Ten Years of Metra, continued

Waiting for the Rock Island train to leave...on the evening ride home to Joliet, at least three-fourths of the time my train has to stop a hundred yards short of Union Station. The Heritage Corridor and Rock Island tracks intersect at the station (the building in the distance in this photo) and for some reason if a Rock Island commuter train is arriving or departing, my Heritage Corridor train is the one that has to wait. Supposedly it's for safety reasons - if something went wrong and my train overshot the station, there could be collision with the other train. Though it's never been explained why the Rock Island doesn't stop instead, and wait until my train stops safely and unloads. I've heard the Heritage Corridor line described as "the red-headed stepchild of Metra", and this arrangement is just one example of that.