More Bus Moves

[garmon757]

Meanwhile, 77th continues its power-hungry quest to acquire more buses...

#1226 is on 79 (NP -> 77th)

#1089 is on 4 (Chicago -> 77th)

Ummm, both buses been at 77th for a while now. #1226 was a loan on behalf of North Park. #1089 been at 77th since March of last year.

[geneking7320]

Back when the 5000s were tested systemwide, the amber signs were briefly used on the Yellow Line and displayed the swift logo. It's hard to see in this picture, but it's there.

Just to clarify, I was referring to the tern/swift being on the inside of the car.

Actually it looked like the headsign shown in the pic you provided.

[NewFlyerMCI]

Ummm, both buses been at 77th for a while now. #1226 was a loan on behalf of North Park. #1089 been at 77th since March of last year.

I was checking for rehabs when I saw these and was going off your list. In fairness, I should've checked the roster as well, but they're usually no gaps both for rehabbed/unrehabbed buses and garage assignments in your roster.

[Guest]

2-6. I was either too young or not yet born to have really observed #1 in use.

I remember #2 I remember collecting transfers from all the garages except Beverly. Since it was too far from where I lived on the far NW side. It took me a long time to get one.

[garmon757]

I was checking for rehabs when I saw these and was going off your list. In fairness, I should've checked the roster as well, but they're usually no gaps both for rehabbed/unrehabbed buses and garage assignments in your roster.

Sometimes I can be behind with my roster and have certain buses in different garage sections in my roster. That's why I have BusHunter as my backup if he see something different with my roster.

[Guest]

YoungBusLover, on 08 Apr 2015 - 11:09, said:

Found something interesting on youtube this morning, It was very good to watch some Nostalgia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waafb0tv7as

Cool video! I loved and miss driving those TMC RTS buses! I loved the sound of that engine! The constant beeps from the farecards. And of course always the one individual who thinks he or shes smarter than the bus driver! And I absolutely despised that rear window on the RTSs. I was happy when CTA retrofitted the buses with the a/c units and made the RTS look like models from other cities. :)

[YoungBusLover]

Cool video! I loved and miss driving those TMC RTS buses! I loved the sound of that engine! The constant beeps from the farecards. And of course always the one individual who thinks he or shes smarter than the bus driver!

I'm glad you liked it and I believe this was #4545 the driver was operating that day while #6295 was his leader.

[Mr.cta85]

1612,1614,& 1615 can be added to 103rd roster. 1614-15 have been there for a few weeks now. 1612 and 14 still have their 6 stickers, not sure about 1615 but either way it's safe to say they're part of the roster now. With 74th receiving more Novas they have been giving out their old Novas and new flyers to other garages. I saw 1112 and 1113 doing 77th garage routes too this past week.

[BusHunter]

#1434 is on the #82 and #1449 is on the #60.

[jajuan]

Found something interesting on youtube this morning, It was very good to watch some Nostalgia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waafb0tv7as

I noted he mentioned suggesting Western Orange Line being the north terminus for the 48 (not yet implemented at the time of the vid). So we have an approximate time frame without doing a search on YouTube.

[jajuan]

#1434 is on the #82 and #1449 is on the #60.

I thought Kedzie already had 1449 from Chicago at least a couple weeks ago. I could have sworn I rode it on the 157, unless I'm maybe thinking of 1439?

[andrethebusman]

Of course that kooky thing with 111 having the terminal at 112th/Corliss came about because of CTA having shaved down a lot of the service and service hours on what used to be the 104 down to the point of being rush hour only in its final form. Their solution oddly enough was to fold the portion of 104 north of its Bishop Ford Freeway (at that time Calumet Expressway) into 111, which before that for the sake of our younger members was a bidirectional loop along 111th and 115th streets between Vincennes and Cottage Grove if I'm remembering that right. The current realignment that makes it a more direct route and split 115 off as a separate route, came about mainly because of the Marshfield Shopping Center now being in place among far south side businesses, something that was not true 20 some odd years ago, probably closer to 30 at this point, when CTA made the odd move to fold much of the former 104 into 111.

Actually the reasoning behind the Pullman/111/115 was a bit different. This came about when CTA went to three rides for one fare, period. Somebody complained that if you started out on the old 111/115 as your first ride, the S Michigan would be your second to get to 95th, and the L at 95th would be your third, so if you needed to go somewhere by bus on the north side, you had to cough up another fare. Every other route in the area connected to an L, so this was a singular anomaly. The cure was to thru-route Pullman and 111/115, so now the L at 95th was ride #2. Also, the Altgeld Gardens service survived past this as "104-Pullman/Altgeld" by several years.

[andrethebusman]

Bus moves over weekend 4/4 - 4/5

Chicago = 6696,6794,6796,6797,6798,6799,6801,6802,6803,6804,6806,6808,6810

Forest Glen = 6488,6492,6493,6496,6497,6521,6523,6525,6530,6533,6534,6535,6536

Scrapped = 6608,6405,6410,6413,6419,6423,6513,6615,6443,6431,6583,6644

[andrethebusman]

The first ones of that type (around 1974, which said bus) were good for two hours (IIRC), or if it took longer than that to go cross town, 30 minutes per square.

The ones before that with the route lines (apparently predating CTA) were in a single direction and 10 minutes per (smaller) square, but didn't limit the number of transfers.

the ones with the route lines dated back to 1934. Before that there were two forms in four colors, one that named all east-west routes and one that named all north-south routes. Each form came in two colors designating direction, east, west, north, or south. When you transferred, say from an eastbound Fullerton car to a southbound Western car, you gave the Western conductor your eastbound E-W transfer, he gave you back a southbound N-S form punched "east". If you then transferred to a Chicago Av car, you could only go east again, as the southbound transfer had been punched east. A very simple system, but required an immense amount of paper, something on the order of almost a million transfers a day since basically in the days of free transfers, almost everybody took one whether they figured on needing it or not. The map transfers drastically reduced the paper volume, as the same form was punched and returned. As an aside, apparently when the map transfers first came out, each and every route, no matter how minimal, got its own form, so even things like 119th St (Vincennes to Morgan, barely a mile, had its own form. The only exceptions were "extension cars" like 63rd, Vincennes, Montrose trolleybus, that were on the same form as the route they were an extension of. However, within a couple of years, minor routes started getting consolidated on one form, up to four on one, and by 1942 there were only a few one-route forms. The combinations kept getting changed around in efforts to reduce print quantities, but in the last days of map transfers there were still 84 separate forms. If you want to know more about old transfers, look on the irm-cta.org website where over 98% of all known forms are shown.

[andrethebusman]

#tbt. How many of these do you remember?

https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoRTA/photos/a.446228514090.225436.356845049090/10152846317724091/?type=1&fref=nf

I started with "o" the last series of map transfers in 1964!

[andrethebusman]

Before exact fare, certain buses had fare boxes and others didn't (you just put the fare on a wooden tray and the driver had to register it somehow and put it into the coin changer).

77th buses had what I think were Johnson Fare Boxes (something like this, but I thought they had a larger clear dome), one of the grinder kinds that registered the coins automatically, but the driver still had to put them in the coin changer. Around 1969 they were converted to have a vault on the bottom, but since they had the grinders, there was a slot in the vault for inserting dollar bills. That wasn't much of an issue when the fare was about 25 cents, but became one.

When exact fare became universal, the type of farebox illustrated in the video of 9799 became standard, and replaced the Johnson ones. Since I lived near 55th, those were the first ones on those buses. Originally they were green, and while I thought CTA got new beige ones, once the paint started peeling it became obvious that they were the green ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9c4I-d-Bmyo

Before fare boxes, buses had registers. Big round ones or small square ones that were later used at L stations into the 1980's as backups for the Visifares. They had a rope that when pulled advanced a counter which is how fares were counted. Each bus or car had two registers, one for full fares and one for half fares. Large-scale use of fareboxes only started in the early 50's, when CTA bought a large number of the Johnson J-boxes (the ones that only took quarters and tokens) from an unknown source. The great big boxes with the sloping front that had a circularmoney path on the front came from the Motor Coach. Starting with the 5500 Propanes, buses came from the factory with brand-new fareboxes installed, mostly Johnson K's, the ones with the clear top with sloping sides, where the money fell on a plate and then when driver pushed a lever fell into a counter and then was ejected out the bottom.

With exact-fare, most buses got new boxes, Johnson Acceptafares, like the one in the video. A couple of garages initially had the old K's converted by adding a vault box on the bottom, but they were all eventually replaced by Acceptafares. They worked just fine until the day the fare went up from 75 to 85 cents and everybody started putting in dollar bills. Then the vault-puller's job became outright hell, with the cannisters usually needing to be wrenched out with the aid of a six-foot iron bar. After a few years of this, everything got replaced mid-80's by the current Centsabills.

Now remember, all the interior parts of a farebox are removable, and are regularly replaced as they fail. The display, keypad, coin counter, bill transport, motherboard, are all easily replaceable, and the number on the farebox only refers to the shell. The shells are all original, roughly 3000 in number, and the works have been rebuilt and overhauled hundreds if not thousands of times in the last 30 years. No doubt over the years new parts have been added to the pool, so by now, unlike the previous fareboxes which were basically a unit that could not be intermixed, there is undoubltedly not even one shell that has a single part it came with.

[strictures]

Before fare boxes, buses had registers. Big round ones or small square ones that were later used at L stations into the 1980's as backups for the Visifares. They had a rope that when pulled advanced a counter which is how fares were counted. Each bus or car had two registers, one for full fares and one for half fares. Large-scale use of fareboxes only started in the early 50's, when CTA bought a large number of the Johnson J-boxes (the ones that only took quarters and tokens) from an unknown source. The great big boxes with the sloping front that had a circularmoney path on the front came from the Motor Coach. Starting with the 5500 Propanes, buses came from the factory with brand-new fareboxes installed, mostly Johnson K's, the ones with the clear top with sloping sides, where the money fell on a plate and then when driver pushed a lever fell into a counter and then was ejected out the bottom.

With exact-fare, most buses got new boxes, Johnson Acceptafares, like the one in the video. A couple of garages initially had the old K's converted by adding a vault box on the bottom, but they were all eventually replaced by Acceptafares. They worked just fine until the day the fare went up from 75 to 85 cents and everybody started putting in dollar bills. Then the vault-puller's job became outright hell, with the canisters usually needing to be wrenched out with the aid of a six-foot iron bar. After a few years of this, everything got replaced mid-80's by the current Centsabills.

Now remember, all the interior parts of a farebox are removable, and are regularly replaced as they fail. The display, keypad, coin counter, bill transport, motherboard, are all easily replaceable, and the number on the farebox only refers to the shell. The shells are all original, roughly 3000 in number, and the works have been rebuilt and overhauled hundreds if not thousands of times in the last 30 years. No doubt over the years new parts have been added to the pool, so by now, unlike the previous fareboxes which were basically a unit that could not be intermixed, there is undoubtedly not even one shell that has a single part it came with.

I remember Johnson Farebox. It was on the east side of Ravenswood, just south of Wilson. When I walked by the place, I could see used & presumably broken fareboxes waiting to be repaired sitting in the windows on the south side of the building.

[Busjack]

...Starting with the 5500 Propanes, buses came from the factory with brand-new fareboxes installed, mostly Johnson K's, the ones with the clear top with sloping sides, where the money fell on a plate and then when driver pushed a lever fell into a counter and then was ejected out the bottom.....

I still seem to remember around 1968 some buses where you had to put your money on the wooden tray, including 8500s on 152 and most buses from 69th, and that still appeared to be why 69th routes got the Acceptafares.

Obviously, the mess with handling dollar bills led to the Censabills, but most TAs went to them at about the same time, presumably because they registered the fares electronically, as opposed to the Acceptafares that had the manual push button counters for half fares and the like added around 1975.

Also, Pace had the requisition to rebuilt theirs.

[YoungBusLover]

Bus moves over weekend 4/4 - 4/5

Chicago = 6696,6794,6796,6797,6798,6799,6801,6802,6803,6804,6806,6808,6810

Forest Glen = 6488,6492,6493,6496,6497,6521,6523,6525,6530,6533,6534,6535,6536

Scrapped = 6608,6405,6410,6413,6419,6423,6513,6615,6443,6431,6583,6644

Well It took them long enough to retire #6644 :angry: ..

[BusHunter]

#6406 didn't sound too good either last night. I don't know if the brakes were wet or not but when the bus stopped the rear brakes would grind and vibrate very badly almost like they had no pads or they were worn to the metal. I noticed the operator was driving very slowly because this had to influencing his stopping distance. Why not just call the bus in?

[andrethebusman]

I remember Johnson Farebox. It was on the east side of Ravenswood, just south of Wilson. When I walked by the place, I could see used & presumably broken fareboxes waiting to be repaired sitting in the windows on the south side of the building.

Johnson Farebox was in the old Ravenswood CMC Garage

[strictures]

Johnson Farebox was in the old Ravenswood CMC Garage

Maybe at one time it was, but from the 1970s until it's demise, it was in the fourth building south of Wilson, on the east side of Ravenswood Ave. The name was right over the front door.

Since the 1960s, that building was Northwestern Golf Manufacturing until that closed. Now it's Schulhof Plumbing Supplies, with the Night Ministry on the second floor.

[NewFlyerMCI]

CTA and Pace were featured in this, so it's slightly relevant:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/26391/to-get-congress-attention-america-says-standup4transportation/

[Busjack]

CTA and Pace were featured in this, so it's slightly relevant:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/26391/to-get-congress-attention-america-says-standup4transportation/

Durbin using a lot of @tags and not getting anything other than consultant money, for which he always takes credit, including today at Union Station, is the problem, not the solution. Note the use of the phrase "help plan."

[BusHunter]

#6811, #6815 and #6824 are all on FG routes right now. We'll see how long this lasts. (They have the updated clever devices)