’s some skepticism that it’s actually going to come to pass,” Speegle said. “It impacted one of the public meetings in Rockford last week. I told a gentleman, and he was like, ‘It’s never going to happen.’ I told him, ‘Come back next year, we’ll talk.’”

Professional engineer Anthony Quigley, senior vice president at TranSystems Corp., said he was attending the information session as a consultant for his company.

“This is an awesome project,” Quigley said. “I mean, a $300 million [rail] improvement from Chicago to Rockford is – it’s a big job. It’s something we can do as a company. So yes, we are very interested in this project.”

A similar public meeting took place in Huntley on Wednesday.

More information is available online at chicagotorockfordrail.org.