The Regional Transportation Authority began to subsidize the service in 1978. N&W merged with Southern Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982, and for the next decade the line was known as the Norfolk Southern Line (NS). The RTA closed the Western Avenue station on May 15, 1984, as part of a cost reduction plan which saw the closure of twelve other lightly used stations and the removal of ticket agents from an additional seventeen stations across the system. On June 1, 1993 Metra took over operations and renamed it the SouthWest Service.