Talk:Rock Island District

Branch name

As of right now, we’re using three different names for the branch: the infobox uses “Suburban branch,” the articles for stations on the branch use “Beverly Branch,” and the article for Vermont Street uses “Suburban Line.” So what’s the name of the branch? (In my limited research into/knowledge of the Rock’s commuter service I understood this to be either the “Suburban Branch” or the “Suburban Line,” but hopefully more someone more knowledgeable will have the answer.) I have no personal preferences for which name is used (provided, of course, that it’s a valid name that can be supported) as long as we have consistency across the related articles. Lost on  Belmont  ^3200N_1000W  (talk) 17:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Metra appears to prefer "Beverly Branch", see e.g. [1]. Mackensen (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Metra has a past history of internal inconsistency on how it names facilities, to the point of sometimes having different names for the same station in the same printed paper schedule. But, consistency has improved during the 21st century, due to staff efforts. Acwilson9 (talk) 00:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Yards and shops

Metra's Rock Island District still has a very old transfer table in very active use at its 47th/48th/49th Streets shops, where the table serves the coaach shop that houses Metra's active and successful in-house coach-rebuilding program. The coach shop and transfer table are just SW of the locomotive shop (formerly colloquially known as "Rocket House"). I've seen the transfer table both in person and in a recent Google Maps aerial photo - https://www.google.com/maps/search/S+Wentworth+Ave+%26+48TH+STREETChicago,+IL+60609/@41.8072461,-87.6304167,97m/data=!3m1!1e3 . However, I cannot find a good recent citation, nor a recent up-close photo. But, see also https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2016/01/rock-islands-47th-street-yard-rocket.html . In 2018, Metra "broke ground" on a project to redo much of the 47th/etc. facility; Metra's recent descriptions of the of the project in its Program reports leave ambiguous whether the transfer table is to be rebuilt. Acwilson9 (talk) 00:42, 20 June 2020 (UTC)