Overhaul of Homewood station underway
$15 million rehab project in progress at historic Amtrak facility; Metra stop renovations to follow
Stepping into Amtrak’s Homewood train station is like stepping back into a time when railroads were the country’s primary people movers.
Built in 1923 as part of the Illinois Central Railroad system, the station is getting a $15 million rehab that will dovetail with similar plans by Metra to renovate its adjacent commuter station on its Electric District line. Amtrak is using federal funding for the work.
Both projects were touted during a news conference Monday in Homewood, where officials spoke of long-needed and longanticipated investments to maintain the region’s mass transit system.
The Amtrak station, 18015Park Ave., has been closed since early August, so passengers are being shuttled to the railroad’s Kankakee station while work is underway. It is one of the stops on Amtrak’s Illini and Saluki lines to downstate cities including Champaign- Urbana, Effingham and Carbondale, aswell as the famous City of New Orleans route.
Many of the architectural elements of the station, which is on the state’s Register of Historic Places, are being preserved, with an additional building to be constructed directly south.
Much of the work involves bringing the station in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and will include an enclosed ramp connecting with a tunnel that runs under the
Metra and Canadian National Railway tracks.
Construction is already underway, and Amtrak hopes to have the station completed by early spring, according to Jamie Shindell, the railroad’s project director for thework.
The mission revival architectural style of the station was meant to complement the clubhouse at Ravisloe Country Club just to the southwest, according to Amtrak.
Shindell said Amtrak is working with an architect with expertise in restoring historically significant structures.
Last year, Amtrak spent $146,000 to replace the clay tile roof and make ceiling repairs inside the station.
Amtrak said it will demolish a replace a 650-foot boarding platform that will be covered and be
able to serve both northbound and southbound trains.
For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2019, just under 36,600 passengers used the Homewood station, ranking it at 187 out of Amtrak’s 525 stations in the U.S. and Canada, according to Amtrak.
A separate $14 million renovation by Metra is expected to start at some point after the Amtrak project is complete.
That will include replacing the existing station
structure at Harwood Avenue and Ridge Road aswell as renovating the current tunnel, built in 1911.
Suffering from water leaks, the tunnel will be waterproofed and upgraded with improved lighting and ventilation systems as well as graffitiresistant finishes.
In conjunction with Amtrak’s project, the tunnel will make both stations handicap accessible from either Park or Harwood avenues.
The Metra project is expected to be completed sometime in the spring of 2022, and other work will also include reconfiguration of the Pace bus terminal on Harwood Avenue adjacent to the stations.
Federal money has been earmarked for the Metra project and Homewood is contributing $585,000 and Cook County has set aside $300,000.
Metra officials said the Homewood station is ordinarily served by 54 trains on weekdays and 40 on weekends, although schedules have been adjusted as ridership dropped in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amtrak has also seen a decline in ridership due to the pandemic, and David Handera, an Amtrak vice president, said at Monday’s news conference that investments such as the ADA work at the Homewood station are being made “in anticipation of the return of the traveling public.”
“For us to truly be America’s railroad, we must be the railroad accessible to all Americans,” he said in a news release issued by Amtrak. “Projects such as this at Homewood, once completed, open up travel opportunities for all, without barriers.”
Jim Derwinski, Metra’s chief executive, said Homewood is one of nine stations on the Electric District line that will be renovated under the commuter rail agency’s fiveyear capital investment plan.
Renovations at Metra’s two Harvey stops and its Olympia Fields station are part of that investment plan, according to Metra.