(train whistle blowing) - If you ride Metra trains, you probably spend most of your time just looking at your phone or looking out the window, and you might never think about who it is that's getting you from point A to point B. Well, it takes a whole team, starting, of course, with the engineer up front.

(upbeat music) At the start of a run, engineer Rob McGuire follows the track signals sent by distant controllers who guide the train out of Union Station.

(train whistle blowing) All right, now we're coming out into the daylight.

(bell ringing) Did you always want to be a train engineer?

- No.

- [Geoffrey] No?

- No.

- [Geoffrey] Oh, that's funny.

- Yeah, I'm third generation on both sides of my family that worked on the railroad, and they encouraged me not to go into railroading.

(Geoffrey laughing) (train whistle blowing) (upbeat music) - So welcome to Metra CCF.

We're the consolidated control center.

- [Geoffrey] Now here's a guy who loves working on the railroad.

Greg Godfrey supervises the control center that directs 700 Metra trains each day across 11 commuter lines.

- So every day at Metra, we operate 9,794 switches and signals.

- Approximately.

- Approximately, (Geoffrey laughing) and every 10.14 seconds, somebody's either throwing a switch or operating a signal.

Trains don't have steering wheels, so we're essentially the steering wheel for the train.

- They're throwing switches-- - Everybody here is throwing switches and signals remotely across hundreds of miles of Metra's railroad network.

- This is the Rock Island district.

- Oh, this is just one line.

- This is just one Metra line.

- [Geoffrey] That's assistant chief dispatcher, Lorna Wilson-Phillips.

- [Lorna] And that's Rock Island train 407, so he's going across-- - [Geoffrey] Oh look, there-- - [Lorna] He just took this signal.

- Now as a lover of trains, I have to say, these computer screens are a little bit less romantic than the technology railroaders used in days gone by, like this.

(switches moving) But this isn't a museum.

We're at Tower A2, which controls the busiest rail intersection in the Midwest.

This looks pretty old school.

- [Marshall] Yeah.

- Where's this from?

- This was made in the early 1930s.

- Now, why not just replace this with some other technology?

- Well, the problem is, is the complexity of traffic patterns that exist here at Tower A2.

- [Geoffrey] This section of the Metra system is so complex, there's never been enough funding to modernize it.

But this tangle of tracks and the old machine that controls them are living reminders of Chicago's railroad history.

Chicago's first train line opened in 1848 with one secondhand steam engine.

Within 10 years, train lines extended in every direction from Chicago, and the city was the undisputed rail capital of America, and it still is.

Approximately 1300 trains travel to, from, or through Chicago every day, carrying 175,000 passengers and 25% of America's rail cargo.

(upbeat music) Rob has finished his run, but his long day isn't over yet.

(upbeat music) (train cars uncoupling) Between trips, engineers take their trains out to the yard for a little TLC.

- So it's just like working your car at a gas pump.

- [Geoffrey] These locomotives don't get miles per gallon.

They burn about four gallons per mile.

- So the larger locomotives hold about 2,400 gallons of fuel.

- [Geoffrey] Yeah, so do you use a credit card?

(all laughing) - Yes, his.

- Yeah.

(all laughing) - We're going through the train wash now.

It's like when you wash your car.

(water spraying) (upbeat music) Did you pay extra for the wax treatment?

The undercarriage wash?

Before long, Rob and his train are ready for another run.

Why do you think kids like trains so much?

- I don't know.

That's probably a question for a child psychologist.

I don't know.

(Geoffrey laughing) I'm baffled by why people love trains so much.

(Rob laughing) - Did you like trains when you were a kid?

- Absolutely.

When the freight came through the city, I would run alongside, and I used to say all the time, when I'm a big girl, I'm gonna do that job.

- [Geoffrey] Really?

- Yeah, I did.

- [Geoffrey] You always knew you wanted to do this.

- I did.

I love it.

(upbeat music) when you leave a busy day here, you're like, look at all that I managed.

Look at what we did.

We moved X amount of trains, we moved X amount of equipment, and everybody went home safe.

That is a good day.