Metra narrows down location search for rail yard move to Woodstock from Crystal Lake

Metra is moving ahead on a new site for train storage along the rail line serving McHenry County.

Metra’s new home for the trains is expected to be just east of Lamb Road in Woodstock. The rail operator originally scouted a dozen locations but narrowed its search to vacant property in a light manufacturing zone just east of the railroad’s intersection with Lamb Road. Officials are confident that will be the final site for the rail yard.

Another preferred site for the project was just across Lamb Road, but that site does not have existing utilities and is in a sensitive aquifer recharge area, according to a video played at an open house on the plans held recently in Woodstock.

The rail yard is relocating from Crystal Lake, and trains that currently are stored Crystal Lake and Barrington when not in use would be housed at the Woodstock rail yard. Trains that are stored in Harvard would stay there, project officials said. Metra plans to hang onto the properties in Crystal Lake and Barrington where the rail yards are located.

Other benefits of the project include job opportunities at the rail yard, reduced train idling in Crystal Lake and shifting commuting patterns from car to rail, according to Metra records.

Metra has conducted an environmental review for the project, which has concluded that the project won’t significantly affect the environment.

The preliminary engineering and environmental work is expected to wrap up by the end of the year, and Metra officials plan to host another public open house at a later date to be determined.

The UP-Northwest line that runs through the county before terminating in Harvard is the second busiest of the 11 lines of the system. Metra, which is mulling renaming its train lines, also anticipates up to 60% population growth in some of the communities along the line. The BNSF line going out to Aurora is the system’s busiest, according to Metra documents.

Construction on the rail yard is anticipated to begin in 2029 and be done in 2031, but it’s funding-dependent, according to Metra records. The project carries a price tag of about $100 million, project officials said.

The McHenry County Board recently voted to allocate $1.8 million to the project, about $212,000 of which was a local match for a federal grant the project received. McHenry County has earmarked $11 million of RTA sales tax dollars for the project.

The rail yard move comes as the Illinois legislature is taking up competing bills on the structure of the RTA and transit boards and while Chicago-area transit agencies are facing a looming “fiscal cliff” as COVID-19 relief dollars are going away. McHenry County officials have opposed efforts to merge the Metra, Pace and CTA boards, citing potential dilution of suburban voices and taking on CTA debt.

Project officials said people who attended the open house were mostly asking questions about the plans.

“People are very interested,” Michael Gillis, Metra’s director of communications, said.