Metra café cars to expand across more lines in October
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The café car on the Rock Island line. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
It's not the smoke-filled, boozy bar cars of the past, but Metra is experimenting with new café cars that offer coffee, soda and snacks.
Why it matters: Metra provided about 3 million passenger trips in August, a 15% increase from last year, but it still needs to get more commuters back on trains due to its dire financial outlook.
Driving the news: Metra rolled out café cars this week on the Rock Island line and will debut the concept at other commuter rail lines throughout October.
- Riders can learn more about the cars on Monday from 8am to noon at the LaSalle Street Station.
How it works: When I rode from LaSalle to Blue Island this week, a worker handed out La Colombe iced lattes, Mug Root Beer, Smartpop popcorn, Cracker Jacks, Doritos, cookies, peanuts and granola bars.
State of play: The café car on the 5:35pm Tuesday train was filled with high school and college students, work commuters, Cubs fans and a few train enthusiasts riding specifically to try out the new concept.
What we heard: The response was positive and there was excitement that these cars would be a regular thing, but all the riders I spoke to agreed that more seating would be ideal.
- Jones student Laila Dunagan liked the Tic Tac Toe and checkerboard game tables.
- A rider since 1984, Suzanne Law wanted more handles for safety reasons and had pangs of nostalgia thinking of how the old bar cars used to bring people together.
- "People would congregate and you hang out, have a cocktail, or, in my case, you hold your breath and you ran through because they were smoking cars," Law told me.
What they're saying: "I've ridden plenty of commuter trains; I've ridden them in New York and Boston and over in Los Angeles. We hear about these things that they used to have, like they used to have food service cars, and they all got rid of them," Jake Morgan told me.
- "It's really nice to see that they're coming back. It honestly makes me feel proud to be living here in Chicago, because it's like, we can have nice things here."
- Morgan thinks hot drinks in the winter and booze would be good additions.
What's next: The agency is still collecting surveys from riders. The next pilot line will be on the BNSF the week of Oct. 13.
- Check the Metra page for the upcoming schedules.