Winter Operations

[chgofan78]

I'm curious as to what happens to rail service when a bad snow storm comes upon the city. With this recent storm, I observed 6-car trains operating on the Pink Line with a few borrowed Orange Line cars. When a rail line doesn't have enough equipment to cover its service, which routes supply the equipment to cover the lack of working equipment? Or, is it on a wait and see basis? In the past, we've seen Blue, Brown and Purple Line cars cover Green Line service.

[Garysheski]

I'm curious as to what happens to rail service when a bad snow storm comes upon the city. With this recent storm, I observed 6-car trains operating on the Pink Line with a few borrowed Orange Line cars. When a rail line doesn't have enough equipment to cover its service, which routes supply the equipment to cover the lack of working equipment? Or, is it on a wait and see basis? In the past, we've seen Blue, Brown and Purple Line cars cover Green Line service.

You don't remember the Billard of '79? almost 100% of the entire city fleet was put of commision by the deep snow. The fan-ventilated motors became clogged closed with snow & ice all overheated and burned up!

In addition, the solid-pack ice and snow knocked a Dan Ryan Train right off the track! What happens in the winter?? I grew up there, been there, done that! I know from experience whereof I speak!! : o

[jajuan]

You don't remember the Billard of '79? almost 100% of the entire city fleet was put of commision by the deep snow. The fan-ventilated motors became clogged closed with snow & ice all overheated and burned up!

In addition, the solid-pack ice and snow knocked a Dan Ryan Train right off the track! What happens in the winter?? I grew up there, been there, done that! I know from experience whereof I speak!! : o

I don't think he was referring to such an extreme case. And there have been some updates in the CTA rail car motors that prevent the bad clogging you're speaking of. There have been some really nasty snowstorms with pretty deep snow in the past few years that haven't come close to causing the failures of 1979. I think the question has more to do with what type of plan is in place for the older cars that either weren't totally rebuilt such as the 2600 series on the Pink, Blue and Red lines, or acquired during the '90's, i.e. the 3200s used on the Orange, Brown, and Yellow lines.

[artthouwill]

I don't think he was referring to such an extreme case. And there have been some updates in the CTA rail car motors that prevent the bad clogging you're speaking of. There have been some really nasty snowstorms with pretty deep snow in the past few years that haven't come close to causing the failures of 1979. I think the question has more to do with what type of plan is in place for the older cars that either weren't totally rebuilt such as the 2600 series on the Pink, Blue and Red lines, or acquired during the '90's, i.e. the 3200s used on the Orange, Brown, and Yellow lines.

But I do remember the winter of 1998/1999 when the Blue Line was shut down between Jefferson Park and O'Hare. Private bus companies such as Keeshin and Colonial provided shuttle service for CTA between those two points non-stop during daytime hours. I supposed CTA didn't have enough bus equipment to handle the volume of passengers at that time. As a matter of fact, I believe this is when the overhauls of the older cars started to take place so as not to cause the clogging in the undercarriage that the above poster alluded to. What was amazing back then was that similar shutdowns weren't happening on the Red Line north of Lawrence, the Green Line west of Laramie, the Purple, Yellow and Orange Lines.