The headlights of an eastbound Metra train slice through the rain and heavy fog setting in over Elgin, Ill., in November of 2012.
An early morning mix of rain and sleet greets commuters as they board a Metra train at the Bartlett, Ill., station in 2012.
The skies open up at the Whiting, Ind., station in April of 2012 as Norfolk Southern’s business train heads to New York with an A-B-B-A set of covered wagons, all built in the early 1950s.
Midnight fires glow during the night of Jan. 19, 2012, at Tower A-2 of the Western Avenue Metra plant (Chicago) in an effort to keep the switches from freezing over.
A Chicago & North Western F-unit is the first train to plow through the snow left by a 1979 storm in Arlington Heights, Ill.
A rainbow arcs over the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern in Bartlett, Ill., shortly after a big storm struck the area in 2010.
A Metra express train speeds through sub-zero temperatures and 2 feet of snow as it approaches Bartlett Station in 2011. Although commuters have braved the cold in anticipation of catching the train, this one will not be stopping to pick them up.
A 2011 snowstorm brought with it 60 mph-plus winds that left trains covered in snow and ice at 4 a.m. at Metra’s Elgin, Ill., yard.
A worker for the Metra Mechanical Department braves strong winds at 4 a.m. to refuel trains to be sent out for the morning rush in the aftermath of a powerful snowstorm in 2011.
An agent stands in front of a window that has been covered by four feet of drifting snow at Metra’s Elgin, Ill., station in 2011. She was on standby throughout the night of the storm.
A Chicago & North Western F-unit plows through 21 inches of snow in downtown Wheaton, Ill., in January of 1979. It was the biggest snowfall the town had seen since 1967, totaling more than 3 feet by the time the storm blew over.
This Iowa, Chicago & Eastern train has stopped at Davis Junction, Ill., to give its crew a chance to clear the platforms of snow that has piled up as winds over 30 mph have swirled around it for hours. This winter storm was one of many in 2008 that dumped snow and caused the Mississippi River to flood its banks repeatedly during the following summer.
Despite 50 mph winds, Soo Line piggyback train No. 217 plows through 7-foot snow drifts with ease in Genoa, Ill., in 1989.