About Chicagoland Rail

Chicagoland Rail is a free, fast web app that shows Chicago Metra commuters their next trains — with live delays, cancellations, and line‑specific service alerts — across all 11 Metra commuter‑rail lines.

It answers one question quickly, on a windy platform or a phone in your pocket: when is my next train, and is it running on time? Choose your line and two stations once, and the app remembers your commute so it opens straight to your board.

Open the app →

What it does

• Your next trains, instantly. Pick a line and your home + work stations; the app shows the next few departures with countdowns and total journey time.
• Live delays and cancellations. When Metra's realtime feed reports a train late, the scheduled time is struck through and the new time shown; cancelled trains are clearly labeled.
• Line‑specific service alerts. Advisories for your line surface as alerts you can dismiss (with a "don't show again" option).
• Fares. A tap shows the one‑way, day‑pass, and monthly‑pass price for your trip, plus how many round trips make a monthly pass worth it.
• Morning briefing & delay notifications. Opt in to a daily summary before you leave and background push alerts for new delays or cancellations — even when the app is closed.
• An interactive Chicagoland map. Onboarding is a hand‑drawn vector map of the whole system; tap your line, then tap your two stations.
• Direction that follows your day. Mornings show Home → Work and evenings Work → Home automatically; a banner always states which direction you're viewing so you never board the wrong train.

Free, private, and installable

Chicagoland Rail is completely free, with no ads and no account. Your saved routes and preferences live on your own device, not on a server. It installs to your home screen as a Progressive Web App (PWA) on both iPhone and Android, and the interface works offline (live times need a connection).

Where the data comes from

Times and service information come from Metra's own public data: the static GTFS schedule (refreshed daily) and the GTFS‑realtime feeds for trip updates, vehicle positions, and alerts (polled roughly every 30 seconds). A small server proxies those feeds so your device never contacts Metra directly, which keeps usage within Metra's data license.

New here? Read how it works, browse the 11 Metra lines it covers, or check the FAQ.