6400-series Nova LFS - Updates & Retirements

[ChicagoNova]

5 hours ago, andrethebusman said:

"Live" list 12/20/16

6466,6468,6470,6472-6474,6477,6488

6553,6554,6558,6562,6564,6572,6574,6576,6577,6579,6581,6585

6671,6674,6675,6678,6679,6681,6682,6684,6686,6687,6691,6692,6694,6696,6697,6699

6700,6704-6706,6710,6713,6714,6722,6724,6730,6733,6734,6736,6737,6751,6755,6758,6759,6761,6763,6764,6770-6772,6776,6780,6784,6787,6792,6794,6799

6802,6803,6805,6810,6814,6820,6824,6826,6834-6838,6842,6843,6846,6847,6849,6854,6856,6858-6862,6865,6867-6871,6873,6875,6877,6882

So that's 82 old Novas still in service, huh?

[BusHunter]

Hmm.... that's over 30 buses less than what I have. I guess I'll have some roster updating to do.

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, ChicagoNova said:

So that's 82 old Novas still in service, huh?

 

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Hmm.... that's over 30 buses less than what I have. I guess I'll have some roster updating to do.

math's tracker has been showing 75 on the street for a while and it is 75 today. For some reason CTA is flogging them for what they are worth.

By contrast, FG is running 70 of its 87 8200s.

[BusHunter]

5 hours ago, Busjack said:

 

math's tracker has been showing 75 on the street for a while and it is 75 today. For some reason CTA is flogging them for what they are worth.

By contrast, FG is running 70 of its 87 8200s.

With no replacements in sight as of yet. Kind of shocking that fg remains with only 87 new novas, the lowest of any new garage that has them. Yet it runs the only remaining #6400 fleet with the 82 it has. Either CTA is really confident with fg's mechanics or that garage just don't get no respect. Although if there is an official reason that would be the first choice!! 

[BusHunter]

Alright I updated the rosters. I count 102 #6400 buses not 82. So they didn't retire as many as we thought. That would have seriously messed around with the fg fleet total which is now around 252, which is not too far from where they usually maintain around 257. Interesting #6473 and #6488 came back? I guess I'll have to check maths tracker cause I haven't been following too close lately.

[Guest]

Its because the garage dosent get any respect  Plain and simple!

[Guest]

14 hours ago, BusHunter said:

With no replacements in sight as of yet. Kind of shocking that fg remains with only 87 new novas, the lowest of any new garage that has them. Yet it runs the only remaining #6400 fleet with the 82 it has. Either CTA is really confident with fg's mechanics or that garage just don't get no respect. Although if there is an official reason that would be the first choice!! 

Plain and simple,  FG dosent get the respect they should by contrast to other garages! They seem to get shunned more often as opposed to the other garages in the system. You will never see this at 77th, 103rd or Chicago ave!

[jajuan]

Yes CTA took too long updating FG's fleet. But it hasn't been neglected as much this year considering it literally has the newest of CTA's buses along with getting back some of the NF's which although they're a decade old, they underwent an overhaul that cost CTA over a half billion dollars. The biggest thing now is to knock off the remaining 100 6400s.

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, jajuan said:

Yes CTA took too long updating FG's fleet. But it hasn't been neglected as much this year considering it literally has the newest of CTA's buses along with getting back some of the NF's which although they're a decade old, they underwent an overhaul that cost CTA over a half billion dollars. The biggest thing now is to knock off the remaining 100 6400s.

Question is with what? Sure won't be the 27 electrics. And with it taking a year to execute contracts at least and 6-9 months to draw one up I'd say it's a good bet they won't be replaced in earnest for at least 2 more years, so realistically they may be looking at 18 year old #6400's because they still have base order buses and are retiring the newer buses in the original option.

[jajuan]

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

Question is with what? Sure won't be the 27 electrics. And with it taking a year to execute contracts at least and 6-9 months to draw one up I'd say it's a good bet they won't be replaced in earnest for at least 2 more years, so realistically they may be looking at 18 year old #6400's because they still have base order buses and are retiring the newer buses in the original option.

Well there is the argument that despite some increases in schedule on a system level, FG is operating with more 6400s than necessary because the series has reached the junk level since it's four years beyond retirement age. The debate then is how many of the 75 extra (the 102 count you determined was left minus the 27 that will definitely be replaced by electrics) should already have been retired by now to say whether the 27 electrics actually will or won't be enough buses ordered to retire out the 6400 series.

[busfan2847]

On 12/27/2016 at 11:34 PM, andrethebusman said:

"Live" list 12/20/16

6466,6468,6470,6472-6474,6477,6488

6553,6554,6558,6562,6564,6572,6574,6576,6577,6579,6581,6585

6671,6674,6675,6678,6679,6681,6682,6684,6686,6687,6691,6692,6694,6696,6697,6699

6700,6704-6706,6710,6713,6714,6722,6724,6730,6733,6734,6736,6737,6751,6755,6758,6759,6761,6763,6764,6770-6772,6776,6780,6784,6787,6792,6794,6799

6802,6803,6805,6810,6814,6820,6824,6826,6834-6838,6842,6843,6846,6847,6849,6854,6856,6858-6862,6865,6867-6871,6873,6875,6877,6882

By checking three days a week on maths22 archive I agree with this list, however, there are 3 buses missing. 6746, 6747 and 6793 are still in service and have been out this week.

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, jajuan said:

Well there is the argument that despite some increases in schedule on a system level,

I sort of have the feeling that the opposite is happening. If one gets away from the south side changes last time around, and that frequency was increased on 66 to make up for taking artics off, there have been cutbacks in frequency, such as J14 being down to about 20 buses.

Running the maths22 Excel challenge for 5 p.m. yesterday indicates only 1310 buses in service Since it shows only 7 on 95, maybe there are 1315. maths.xls

Surprisingly (but maybe not after the transfers out of Chicago Garage, only 86 of 208 4000s were on the street. Similarly, only 50 of 98 4300s were on the street. As indicated by the More Bus Moves, C essentially swapped so that some garages that had artics got a few more, but the allocation to routes wasn't changed. But if one assumed a normal spare ratio of about 15%, 96 artics that should be in service are not. The actual spare ratio is 55%.

 

 

[artthouwill]

14 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I sort of have the feeling that the opposite is happening. If one gets away from the south side changes last time around, and that frequency was increased on 66 to make up for taking artics off, there have been cutbacks in frequency, such as J14 being down to about 20 buses.

Running the maths22 Excel challenge for 5 p.m. yesterday indicates only 1310 buses in service Since it shows only 7 on 95, maybe there are 1315. maths.xls

Surprisingly (but maybe not after the transfers out of Chicago Garage, only 86 of 208 4000s were on the street. Similarly, only 50 of 98 4300s were on the street. As indicated by the More Bus Moves, C essentially swapped so that some garages that had artics got a few more, but the allocation to routes wasn't changed. But if one assumed a normal spare ratio of about 15%, 96 artics that should be in service are not. The actual spare ratio is 55%.

 

 

Could it be possible that with a lot of people on vacation this week,  ridership could be down thus justifying shelving some artics for this week only.   I suppose next week or the week after could give us a better idea. 

[Busjack]

39 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

Could it be possible that with a lot of people on vacation this week,  ridership could be down thus justifying shelving some artics for this week only.   I suppose next week or the week after could give us a better idea. 

The only difference that would seem to affect operations (and not at 5 p,m.) is school trips.

I putted 5 p.m. for Dec. 20, and the numbers are about the same (137 out of 306). Only thing interesting there is that an X49 has a 74th block number, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a 74th bus.

maths dec 20.xlsx

The point still is whether 40 foot buses were substituted for 60 foot ones on a temporary basis, CTA has about 1870 buses and a peak demand of about 1320 buses, which means why it is still running 82 or 102 6400s is beyond me.

 

[ajm522]

This may be unrelated but to Busjack's point there are a lot of 4000's sidelined at South Shops. They are a lot again the fence on 79th. 

[Busjack]

Just now, ajm522 said:

This may be unrelated but to Busjack's point there are a lot of 4000's sidelined at South Shops. They are a lot again the fence on 79th. 

Relevant to the extent that it explains why they aren't on a tracker. Now whether it is waste, or they are being set up for the rehabs, can't tell.

[busfan2847]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

I sort of have the feeling that the opposite is happening. If one gets away from the south side changes last time around, and that frequency was increased on 66 to make up for taking artics off, there have been cutbacks in frequency, such as J14 being down to about 20 buses.

Running the maths22 Excel challenge for 5 p.m. yesterday indicates only 1310 buses in service Since it shows only 7 on 95, maybe there are 1315. maths.xls

Surprisingly (but maybe not after the transfers out of Chicago Garage, only 86 of 208 4000s were on the street. Similarly, only 50 of 98 4300s were on the street. As indicated by the More Bus Moves, C essentially swapped so that some garages that had artics got a few more, but the allocation to routes wasn't changed. But if one assumed a normal spare ratio of about 15%, 96 artics that should be in service are not. The actual spare ratio is 55%.

 

 

Use of artics always seems to be low. Many of the rush hour journeys covered by them are in the rush direction only, the vehicle then runs back dead to take up a later journey so do not appear on the tracker (especially for North Park and 103rd routes)

For 12/1/2016 from maths22 archive, at 20 minute intervals from 7am to 9am, there were 121 different 4000 out (granted that is still just less than 60% of the fleet).

Only 25 were present in all 7 searches,

19 in 6, 27 in 5, 19 in 4, 17 in 3, 12 in 2 and 2 only in 1.

At 7am there were 65 4000s out, 7:20 76, 7:40 81, 8:00 84, 8:20 90, 8:40 97, 9:00 84

Looking at a single scan will significantly underestimate the number or artics actually out.

[jajuan]

42 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I sort of have the feeling that the opposite is happening. If one gets away from the south side changes last time around, and that frequency was increased on 66 to make up for taking artics off, there have been cutbacks in frequency, such as J14 being down to about 20 buses.

Running the maths22 Excel challenge for 5 p.m. yesterday indicates only 1310 buses in service Since it shows only 7 on 95, maybe there are 1315. maths.xls

Surprisingly (but maybe not after the transfers out of Chicago Garage, only 86 of 208 4000s were on the street. Similarly, only 50 of 98 4300s were on the street. As indicated by the More Bus Moves, C essentially swapped so that some garages that had artics got a few more, but the allocation to routes wasn't changed. But if one assumed a normal spare ratio of about 15%, 96 artics that should be in service are not. The actual spare ratio is 55%.

 

 

I think you misunderstood me a bit when I mentioned system level increase in my last post. I wasn't saying that service was increased on every route across the board. I was merely getting at CTA's specific changes across the garages outside of just the south side ones done this year that came after the December 2012 De-Crowd changes. The more frequent rush service on the 12 beyond the increase from De-Crowd, more frequent rush service on the 66 that started at the time that route still had artics, more frequent service just recently on the 136 that's indicated on the most recent CTA system map, the return of the 11 and 31, and the return of the X9 and X49 are examples of what I was getting at. Add to that various earlier starts and later end times on various routes other than that done on the 26. On the artic side of the equation, I agree with you that basically all that happened is that the remaining artic garages K, 1, and P are operating with a higher artic spare ratio. I noted in the More Bus Moves thread actually that nothing had really changed in those garages' artic deployment levels or patterns. 

 

57 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

Could it be possible that with a lot of people on vacation this week,  ridership could be down thus justifying shelving some artics for this week only.   I suppose next week or the week after could give us a better idea. 

I agree with Busjack on this one that holiday riding patterns have had little to do with artic deployments at the other garages. one huge clue in that is K operating 134 and 156 and P the 135 and 136 under the same artic levels despite LaSalle being the one downtown corridor where folks being on vacation is more noticeable. If anything the only change really has been the 6, J14, and 26 running with two less 1000s each on average. Other than that K, P and 103rd really are treating the extra artics between them more as standbys to have in case there are any maintenance issues while of course rotating daily use as is normal of any bus on active rosters.

[jajuan]

3 minutes ago, busfan2847 said:

Use of artics always seems to be low. Many of the rush hour journeys covered by them are in the rush direction only, the vehicle then runs back dead to take up a later journey so do not appear on the tracker (especially for North Park and 103rd routes)

For 12/1/2016 from maths22 archive, at 20 minute intervals from 7am to 9am, there were 121 different 4000 out (granted that is still just less than 60% of the fleet).

Only 25 were present in all 7 searches,

19 in 6, 27 in 5, 19 in 4, 17 in 3, 12 in 2 and 2 only in 1.

At 7am there were 65 4000s out, 7:20 76, 7:40 81, 8:00 84, 8:20 90, 8:40 97, 9:00 84

Looking at a single scan will significantly underestimate the number or artics actually out.

Valid point, but if the question is whether deployment patterns have changed much, taking one snap shot from the busiest part of either rush period now and comparing against snapshots of that same time across random samplings of different weekdays before C's artic purge tend to be enough because including routes like 26, 134, 135 and 136 in those samples automatically includes the assumption that the deadheads back to position for later trips are not included in the count. 

[Busjack]

15 minutes ago, jajuan said:

I think you misunderstood me a bit when I mentioned system level increase in my last post. I wasn't saying that service was increased on every route across the board. I was merely getting at CTA's specific changes across the garages outside of just the south side ones done this year that came after the December 2012 De-Crowd changes. The more frequent rush service on the 12 beyond the increase from De-Crowd, more frequent rush service on the 66 that started at the time that route still had artics, more frequent service just recently on the 136 that's indicated on the most recent CTA system map, the return of the 11 and 31, and the return of the X9 and X49 are examples of what I was getting at.

Essentially, I didn't, since I was dealing only in recent history, and most of the changes you mentioned were marginal, i.e. X9 and X49 only 8 more buses each, with most of it covered by cutbacks on the locals. Maybe there is justification for carrying over 100 more pieces of junk than was contemplated when the order for the 7900s was made, but as @BusHunter points out, there is nothing in the 2017 5 year capital plan to replace them with other than the ~30 electric buses.

@busfan2847 appears to have found the fallacy in my analysis, to the extent of deadhead trips, although there still is @ajm522's  observation.

[jajuan]

28 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Essentially, I didn't, since I was dealing only in recent history, and most of the changes you mentioned were marginal, i.e. X9 and X49 only 8 more buses each, with most of it covered by cutbacks on the locals. Maybe there is justification for carrying over 100 more pieces of junk than was contemplated when the order for the 7900s was made, but as @BusHunter points out, there is nothing in the 2017 5 year capital plan to replace them with other than the ~30 electric buses.

@busfan2847 appears to have found the fallacy in my analysis, although there still is @ajm522's  observation.

Either way, it doesn't change my original larger point in the original post that you were quoting me that real debate was how many of the possibly 75 extra remaining 6400s beyond the 27 needed to justify the electrics are junk still around that should already be gone and how many are still around because they really are still needed. If CTA is correct that the electrics will be enough until they start on replacements for 1000s, then most of that 75 is junk that already should be gone and our exchange after that post is moot. But if BH is correct that CTA is underestimated what it needs to procure to knock out the rest of the 6400s, then we actually do have to look beyond your examination of only the most immediate recent history and look at those other changes as well for possible explanations for how CTA could have underestimated its future capital needs under the earliest parts of that five year plan because marginal changes still add up as @BusHunter correctly noted even if it can be debated how much they added up.

[Busjack]

6 minutes ago, jajuan said:

But if BH is correct that CTA is underestimated what it needs to procure to knock out the rest of the 6400s, then we actually do have to look beyond your examination of only the most immediate recent history and look at those other changes as well for possible explanations for how CTA could have underestimated its future capital needs under the earliest parts of that five year plan because marginal changes still add up as @BusHunter correctly noted even if it can be debated how much they added up.

I acknowledged that possibility in my prior post. However, what it gets down to, is that unlike my description of Pace, CTA doesn't have a history of, say, Bus 8327 suddenly showing up, but announces and seems to require board approval for the exercise of options.  So, as @BusHunter has indicated, it seems strange that the 50 diesel or electric buses in the 2016 budget became only the ~30 electric buses in the 2017 budget and the 2017 5-year capital plan mentioned only the electrics and replacing some New Flyers.

[BusHunter]

Remember when we all had our friendly debate about fg losing the remaining #6400's? Well so far they only lost 14 buses. And with the 27 electrics and no #8325's this remains a mystery. I just don't understand what cta has up its sleeve cause like I just said we might be looking at 20 year buses on the nw side. I dont see service cuts and if they had a service increase this will be interestingn

[busfan2847]

On 12/28/2016 at 4:54 AM, ChicagoNova said:

So that's 82 old Novas still in service, huh?

No it is 102 plus the three missing gives 105.

88 were on the road yesterday at 8am or 4pm.

[busfan2847]

7 hours ago, Busjack said:

The only difference that would seem to affect operations (and not at 5 p,m.) is school trips.

I putted 5 p.m. for Dec. 20, and the numbers are about the same (137 out of 306). Only thing interesting there is that an X49 has a 74th block number, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a 74th bus.

maths dec 20.xlsx

The point still is whether 40 foot buses were substituted for 60 foot ones on a temporary basis, CTA has about 1870 buses and a peak demand of about 1320 buses, which means why it is still running 82 or 102 6400s is beyond me.

 

The only artic X49 in that list was 4397 which is the Christmas Bus and had a 74th running number.