More Bus Moves

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

Ummm don't forget Western gets TSP all the way up to Howard, so that still involves 49B which is still NP either way it goes. 

And that's another assumption So far nobody has mentioned np at all. I don't quite subscribe to the notion that they have to have a northern pullin point on the #49. The #9 seems like it's functioning OK just using 74th. They have those X service buses. If they are worried about leaving buses on the street too long just make all the pullins X buses sb. What works for Ashland should work for western.

If they do np, they will probably have to do all 40 footers, which is about 200 more units. All that for 30-40 buses tops???

[Mr.cta85]

Random but I thought I would still share it anyway but 8146 was parked at 74th tonight.

[jajuan]

5 hours ago, BusHunter said:

And that's another assumption So far nobody has mentioned np at all. I don't quite subscribe to the notion that they have to have a northern pullin point on the #49. The #9 seems like it's functioning OK just using 74th. They have those X service buses. If they are worried about leaving buses on the street too long just make all the pullins X buses sb. What works for Ashland should work for western.

If they do np, they will probably have to do all 40 footers, which is about 200 more units. All that for 30-40 buses tops???

That's not an assumption. The project page on the CTA website clearly states that Western is getting TSP equipped from 79th all the way to Howard by the end of this year. There is no CTA route that far north on Western except the 49B. So that means NP buses must be getting equipped as well at least for the 49B since we don't see Dorval Carter mentioning that X49 is going to Howard. However, no one has mentioned that NP is giving up its share of 49/X49 anytime soon unless you think somehow NP is going to have buses TSP equipped simply for the 49B alone which is barely only three and a half miles long. That gives more credence to NP hanging on to its share of 49/X49. And yes all that for 30-40 buses because yes 30-40 buses per day may be used on each corridor, 74th is not using the same exact 30-40 buses on Ashland every single day, and neither is 74th and NP doing so on Western. The buses are getting rotated around on other routes. And as Busjack pointed out, neither dispatcher at 74th or NP is going to know which bus is equipped and which is not unless some external identifier is in place. But since CTA garages personnel like to be able to rotate their buses around on different routes across different days of the week, it's easier to equip everything that potentially may be used on that given route corridor that will have TSP to save from the headache of having to distinguish between a bus equipped with TSP and one that's unequipped.

[Busjack]

5 hours ago, jajuan said:

it's easier to equip everything that potentially may be used on that given route corridor that will have TSP to save from the headache of having to distinguish between a bus equipped with TSP and one that's unequipped.

Besides that, if the RTA gave CTA the money for the project, you know CTA is going to spend it.

[Busjack]

10 hours ago, BusHunter said:

What works for Ashland should work for western.

They may be dong it on Ashland, but apparently only because they have to. Unless you can demonstrate that there is huge southbound demand on Western at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., there is no economic sense to deadhead buses 16 miles when there is a garage within a mile.

[BusHunter]

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens, but my point is that all the issues raised by the Western corridor are being dealt with by the Ashland corridor. Western has run without np before with X service so it is possible to run it that way. I don't know why they would include up to Howard when that's not X service territory unless possibly it is going to be in the future. Plus Berwyn to Brown line is redundant on Western and you have the #11 a block away. There's really no need for two, now three different buses on Western, this could address that issue. It could easily be done and Berwyn could be left as a short terminal for some buses

I don't like the #X49 schedule now, the last X bus comes through Cermak nb around 6PM. I think that's kind of early and south of there is even earlier, so out by 79th they have to be ending nb X service at 5:30PM. I think that's a little early. 7:30 wouldn't be bad, the buses don't really start losing ridership dramatically until that time anyway.

[jajuan]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

Besides that, if the RTA gave CTA the money for the project, you know CTA is going to spend it.

True.

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

They may be dong it on Ashland, but apparently only because they have to. Unless you can demonstrate that there is huge southbound demand on Western at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., there is no economic sense to deadhead buses 16 miles when there is a[nother] garage within a mile.

Hence, the apparent reason CTA kept the sharing of runs between 74th and NP in the first place on Western when X49 was reinstated when it was speculated that only 74th would put buses on X49 and the reason the X49 schedule can show service starts and clip offs with no trips being short run pullouts or pullins (similar to how the local Western route shows no pullins or pull outs vs the local Ashland route doing so). For example, they've been able to structure schedules such that at the north end rush hour extras for the combined 49/X49 corridor that reach Berwyn after rush hour are NP buses and thus deadhead out of service to NP after leaving Berwyn with a similar setup for rush extras out of 74th able to be done after reaching 79th. Of course buses that are going to stay in service in the off peak hours simply become local buses before leaving the terminal regardless of the individual bus's garage assignment. The 9/X9 service corridor has the advantage of interlining only at the Ashland/95th terminal, which some X9 buses reaching 95th after rush hour can and do take advantage of.

[BusHunter]

So basically what your saying is that X service ends sb at Berwyn around 5:30 PM That's too early.

[Busjack]

22 minutes ago, jajuan said:

The 9/X9 service corridor has the advantage of interlining only at the Ashland/95th terminal.

I don't think Irving Park/Fremont  compared to Irving Park/Clark makes that much difference. On the other hand, SB X9 trips end at 74th until 8:53 p.m.

 

18 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

So basically what your saying is that X service ends sb at Berwyn around 5:30 PM That's too early.

...

But what you are saying is either you want to cut off NB at Berwyn at 5:30, or keep running to 79th the same as X9 until about 8:00  p.m.

Edit: I decided to not speak for jajuan.

[jajuan]

28 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

So basically what your saying is that X service ends sb at Berwyn around 5:30 PM That's too early.

Per the X49's schedule, yes the last SB express bus leaves Berwyn at 5:30 PM. But then again the first express bus leaves Berwyn at 2:30 PM compared to the first SB express bus on Ashland leaving its north terminus at 3 PM. However, as Busjack that's not the same as saying there are no express buses on the street past 5:30 when that bus leaving Berwyn at 5:30 reaches 79th at 6:54.

[jajuan]

20 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I don't think Irving Park/Fremont  compared to Irving Park/Clark makes that much difference. On the other hand, SB X9 trips end at 74th until 8:53 p.m.

Outside of service demand issues, perhaps not. But I was was speaking more on the logistics of buses already being in place at a shared terminal. That does get into one thing 74th has been able to do on the Ashland corridor. All SB pullin trips are done from the X9 instead of any being done from the local route. 

[Busjack]

10 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Outside of service demand issues, perhaps not. But I was was speaking more on the logistics of buses already being in place at a shared terminal. That does get into one thing 74th has been able to do on the Ashland corridor. All SB pullin trips are done from the X9 instead of any being done from the local route. 

That points out the imbalance in that schedule. X9s start on the south side (95th or 74th) about 1:30 p.m., just to start SB service at about 3:00, and as I noted earlier, pull in until 8:53 p.m. Maybe the compensation is that 9s NB start petering out at that time.

[jajuan]

17 minutes ago, Busjack said:

That points out the imbalance in that schedule. X9s start on the south side (95th or 74th) about 1:30 p.m., just to start SB service at about 3:00, and as I noted earlier, pull in until 8:53 p.m. Maybe the compensation is that 9s NB start petering out at that time.

True But some imbalance is probably inevitable with 74th doing Ashland alone and being located so far south along the route. CTA apparently has had difficulty finding a suitable second garage to share coverage of service after the closing of Limits 20 years ago. But the other compensation is that they at least run those pullouts and pullins as revenue passenger trips that draw fares as opposed to other garages that have routes using relatively long deadheads with no passengers that get nothing back for the mileage. 

[Busjack]

23 minutes ago, jajuan said:

True But some imbalance is probably inevitable with 74th doing Ashland alone and being located so far south along the route. CTA apparently has had difficulty finding a suitable second garage to share coverage of service after the closing of Limits 20 years ago.

Which was my point, and I take it the shared point that there isn't a reason to mess up Western in the same manner.

[jajuan]

1 minute ago, Busjack said:

Which was my point, and I take it the shared point that there isn't a reason to mess up Western in the same manner.

Right. The main reason Archer worked as being able to take over all service from NP and 69th was it being located a couple blocks from Western. Once it closed, it made sense to return it to NP and 69th's successor garage 74th.

[ajm522]

1329 is on 81W

1419 is on 76

1421 is on the #56 right now.

1799 on #85

[jajuan]

1 hour ago, ajm522 said:

1329 is on 81W

1419 is on 76

1421 is on the #56 right now.

1799 on #85

It looks like that situation of last year when NP was making loans to FG to augment counts so enough buses could be on hand for use along Addison and Irving Park during Cubs home game days. The half scatter aspect of these numbers triggered memories of that situation and say this could be that again. We do have another NF swapocalypse going, but we're also in the beginning of that part of the year when garages make loans to each other.

[garmon757]

1689 is currently on #78. 

[BusHunter]

31 minutes ago, jajuan said:

It looks like that situation of last year when NP was making loans to FG to augment counts so enough buses could be on hand for use along Addison and Irving Park during Cubs home game days. The half scatter aspect of these numbers triggered memories of that situation and say this could be that again. We do have another NF swapocalypse going, but we're also in the beginning of that part of the year when garages make loans to each other.

The only thing about that is that the cubs are out of town and this week CPS is on spring break, so how can anyone be short. If you notice those are all from Chicago and all of them are buses they might not be keeping if they're slated to go numerical. If you look at the counts 270 is kind of high, CTA had them down as low as around 256 while they were getting #8100's, so it might not be that anybody's short it's more that they have extras. Plus they should be still getting #8198 and #8199. I don't know if it's me, but maybe they should look at 77th also. Do they need 287 buses? They seem to have become the Kedzie garage of the south.

I think CTA wants to retire more #6400's but it can't unless more buses go to the glen, so why not send it the extras? The glen is really close to receiving #8200's in a few weeks to a month (knock on wood) so why not just loan them a few buses until they start to receive them. Then they can retire #6400's now and not have to do so many later. This overall might be a good sign that fg will be receiving more #1000's. If there's extras that would be a good assumption plus if they intend to retire most of the #6400's by 2017 it couldn't hurt to give them a few more NF's.

[Busjack]

12 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

They seem to have become the Kedzie garage of the south.

Difference is that it has a capacity of about 400.

[BusHunter]

9 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Difference is that it has a capacity of about 400.

But does it has a 387 bus workload?

[jajuan]

29 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

The only thing about that is that the cubs are out of town and this week CPS is on spring break, so how can anyone be short. If you notice those are all from Chicago and all of them are buses they might not be keeping if they're slated to go numerical. If you look at the counts 270 is kind of high, CTA had them down as low as around 256 while they were getting #8100's, so it might not be that anybody's short it's more that they have extras. Plus they should be still getting #8198 and #8199. I don't know if it's me, but maybe they should look at 77th also. Do they need 287 buses? They seem to have become the Kedzie garage of the south.

I think CTA wants to retire more #6400's but it can't unless more buses go to the glen, so why not send it the extras? The glen is really close to receiving #8200's in a few weeks to a month (knock on wood) so why not just loan them a few buses until they start to receive them. Then they can retire #6400's now and not have to do so many later. This overall might be a good sign that fg will be receiving more #1000's. If there's extras that would be a good assumption plus if they intend to retire most of the #6400's by 2017 it couldn't hurt to give them a few more NF's.

Hmmmm, you're right this just could be that this is now a shaving down of the bloat at Chicago that Busjack especially has been observing was still there looking at how Chicago only had 45 6400s to replace but is getting assigned 100 7900 series if we count 8198 and 8199. However, why wait to the last minute to get ready for something? This is the tail end of the CPS break, which I didn't bring up as having anything to do with the latest movements by the way, and it's also roughly the tail end of the Cubs road trip with their being back for a string of home games all of next week just about once they get beyond Sunday. So it could be a little bit of both theories. If it is in part a shedding of bloat at Chicago, it brings into question how far CTA is going to put the NF standard size buses in sequence since this is a varied spread of NFs seen used on FG routes today in addition to their already having 1000-1033. As far as bloat at 77th, the difference between that garage and Kedzie is 77th has the space for the number of buses it has assigned while Kedzie does not, given 77th's capacity is 470 standard size buses vs Kedzie's capacity of 250 in standard size equipment as Busjack beat me to pointing out. They may not have a workload close to that, but still they at least have the space to hold the excess unlike Kedzie and garages comparable in size to Kedzie until the overall bus fleet contracts back down upon getting a good number of the remaining 6400s retired.

[Busjack]

12 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

But does it has a 387 bus workload?

That basically gets back to why they sent routes 6 and 29 to 103rd (which is beyond me).

But the roster page has 280, so either that has to be fixed or where did you get 387?

[jajuan]

2 minutes ago, Busjack said:

That basically gets back to why they sent routes 6 and 29 to 103rd.

But the roster page has 280, so either that has to be fixed or where did you get 387?

Well the 6 can be explained as further evidence of 77th having an aversion to articulated buses since that route CTA wants run primarily with artics and 77th keeps casting off any artics it gets within a few months of them being assigned there as the past decade has shown us. 

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

That basically gets back to why they sent routes 6 and 29 to 103rd (which is beyond me).

But the roster page has 280, so either that has to be fixed or where did you get 387?

Yeah I mean't 287 going by my roster. I don't look at the other rosters so I wouldn't know about them.

Jajuan brings up the point that 77th may not have a 287 bus workload and basically the buses are spares. Then why in the heck doesn't it get #6400's to retire across the lot at south shops? Especially if it's not using them. Someone needs to look at 77th to see just what they are using. Even better 77th has the #1200's that could go to 103rd and 103rd could purge the #1033's.

But so far Jajuan seems correct that these fg buses are spare extras due to their sporadicity. Could also be the #6400's are petering out or they don't want to maintain them. It costs money to keep a fleet of 14, some 15 year old buses going. They could save money just getting rid of as many as they can.