Updated November 13th, 2025
Homewood, IL
"Home Sweet Homewood"
New Nippon-Sharyo electric multiple-unit trainsets make the transition into regenerative braking as they approach Homewood station.
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Homewood, Illinois is an important location for Canadian National railroad as it was for the Illinois Central railroad. Homewood is home sweet home for the railroad as it has train dispatching, administration offices, crew training facilities, equipment shops, intermodal yard, and more. ‘Homewood RTC’ as it is referred to is the railroad traffic control center for CN’s American operations. The footprint is so large, that a lot of what makes Homewood important spills over into Markham, IL and Woodcrest, IL. Markham Yard, for example, has it’s yard leads at Homewood. Markham has been strategically pivoted in recent times by Canadian National as an intermodal and automobile trans-load hub as CN leverages its acquisition of the EJ&E Railway in 2007. Previously, Markham was upgraded and expanded by Illinois Central into a large flat-switching yard after being converted from its previous life as a large classification hump yard. Homewood is served by passenger railroads Amtrak and Metra. The Metra Electric district provides ample train service throughout the day to link Homewood to the City of Chicago and its southern suburbs as it’s predecessor operator Illinois Central did. Amtrak offers service on Illinois State trains Saluki and Illini and long-distance service on the City of New Orleans, which links namesake New Orleans and Chicago. The topography of Homewood was altered over the years after original track-laying by the Illinois Central Railroad. As area expansion furthered, Homewood was part of the fill project to elevate Illinois Central’s Chicago mainline to eliminate grade crossings and limit pedestrian access early on. Homewood’s population was 19,463 as of the 2020 census.
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Signaling
Majority of the signaling in Homewood is facilitated by overhead gantry signals built by the Illinois Central Railroad with upgraded signal heads and modern electronics governing the signals. Below, the images show how the signals looked before their most recent upgrade. The Metra controlled signals were unaffected.
CN Homewood Campus
Canadian National hosts a large presence in Homewood making it home to their training and education center and a local headquarters for corporate offices. Additionally, CN has locomotive shops and servicing in Homewood. Given how crammed the area is, the shops are the Woodcrest, IL shops - Homewood Campus - and Markham, IL Yard
The Bridges
The bridges in the area were build very early on and re-done over the years, have a look! Below are 183rd St. Bridge and Dixie Highway. 183rd still has it's Illinois Central Gulf logo plate on the side of the girders. Dixie Highway is a cast-in-place reinforced concrete bridge of similar style of other Illinois Central bridges along the route.
Metra Electric Service
Metra electric replaces the Illinois Central's roll in providing commuter service from University Park, IL to Millennium Park in Chicago, IL. Originally IC used Pullman-Standard Electrics built in 1925 to replace steam locomotive services on their commuter routes via electrification. Two are preserved by the Illinois Railway Museum. (IC 1380 & IC 1198) Later St. Louis Car & Co. produced "Highliners" to replace the aging Pullman-Standard Electrics in 1971. These lasted until a year or so ago when Metra purchased Nippon-Sharyo type Mc 1200 cars, based upon the general design of Metra's pre-existing Gallery cars. NS has kept the Highliner name for the EMUs, but listed models as stated. Metra took first order of these new EMUs in 2005. They eventually retired all original Highliner cars by 2016. The depot is adobe styled with high-level platform.
Amtrak Service & Legacy Service
Amtrak operates a state-supported commuter service between Chicago and Carbondale, IL as well as the long-distance City of New Orleans (CoNO) service.
Amtrak City of New Orleans runs north in the morning at Homewood as Train 58 arriving at 7:41am at Homewood. (HMW)
The nigh time counterpart of Train 58 is Train 59, which arrives at HMW station at 8:51pm.
Amtrak commuter trains, as mentioned above, are the Saluki and Illini named after Southern Illinois University Saluki's and the University of Illinois Fighting Illini college sports teams.
Daily, two Saluki and two Illini trains run - one in each direction between Chicago (CHI) and Carbondale (CDL).
The southbound Saluki is Train 391 arriving at 8:54am at Homewood, and the returning northbound Saluki is Train 390. It arrives at HMW at 12:10pm.
The southbound Illini is Train 393, arriving into Homewood at 4:46pm. It returns northbound as Train 392 into Homewood at 8:55pm.
Amtrak City of New Orleans runs north in the morning at Homewood as Train 58 arriving at 7:41am at Homewood. (HMW)
The nigh time counterpart of Train 58 is Train 59, which arrives at HMW station at 8:51pm.
Amtrak commuter trains, as mentioned above, are the Saluki and Illini named after Southern Illinois University Saluki's and the University of Illinois Fighting Illini college sports teams.
Daily, two Saluki and two Illini trains run - one in each direction between Chicago (CHI) and Carbondale (CDL).
The southbound Saluki is Train 391 arriving at 8:54am at Homewood, and the returning northbound Saluki is Train 390. It arrives at HMW at 12:10pm.
The southbound Illini is Train 393, arriving into Homewood at 4:46pm. It returns northbound as Train 392 into Homewood at 8:55pm.
