strictures

The train with the private car is #320 in the morning & leaves Kenosha at 6:53 & arrives at 8:26. Only one platform is long enough for it, which is tracks 7 &8. It's #341 in the evening & leaves at 5:03 & arrives Kenosha 6:27. At one time, it ran express from Madison St. to Highland Park, but now makes a few intermediate stops. There used to be three private cars, one of which was I believe 6300 & originally had the name "Deerpath" painted on the side in a flowing script, but it was removed, possibly because the other cars got the nicknames "Cowpath" & "Psychopath"!

A couple of years ago, I saw a UP business consist roll through Rogers Park going north. It was a lot shorter than the one you photographed.

Greg Hinz at Chicago Business has an article that the Chinese deal could be iffy due to new legislation in Congress & Trump's tariffs. https://goo.gl/XxY69b

The 290 in rush hour could use artics. It's always standing room only leaving Howard westbound in the PM rush & the same EB in the morning east of McCormick. I'm sure there are a few other routes that have the same problems, but I doubt they would buy even a dozen artics to solve this problem. After all, wasn't it Charles Yerkes who said that it was the standees on the streetcars who made him money?

Maybe some alleged genius at Metra thinks that the passengers are stupid & need a way to find the center of the coaches, where the doors are?

It wasn't a cab car, it was the second car behind the engine. I rode it on Tuesday. It also didn't have the old flip over C&NW seats that had a metal back & upholstery on just one side, but the current seats that just flip back & forth with upholstery on both sides. I just don't get why Metra didn't totally sand down & completely eliminate the VRE number which was at the coach end & not near the doors like Metra does it.

A bit OT, but I got on a UP North train & I could still read a VRE coach number under the repaint, as V440. I think Metra's number is 8415.

Pace's audio announcements are also bizarrely abbreviated on some routes. For example: On the 290, Birchwood is just said by the automated voice as "Birch" & East Prairie is just "Prairie". Updated. I believe on the 215, the announcement calls the street by its full name, Birchwood. Consistency isn't something Pace believes in!

The #4 just needs a few more buses. There are too many on the #3, but for some reason, the CTA won't admit that there are far fewer people living along King Dr. than before. So much was demolished along the street, that the buses on King, just don't carry the loads they used to, but Cottage Grove & Michigan Ave. have boomed lately.

I was waiting for a SB #4 Cottage Grove bus at Jackson/Michigan one day several years ago & after 30 minutes, we all asked the supervisor there [the little supervisor's booth was still there] told us there wasn't any & at least 6 SB #3 King Dr. buses had passed. We also hadn't seen a single NB #4 either. So he turned the next #3 into a #4 & it was packed by Roosevelt. Two more #4s caught up by Pershing & it turned out that that supervisor short turned them.

Metra wants to ultimately move the Clybourn Station south to where the Finkl Steel property was. There are two reasons for that. 1. They believe it will get far more passengers once that property is developed, especially if Amazon was to choose it, however unlikely that is. 2. Both Metra & the city want to replace the UP bridges over Ashland Ave., as they are an impediment to traffic & cause the occasional crash against those pillars in the street. Straightening Ashland is a priority & the bridges are at the end of their lives. I'm sure that would mean the additional replacement of the bridges over North Ave., which is constantly blocked due to trucks that get caught under it, it's very low clearance is a problem. I'm sure that the Deering Bridge over the North Branch of the river is also over age & would also get replaced. A few weeks ago, someone finally removed that ancient wooden siding that ran from just south of the Deering Bridge & northwest along the riverbank & hadn't been used in decades.

I used to see the 4000 that was used as the Shhhicago rail grinder, which was supposed to make the L quieter, but that train was noisier than any other train the CTA ever ran. The only track geometry car I ever saw was from Sperry Rail Service & I would see it on what was then the C&NW Milwaukee Division, now the UP North. I also can't see how a outside vendor could operate on the CTA with the tight radiuses in the Loop & that CTA cars are narrower than every other transit system in the country.

But bizarrely, the 120 V receptacles don't follow the National Electrical Code with either the ground or neutral slot [the wider slot] on top depending on the receptacle orientation. Don't Metra electricians know the NEC?

Illinois isn't undertaxed & the state isn't broke because of taxes. Illinois taxes are far too high now, especially when you take into account the obscene local real estate taxes we have to pay & the even worse, corruption tax we pay, because Illinois is without a doubt the most corrupt state in the country! Illinois is broke because of that insane pension clause which prevents government pensions from being adjusted when the state's finances are bad, due to either downturns in the economy, people & companies leaving the state for greener pastures, but in this case, having to pay defined benefit pensions at a mandatory 3% COLA increase every year, even when Social Security has a COLA of zero! We also have too damned many government employees. If you don't believe that, go to any of the large Secretary of State offices for driver's licenses & car registrations, where there are dozens just pushing paper. Then we have 7,000 units of government, more than California & Texas combined, which have about four times the population than Illinois. The other states with pension problems don't have this clause. And it was the four Democrats on the state supreme court which has ruled every attempt to modify the pensions unconstitutional. The fact that they have an inherent conflict of interest in the case, due to the fact that they too will get state pensions, apparently doesn't bother them.

Really? There used to be a sign over Granville Ave on the bridge "24 minutes to Loop". Now you're lucky to do it in 35 minutes! Other than the morning rush, a car will get to the Loop in 20 minutes from Granville. Even the 147 is faster.