In 1926, the Illinois Central's commuter rail lines were electrified, and began operating as the "
IC Electric". For almost 40 years, the IC Electric continued to operate the original fleet of heavyweight cars, until the railroad decided that a more modern railcar was needed to improve commuter operations. The Chicago South Suburban Mass Transit District was formed in 1967 in order to qualify for federal funding to purchase new equipment for the route. The original 130 car Highliner fleet had a cost of approximately $40 million; $26.6 million was funded by a federal grant, with the remainder coming from the Illinois Central. The railcars operated on electric
catenary and were more efficient than their heavyweight predecessors. A typical Highliner was able to seat 156 passengers and run faster than the heavyweight fleet. In 1976, the newly formed
Regional Transportation Authority began to fund the IC Electric commuter service. In 1983, the RTA created
Metra, Chicago's commuter rail service, and in 1987,
Metra purchased the IC Electric line, forming the
Metra Electric Line. An additional batch of 36 Highliners was built from 1978 to 1979 by the Bombardier company. Starting in 2005, the aged original fleet, which was increasingly prone to breakage and experiencing soaring maintenance costs, began to be phased out and replaced with the Highliner IIs. The last revenue run of the original Highliner cars was on February 12, 2016. Metra confirmed in a Facebook post that twenty-four cars are being sent to museums around the Midwestern United States, including the
Illinois Railway Museum, while the other cars were sent to
Mendota, Illinois to be scrapped.
Highliner II Highliner II at
Grand Crossing The Highliner II is a railcar built by
Nippon Sharyo, a Japanese railcar manufacturer which was in charge of production of Metra's fleet of
gallery cars, in collaboration with
Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation of America. The Highliner IIs are similar in appearance to the
gallery cars used on Metra's diesel lines, but like the Highliner Is, they do not function and look like gallery cars internally as they do not have the low‑level traps or steps, open mezzanine walkways for conductors, and the classic “gallery” circulation pattern. Instead, the upper level is full width and there is no drop down in the middle. The
South Shore Line, which operates on the Metra Electric from Millennium Station to Kensington/115th Street before diverging east to Indiana, also purchased and operates the Highliner II to supplement its fleet of EMUs. Metra Highliner IIs have two center doors, where one of the center doors has a "trap" to allow for low level boarding by employees or for emergencies. However, the Higliner IIs originally designed for the South Shore Line (cars 1201-1226) have a separate single door at the end of the car instead with a trap for low level boarding, similar to the single-level South Shore Line EMUs. In 2016, Nippon Sharyo closed its plant in
Rochelle where it had manufactured the Highliner IIs, due to its failure to complete its contract to build bilevel railcars for
Amtrak and other corporate financial issues. In 2024, Metra tested 79mph operations on part of the Metra Electric District and has committed to getting the entire network to 79mph. Signaling and catenary work has begun. The previous 65mph limit was a result of 1926
Pullman stock braking algorithms which were replaced by Highliner I and no longer relevant. == Fleet ==