Lake Forest station (Milwaukee District)


Lake Forest is a railroad station in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States served by Metra's Milwaukee District/North Line. Platform 1 is where outbound trains board, and platform 2 is where inbound trains board. The station is located on 10205 North Waukegan Road, and is away from Union Station, the southern terminus of the line,. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Lake Forest is in zone F.
Another Lake Forest station exists along the Union Pacific/North Line east of this station. Therefore, this station can also be referred to as West Lake Forest station. No bus connections exist here, nor is there any connection to the East Lake Forest station. However parking is available along Telegraph Road along the west side of the tracks, and the station is accessible from North Waukegan Road through Settler's Square on the east side of the tracks.
On weekdays, the first scheduled outbound Metra train terminates at Lake Forest. On Saturdays, train #2617 terminates at this station. There is no crossover at Lake Forest, so trains must either run north to Rondout or south to Deerfield to switch to the southbound side. For this reason, many trains on weekdays terminate at Deerfield. Lake Forest is the northernmost station on the Milwaukee District / North Line to be located on the C&M Subdivision, and serves as an emergency stop for Amtrak Empire Builder and Hiawatha Service trains. Since 2010, Amtrak has had plans for its Hiawatha trains to stop at Lake Forest, but as of 2020 has yet to come to fruition. Metra has proposed the construction of crossovers at Lake Forest to make the station better suited to turning trains around.