To be fair, most European commuter rail does the same thing. They just use electric heaters, so it doesn't look like their tracks are on fire. Chicago was built

To be fair, most European commuter rail does the same thing. They just use electric heaters, so it doesn't look like their tracks are on fire. Chicago was built up with a big natural gas infrastructure for some reason (like every home seems to have gas heat/dryers) so I guess it made sense to put gas heaters on the rails.