Man Americana CTA Bus

[MRChiCity]

17 minutes ago, MetroShadow said:

Those routes came out of North Park (or Kedzie depending on the pick/trip/block) in the 90's, and the TMC's and MAN's were the primary sources there; and since the artics were on their last legs by the late 90's...you didn't have much of a choice.

As for the near/far side stops at Belmont/LSD, it's partially a safety issue (going across a lane of traffic to the on-ramp), minimum spacing required for the buses, and a better spot for boarding. I remember when the stops were moved, and even as a teenager it made sense (of course, you wre subjected to sitting in a bunch of light cycles if you had one of THOSE drivers).

Yes but in the late 90's CTA got the Seattle Artics which again i think looked ugly with Seattle colors and the CTA logo slapped on. 

[Busjack]

17 minutes ago, MRChiCity said:

When did the Lake Shore express routes become accessible? Because I would see TMC's being used on the LSD express routes before I suspect they became accessible. 

I can't give you an exact date, but routes with primarily MANs (some routes from NP, K, and 69th/74th) were essentially the last to become accessible. 147 was declared accessible only as a result of the 7300s from Seattle having lifts. Similarly, 152 was about the last of the FG routes to be accessible, because it ran exclusively Flyers, and then when those were pulled from service, MANs.

Even if a route such as 147 ran some 4400s, it couldn't be declared accessible until it was totally accessible.

[MRChiCity]

So an accessible bus could be used on a non accessible route? Maybe that explains why I sometimes saw TMC's on the Lake Shore Drive express routes before they became accessible. One thing I have always wondered is how come the destination signs on the MANS never worked at the end? I have noticed that the old Novas's (I can't believe I just said that) are having similar issues with the destination signs and using the paper signs.  

[jajuan]

23 hours ago, MetroShadow said:

Those routes came out of North Park (or Kedzie depending on the pick/trip/block) in the 90's, and the TMC's and MAN's were the primary sources there; and since the artics were on their last legs by the late 90's...you didn't have much of a choice.

As for the near/far side stops at Belmont/LSD, it's partially a safety issue (going across a lane of traffic to the on-ramp), minimum spacing required for the buses, and a better spot for boarding. I remember when the stops were moved, and even as a teenager it made sense (of course, you wre subjected to sitting in a bunch of light cycles if you had one of THOSE drivers).

Actually during the days of the Americanas, the north side Lake Shore Drive expresses were assigned to Limits (up until its closing) and North Park. So all Americanas seen on those routes were primarily North Park's for the most part except for the rare occasions one or two Kedzie Americanas were loaned to Limits (though I think K Americanas mainly got loaned for runs on local routes out of Limits like 37 or 156). Kedzie didn't get to operate any north side express routes in an officially assigned capacity until March 23, 2008. It started out with getting 134, 143, 145, and 148, but after the DeCrowd Plan went into effect in Dec 2012 that was reduced to only 134 and 143.

23 hours ago, Busjack said:

I can't give you an exact date, but routes with primarily MANs (some routes from NP, K, and 69th/74th) were essentially the last to become accessible. 147 was declared accessible only as a result of the 7300s from Seattle having lifts. Similarly, 152 was about the last of the FG routes to be accessible, because it ran exclusively Flyers, and then when those were pulled from service, MANs.

Even if a route such as 147 ran some 4400s, it couldn't be declared accessible until it was totally accessible.

You are correct. In the case of NP especially, the last routes to become accessible tended to be express routes. Interesting enough even though 136 and 147 got the accessible designation during late 2001 if I remember right, 147 still saw Americanas somewhat regularly among the assigned 40 footers on runs up until 2002, while the 136 had Americanas as main 40 foot bus assigned up until the last Americanas were retired from revenue service. To shed some light on the question though, north side LSD express routes started getting the accessible designation starting about October 2001 with 147 being the first to get the designation. 136 got designated accessible a few months later, but in practice as stated above, Americanas were the main 40 foot buses assigned up until the last Americanas finally retired. 146 got the designation I think in March of 2004 at the start of that year's spring pick. 145 was next on 4/25/2004 at the introduction of the 148 due to the interline that existed between those two up until CTA eliminated the 145. And 135 was the last NP route to finally become accessible at the retirement of the final Americanas. 

 

2 hours ago, MRChiCity said:

So an accessible bus could be used on a non accessible route? Maybe that explains why I sometimes saw TMC's on the Lake Shore Drive express routes before they became accessible. One thing I have always wondered is how come the destination signs on the MANS never worked at the end? I have noticed that the old Novas's (I can't believe I just said that) are having similar issues with the destination signs and using the paper signs.  

Yes accessible buses could operate on nonaccessible routes. They could be assigned to any route assigned to their home garage. If the route was still non-accessible though, the lift generally didn't get deployed on the route as standard practice. I remember an operator in a TMC on the 126* in the days that route still operated with a lot of Americanas telling that to a passenger in a wheelchair downtown wanting a bus that stopped near Union Station. Only the Americanas, Flyer 1600s and 9800s, and other non-accessible buses were restricted in route assignments. Outside of the flukes with the 136 and 147 mentioned above, you generally wouldn't see Americanas or old Flyers on the accessible designated routes unless there was an occasional shortage among accessible buses at the garage in which case you might see only one or two Americanas or Flyers total on that route for the day. 

 

*Above incident occurred on a weekday as 126 had a weekend/holiday only accessible designation because buses served Cook County Hospital all day on those days

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention that after 1991 when accessible buses first went into service, it became standard practice by CTA that new routes that got created were automatically designated as accessible when they went into service which is why the 145 had to be designated accessible when 148 came into existence and was interlined with it.

[MRChiCity]

Found a picture of a MAN bus http://gallery.bustalk.info/displayimage.php?album=325&pos=64 any one what to guess what that basketball in the background is part of?  

[cta5658]

3 hours ago, MRChiCity said:

Found a picture of a MAN bus http://gallery.bustalk.info/displayimage.php?album=325&pos=64 any one what to guess what that basketball in the background is part of?  

Michael Jordan's Restaurant

[jajuan]

5 hours ago, MRChiCity said:

Found a picture of a MAN bus http://gallery.bustalk.info/displayimage.php?album=325&pos=64 any one what to guess what that basketball in the background is part of?  

Yeah as mentioned above me, Michael Jordan's Restaurant. Plus the lack of black trim around the windows and bike rack in the front as well as this bus still having a working destination sign showing that it was a northbound 135 crossing the La Salle and Grand intersection indicates that this photo quite likely the early 1990s as at that time, the 135 and 136 still operated the full length of La Salle and didn't enter Lake Shore Drive until the North Avenue entrance. The present day forms of 135 and 136 wasn't until August 2003 as part of the Lake Shore Drive express route realignments. My memories of Americana bus assignments at the time as well as a good enough eye to make out the garage sticker further indicate this particular bus was a Kedzie Americana loaned to NP.

[MRChiCity]

 Reminds of when hearing the MANS getting on Lake Shore Drive at Belmont. 

[jajuan]

On 1/9/2020 at 12:20 AM, MRChiCity said:

 Reminds of when hearing the MANS getting on Lake Shore Drive at Belmont. 

CTA's 40 foot MAN buses are based on the design of the diesel version of this bus and get their nickname Americana from essentially the US version of this model. The US model designations were SL-40102 for the standard width 40 foot model used by CTA, Houston Metro (if memory serves correctly), Seattle area King County Metro, NYC's MTA (one demonstrator model that was only there for a very short time), New Orleans' transit agency, and the transit agencies of Minneapolis; and the SL-40096 an 96 inch wide narrow model used by Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) and its predecessor agency Charlotte Transit. Seattle's Americanas were notable for having rear windows. 

[Master58]

On 4/6/2017 at 7:57 PM, MRChiCity said:

Yes but in the late 90's CTA got the Seattle Artics which again i think looked ugly with Seattle colors and the CTA logo slapped on. 

I didn't get why they only wrapped a few artics with the traditional color scheme and left the rest with the Seattle color scheme.  It looked tacky.  

[NewFlyerMCI]

1 hour ago, Master58 said:

I didn't get why they only wrapped a few artics with the traditional color scheme and left the rest with the Seattle color scheme.  It looked tacky.  

Questions like these, the answer always comes down to money and/or laziness/incompetency lol

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Master58 said:

I didn't get why they only wrapped a few artics with the traditional color scheme and left the rest with the Seattle color scheme.  It looked tacky.  

They were in a hurry to get them out. The 7100s were dying at the time. Its either that or no artics. I personally think they received them all at once and were too overwelmed to paint them all. Maybe they should have wrapped them. Seemed to work well for Pace. The buses had alot of problems including alot of fumes buses that were a hazard to drive. They basically bought someone else's problem. They were only meant to drive for a year or two while they were waiting for the nabis. 

[Master58]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

They were in a hurry to get them out. The 7100s were dying at the time. Its either that or no artics. I personally think they received them all at once and were too overwelmed to paint them all. Maybe they should have wrapped them. Seemed to work well for Pace. The buses had alot of problems including alot of fumes buses that were a hazard to drive. They basically bought someone else's problem. They were only meant to drive for a year or two while they were waiting for the nabis. 

7300s were bad to ride as well. I did like the 7100s even though they had their share of problems.  

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Master58 said:

7300s were bad to ride as well. I did like the 7100s even though they had their share of problems.  

7300s were worse than the 7100s. 7300s had the fumes. 

[Master58]

6 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

7300s were worse than the 7100s. 7300s had the fumes. 

I agree.  I miss the 7100s I didn't care for the 7300s too much plus they had no AC. 

[artthouwill]

4 hours ago, BusHunter said:

They were in a hurry to get them out. The 7100s were dying at the time. Its either that or no artics. I personally think they received them all at once and were too overwelmed to paint them all. Maybe they should have wrapped them. Seemed to work well for Pace. The buses had alot of problems including alot of fumes buses that were a hazard to drive. They basically bought someone else's problem. They were only meant to drive for a year or two while they were waiting for the nabis. 

Consider the 7300s were older than the 7100s .  Supposedly they had less miles.  But remember Seattle summers aren't like Chicago summers and the age of the buses meant a/c wouldn't be working at optimal levels anyway..  I'm sure Seattle didn't concern itself with the exhaust system ss these buses were set to be retired,  so they were glad to give them to CTA for pennies to a dollar.  If I'm not mistaken. CTA was still trotting our the 7000s that were surely on their last legs. 

By that time, CTA had pretty much quit on working in the a/c on any of those artics 

[NewFlyerMCI]

This conversation reminds me that I used to think for years the MAN Americana's came in both regular and artic configuration. To this day, I still have no clue how I got them confused. It didn't help that there are next to no pics of the 7100s, so I thought for years these were the buses I was thinking of lol

[BusHunter]

3 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

This conversation reminds me that I used to think for years the MAN Americana's came in both regular and artic configuration. To this day, I still have no clue how I got them confused. It didn't help that there are next to no pics of the 7100s, so I thought for years these were the buses I was thinking of lol

They do come in standard 40 foot models as well as artic. The 7000 artics are really special as I believe it was said that they were manufactured in germany. The rest were manufacturered in the states. The 7000s were more like the demonstrator that toured the U.S. in the 70s.

Kind of interesting is the cta 4000s had no back windows but were not air conditioned. I didnt know there was a back window version. I looked it up it exists. Knda cool!!

[Sam92]

4 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

This conversation reminds me that I used to think for years the MAN Americana's came in both regular and artic configuration. To this day, I still have no clue how I got them confused. It didn't help that there are next to no pics of the 7100s, so I thought for years these were the buses I was thinking of lol

I remember the 4000s and 7100s sounding similar. Tbh I’ve only ridden a 7100 once but that was back when Jeffery was ran by the 6 I never used Jeffery consistently after that until it was restructured 

[busfan2847]

18 hours ago, artthouwill said:

Consider the 7300s were older than the 7100s .  Supposedly they had less miles.  But remember Seattle summers aren't like Chicago summers and the age of the buses meant a/c wouldn't be working at optimal levels anyway..  I'm sure Seattle didn't concern itself with the exhaust system ss these buses were set to be retired,  so they were glad to give them to CTA for pennies to a dollar.  If I'm not mistaken. CTA was still trotting our the 7000s that were surely on their last legs. 

By that time, CTA had pretty much quit on working in the a/c on any of those artics 

The 7300 were one year older that the 7100s and between 17-19 years old when they moved to cta in 1999-2001. They were not built with, or ever had, air conditioning and were longer than the cta ones (MAN SG310-18-2 rather than 7100 SG310-16.5-2A).

The 7000s were withdrawn before 1994. 7219 was withdrawn in 1985 (2 years old - fire?), the rest of the 7200 between 1995 & 2002 except 7167 withdrawn 2003 and 7143 withdrawn 2004. The 7300 were withdrawn 2003/2004 as the NABI 60-LFW were delivered.

[BusHunter]

3 hours ago, busfan2847 said:

The 7300 were one year older that the 7100s and between 17-19 years old when they moved to cta in 1999-2001. They were not built with, or ever had, air conditioning and were longer than the cta ones (MAN SG310-18-2 rather than 7100 SG310-16.5-2A).

The 7000s were withdrawn before 1994. 7219 was withdrawn in 1985 (2 years old - fire?), the rest of the 7200 between 1995 & 2002 except 7167 withdrawn 2003 and 7143 withdrawn 2004. The 7300 were withdrawn 2003/2004 as the NABI 60-LFW were delivered.

This is what happened to 7219. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1985/08/10/Seven-killed-in-accident-before-Springsteen-concert/5089492494400/&ved=2ahUKEwj0k_WXvLT0AhWxds0KHRKtD8UQFnoECAQQBQ&usg=AOvVaw0hDCMlCGzhoHC2OVQ2pby9&ampcf=1

Didnt know the driver got 7 counts of reckless homicide. This is our biggest fear in the cdl community. The city paid them 11.5 million in 1991 

[NewFlyerMCI]

5 hours ago, BusHunter said:

This is what happened to 7219. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1985/08/10/Seven-killed-in-accident-before-Springsteen-concert/5089492494400/&ved=2ahUKEwj0k_WXvLT0AhWxds0KHRKtD8UQFnoECAQQBQ&usg=AOvVaw0hDCMlCGzhoHC2OVQ2pby9&ampcf=1

Didnt know the driver got 7 counts of reckless homicide. This is our biggest fear in the cdl community. The city paid them 11.5 million in 1991 

If I’m understanding correctly, he was going below the speed limit, and the car was at fault for the crash. Why was he charged?

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

If I’m understanding correctly, he was going below the speed limit, and the car was at fault for the crash. Why was he charged?

They said he was traveling too fast for conditions which were heavy at the time. Charges were later dropped.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-24-mn-26114-story.html%3F_amp%3Dtrue&ved=2ahUKEwiWvrqpm7X0AhWVZM0KHS1EBe4QFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3ve01QQjpN5HI7SBq60Yt1&ampcf=1

[artthouwill]

29 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

They said he was traveling too fast for conditions which were heavy at the time. Charges were later dropped.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-24-mn-26114-story.html%3F_amp%3Dtrue&ved=2ahUKEwiWvrqpm7X0AhWVZM0KHS1EBe4QFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3ve01QQjpN5HI7SBq60Yt1&ampcf=1

I remember that crash.  The media had a field day juxtaposing the speeding, reckless black CTA drivers with the wholesome, innocent, suburban white kids just going to see The Boss. 

The truth is those kids were unfamiliar with the area and unfortunately it cost them their lives.  I believe that was probably why Daley killed Meigs Field and reconfigured Lake Shore Drive.  Of course, the news media never made this dropped charges an issue as this is the first time I've read, seen, or heard about this and I remember the media doing special investigations clicking the speed of the Jeffery Expresses entering LSD near Soldier Field.   This is what led CTA to "govern" the buses to a maximum 55 mph.

 

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I remember that crash.  The media had a field day juxtaposing the speeding, reckless black CTA drivers with the wholesome, innocent, suburban white kids just going to see The Boss. 

The truth is those kids were unfamiliar with the area and unfortunately it cost them their lives.  I believe that was probably why Daley killed Meigs Field and reconfigured Lake Shore Drive.  Of course, the news media never made this dropped charges an issue as this is the first time I've read, seen, or heard about this and I remember the media doing special investigations clicking the speed of the Jeffery Expresses entering LSD near Soldier Field.   This is what led CTA to "govern" the buses to a maximum 55 mph.

 

I dont remember it being a race issue. It was more an issue of how the stevenson exit was designed in relation to lsd. The fact that the car was dragged under the bus several feet without it stopping and slamming into a pole, does make one wonder if the drivers reaction time was slow. I wouldve looked at his dtiving hours and seen if maybe he was tired cause the reaction time is slower. I once had a similar issue happen to me had a guy come to a complete stop at the dan ryan skyway split sb. I had to stand on the pedal to get it to stop was doing 45. I had a full load which will push the bus. I got the bus stopped. Sometimes driving can be physical. I believe that you can muscle the bus to stop. If you dont have the foot pressure you will not stop. Now with him having an artic thats more weight yet, so maybe he did all he could and the bus pushed him. You have to figure your reaction time though. Like they tell us where I work. 90 percent of the time the auto is a fault because they dont know that you cant stop on a dime. It was a bad day.