Metra Customers Must Sign Up Again

Published: November 5, 2026

CHICAGO — Metra says customers who want service alerts have to sign up again. The new system sends line alerts and real-time arrival information by email or text. The old email-only list cannot be carried over. A newsroom story dated November 2, read on the morning of November 5, says the new system has launched and the old one has been shut down. A notice on the same page still says the launch and the signup both start on November 5.

Metra MP36PH-3S 406 is seen here at Blue Island IL on January 18 2009

Metra MP36PH-3S #406 is seen here at Blue Island, Illinois on January 18, 2009. This locomotive was part of a group of 27 built in 2003-2004. Doug Kroll photo.

Two wordings on one page

The story is dated Monday, November 2, 2026. As read on the morning of November 5, it says Metra has launched a system that lets customers get alerts about their line and real-time arrival information at their station by email or text. It says the email-only system, which customers manage through My Metra accounts on the Metra website, has been shut down. For privacy reasons, that data could not be imported. Customers who want to keep receiving alerts must sign up at www.metratracker.com.

Above that story, a notice still uses the earlier tense. It says Metra is launching the system on Thursday, November 5, will shut down the email-only system the same day, and tells customers to sign up at metratracker.com starting November 5. A banner on the page says to sign up for new service alerts starting today. The subhead on both blocks is the same: customers must sign up under the new system as the old system shuts down. This report leaves the two tenses side by side.

How the new signup works

The story tells riders to open metratracker.com, choose Subscribe, and enter an email address and a name. A phone number is required only if they want texts. Riders who enter a phone number get a text and must reply Yes before the next step. They then log in and open the item labeled Alerts: Sign up for station information.

Service Alerts cover delays, disruptions, and changes on the line or lines a rider selects. After the line is chosen, the rider can limit the alerts to a time window and to selected days, and can take them by text, by email, or by both. If the text choice is greyed out, the account has no phone number or the confirmation text has not been answered. A rider who wants alerts for more than one trip in a day, such as a morning trip downtown and an evening trip home, sets a separate alert with Add Bulletin Alert.

A checkbox reading “I would like to receive accessibility notifications” sends accessibility alerts for the selected line by email or text. Another checkbox reads “I would like to receive service alerts that may impact all service.” Metra uses that systemwide option for issues that can affect the whole railroad, and the story gives holiday schedule changes as the example.

Prediction Alerts cover the predicted or scheduled arrival times of the next few trains at the chosen station that serve the chosen destination. The rider picks a line, an origin, a destination, a time, the days, and text, email, or both. An optional Repeat box keeps the prediction going until an end time. Additional trips are added with Add Station. The same greyed-out rule applies if text was not confirmed.

Sources

Metra newsroom, “Metra launching enhanced alert system,” dated Monday, November 2, 2026, metra.com/newsroom/metra-launching-enhanced-alert-system, read on the morning of November 5, 2026. The story says the new system has launched and that the email-only system managed through My Metra accounts has been shut down. Old alert data could not be imported. Customers who want alerts must sign up at www.metratracker.com. Signup steps, Service Alerts, Prediction Alerts, the greyed-out text rule, Add Bulletin Alert, Add Station, the accessibility checkbox, and the systemwide checkbox are as printed on that story.
Notice on the same page, read the same morning. Banner: sign up for new service alerts starting today. Body of the notice: Metra is launching the system on Thursday, November 5, will shut down the email-only system that day, and customers who want alerts must sign up at metratracker.com starting November 5. Subhead on the story and the notice: customers must sign up under the new system as the old system shuts down.

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Metra Customers Must Sign Up Again

Two wordings on one page

How the new signup works

Related reading on American-Rails.com

Sources