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By Peter Nickeas Tribune reporter

Metra’s struggles with the weather continued this morning, with the agency canceling 25 trains after scratching at least 27 trains the day before at the height of the evening rush hour.

Fourteen of the trains were on the Burlington Northern Sante Fe line between Aurora and Chicago, four were on the Union Pacific North line from Kenosha, four were on the Union Pacific Northwest line from Harvard and three were on the Union Pacific West line from Elburn.

Schedules and stops on other trains were being modified to accommodate the cancellations, Metra said, warning that those trains may be operating at reduced speeds because of the weather. The agency did not rule out cancellations for the evening commute.

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“Weather conditions beyond our control may create unanticipated delays or service disruption,” Metra said in an advisory on its website.

Jeff Ulrich said he monitored the Metra website so he’d arrive at his unheated Mayfair station just in time to board an 8:06 a.m. train. Ulrich said the website promised an on-time arrival, but the Milwaukee District North train was at least 20 minutes tardy.

“I’m so furious at Metra right now,” he said after arriving at Union Station. “If their website says a train is on time and you go out and wait in unheated conditions for 30 minutes, it’s downright dangerous.”

Ulrich said passengers at the station were “stomping around trying to keep warm” while awaiting their ride to work.

Other commuters seemed to take the morning challenges more in stride.

“Overall, not too bad,” said Steve Selcke, who rode in from Hinsdale on the BNSF line.

Selcke said he arrived at his station in hopes of catching a 7:30 a.m. train and was on board at around 7:50 a.m.. The train ran a modified local schedule, he said, and pulled into downtown shortly after 8:30 a.m.

Paul Levin, who boarded the BNSF North-Central line in Prospect Heights, also didn’t complain. “Pretty close to the norm,” he said. “(It was) much worse yesterday.”

On the station’s departure boards, most outbound Metra trains were projected to leave on time. Many Amtrak trains were canceled.

Metra provided late slips for riders to give to their bosses, and a few passengers stopped to pick one up as delayed train after delayed train pulled into Union Station.

Many riders, however, said they expected the delays.

Debbie Rahn, arriving from Aurora, said her train was about 30 minutes late. She had the benefit of a climate-controlled station to wait in. On board, she said conductors tried to provide updates.

“They make announcements but you can’t really understand what they’re saying,” Rahn said.

Some of the cancellations were not announced on the Metra website until after 5 a.m. today.

“The UP worked on their schedule to kind of look at what they could operate overnight,’’ said Metra spokesman Michael Gillis. “They let us know in the overnight hour what schedule they could operate. We posted it as soon as we could on our website. We try to get it there as quickly as we can,”

The changes were posted before trips were scheduled to leave, including a UP West train that was to leave West Chicago at 6:03 a.m., Gillis said.

“We understand that this has been a challenge for our riders and we apologize for these issues they experienced,’’ Gillis said.

The cancellations followed a Monday that saw major delays and cancellations throughout the day as Metra. The agency cited frozen switches and signals, as well as federal railroad work rules that limit the hours crews can work.

Metra experienced major delays on all its lines in Monday morning, when wind chills were minus 40, and then canceled 27 trains in the evening.

Most of the cancellations were on the three Union Pacific lines and the BNSF line, Metra’s busiest routes which together serve more than 174,000 riders each weekday, although Monday’s ridership was much lower, officials said.

Metra blamed many of its delays Monday on switches and signals that it says are vulnerable to extreme temperatures and moisture.

Even though some switches are warmed electronically and with propane-gas heaters, a simple chunk of ice can stop a train in its tracks, Metra says. Fine-grained snow tends to collect on trains, compact into hard ice, and then the ice drops on switches and locks them up, said Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile.

But commuters complained about the lack of communication throughout the day, with the evening rush hour cancellations not announced until after 3 p.m.

The CTA was also experiencing problems this morning, though not as widespread as Metra’s.

Major delays were reported on the Red Line because of a mechanical problem on a train and track switching problems at 95th Street, and on the Brown Line because of a door problem on a train at Quincy.

Earlier, around 4:50 a.m., northbound Red Line trains were bypassing the Chicago Avenue stop because of an icy platform. A pipe burst in the station, spilling water onto the mezzanine and making it icy. That continued until about 6:50 a.m.

On the roads, Illinois State Police said they responded to 42 crashes on interstates in Cook County. Thirty of those involved damage and eight involved injuries to drivers or passengers. Another four were hit-and-runs.

None of the injuries were serious, and the total doesn’t include incidents in which both cars were drivable and the drivers agreed to exchange information and file a report later.

About 7:10 a.m., the Illinois State Police warned of hazardous conditions near Interstate 55 and Routes 53 and 126 and near the interchange with Interstate 80.

All of Interstate 80 was hazardous from “Harlem Avenue to LaSalle Road,” and the police singled out the LaGrange area, the stretch between U.S. Route 30 and Larkin, and the Des Plaines River bridge.