mel bernero

Proterra had one of their 40 foot demos at CTA Headquarters this afternoon. Bruce Moffat has kindly given me permission to post some of his images here. Proterra had a truck and portable charging station tagging along. Mel

I have a friend that attended the last Pace Million Mile event and he told me that the 20 CNG ElDorado buses that Pace has at the moment may be it for a while until Pace receives money from the state to pay for more.

Taken at South Holland today

I saw 701 operating on Kedzie-California today. It was not showing on Bustracker.

Shot of Pace 6156 at 95th and Wood

The CTA 2016 calendar is now on the CTA website. Mel

Senior moment

This time around it appears there is no set listing of routes. I guess Chicago can assign them to whatever route they want. However, it appears that Route 82 is getting them quite often.

701 was operating on the 82 today.

Attached are a few photos of 8100's that I have been able to photograph. Mel

701 was out on 82 this afternoon. Mel

Here are two pictures I took last week of 700 and 701 by the Polk Pink Line station. Also attached is the latest bulletion showing the runs the buses are assigned to along with the appropriate driver run sheets if anyone wants to get some photos of the buses in service. Mel G11-15 New Flyer Electric Bus Pilot - Kedzie Phase 3.pdf

FYI G03-15 New Flyer Electric Bus Pilot - Kedzie Phase.pdf

This photo was taken at Skokie Shops last week. There are a total of 8 cars being re-decaled into the as delivered livery. Four cars will get the full treatment, the end cars, and the four belly cars are suppose to get only the side striping. No dates or lines have been decided on yet. Mel

This was put out the day before the buses were placed in service. If the buses still are operating on the listed runs, maybe someone at Kedzie can supply the actual times. G46-14 New Flyer Electric Bus Pilot - Kedzie.pdf

Quite a few years ago, The Omnibus Society of America had a bus charter using bus 3407, the White. We were stopped by the Evanston Police because when they ran the plate, one of the officers was a rookie being trained, it showed up as being registered to a Flxible. I do not know how common it was, or still is, to have the license plate not match the bus it is assigned to on the registraton.

You mean this one.

We were told on our tour of the New Flyer plant that the Ontario plant will be doing final assembly on the LA order. The LA buses when shipped have no passenger seats or stansions installed. All of this equipment is to be installed in California. California wanted a certain percentage of assembly performed in state to help their unemployment situation.

The bus was very quiet when driven to our group. When we were on the bus we could not hear anything.

The majority of the batteries are in the roof, however some are also inside the bus. The longitudinal seats are located over some of the interior batteries.

Interior and exterior photos of CTA 700 Photos by Bruce Moffat

My friend who works at the CTA informed me that the two buses were delivered to Kedzie Garage. The buses are to be wrapped in two different "ecology" themed wraps.

They arrived late last week. I was on a tour of the new Flyer plant in St Cloud last Thursday and the gentleman giving our group the tour of the plant also happened to be on the development side of the two buses. He stated the first bus was trucked out on Wednesday and the second was to leave the Thursday we were there, around noon. I asked if it would be possible to see the bus before it was shipped and he stated that he would bring it around for us to look at. He parked the bus at a factory door and invited us to look inside. The first think I noticed when entering the bus was the iconic CTA green used transfer bag by the driver position. The bus was all white no exterior color or striping. The number 700 was on the interior front panel. A battery charging module is to be shipped this week and costs $43.000. NO cameras were allowed on the tour so there is no picture to post.

If anyone was waiting for the bus at the designated stops, the driver would open the door and verbally tell the passenger where the bus was going. The only stops are at the Marion entrance of the Green Line, Forest Park Terminal of the Blue Line, 54th Terminal of the Pink Line and Brookfield Zoo.

Rode Pace 770 today from the Green Line to the Zoo. I was talking to the driver and he said that 770 and 771 interline at the Zoo; 770 turns into 771 and 771 turns into 770. There was one wrap bus on the route #6058 with the other being a blue NABI. Neither bus had an operating sign, 6058 had a blank sign while the blue NABI had a Not In Service sign. I was the only passenger on the trips I rode.