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CTA Bus Garage Rosters


sw4400

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Personally I like the old Novas. Very soft ride compared to Flyers, MUCH tighter turning radius (because wheelbase is substantially shorter). Yes, they are getting long in the tooth, but still very good buses, especially when NOT intermixed with other types on a street.

6416 is a mean beast,It went from 0 to 40 in 15 seconds when I rode it on Ashland about a week ago. So yeah The older novas are still very good even though they are old.

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Personally I like the old Novas. Very soft ride compared to Flyers, MUCH tighter turning radius (because wheelbase is substantially shorter). Yes, they are getting long in the tooth, but still very good buses, especially when NOT intermixed with other types on a street.

Well if you like Novas, you came to the right garage!! :lol: They do have nice wide front doors to see around people getting on and seem easier to drive, but like you say they are getting replaceable. Usually old things have multiple problems and these will not disappoint you!! Someone in another forum said that model bus has electrical problems. Hopefully they can replace some of these by AC season because that's when you'll see how slow a Nova can get. That's when Optimas start to look real good!! :P:lol:

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At 77th Garage/South Shops, I saw an Nova bus (6400s) as a work bus as well as one of the 500-series Optimas. I wonder why the 500s were taken out of service?

They're retired now and a few of them are stripped of their painting as well. I personally don't know the official reason for their retirement but I can tell you as a operator how even at just 8yrs old they weren't in the best driving shape. Each time I got one it was always something wrong with them, it was always something on the dash board showing either check engine or something else mechanical.

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500's were "medium duty" buses, not "heavy duty" like the rest of the fleet. A heavy duty bus has an intended lifespan of 12 years, a medium duty 8, and a light duty (like Pace's paratransit vans" five.

Agaiin, that is NOT TRUE, at least as to FTA service life. From the Altoona testing report:

Chance Coach Inc. submitted a model Opus LFB-29, diesel powered, 24 seat (including the driver) /29-foot bus, for a 12 yr/500,000 mile STURAA test.

How many times do I have to repeat that? The issue simply is that state taxpayers were taken (as part of Ryan's capital program) for unsuitable equipment that CTA never figured out how to use, and apparently, because they were kit on chassis, didn't hold up.

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They're retired now and a few of them are stripped of their painting as well. I personally don't know the official reason for their retirement but I can tell you as a operator how even at just 8yrs old they weren't in the best driving shape. Each time I got one it was always something wrong with them, it was always something on the dash board showing either check engine or something else mechanical.

Which kind of gets into what some of us were saying about the Optimas proving not to be a good choice because they were built on a van chassis and needed for heavier duty than a van would probably see.

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Which kind of gets into what some of us were saying about the Optimas proving not to be a good choice because they were built on a van chassis and needed for heavier duty than a van would probably see.

It was a bus chassis. However, it wasn't a unibody. Read above.

These weren't, as Pace put it, "eleven passenger paratransit vehicles," or in common parlance, vans.

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Agaiin, that is NOT TRUE, at least as to FTA service life. From the Altoona testing report:

Chance Coach Inc. submitted a model Opus LFB-29, diesel powered, 24 seat (including the driver) /29-foot bus, for a 12 yr/500,000 mile STURAA test.

How many times do I have to repeat that? The issue simply is that state taxpayers were taken (as part of Ryan's capital program) for unsuitable equipment that CTA never figured out how to use, and apparently, because they were kit on chassis, didn't hold up.

Exactly. The CTA thought of them too much like the 4900-Series TMC's and 4915-Series Orions and put them on just about every route possible, short and long, in addition to being on UIC routes and Evanston routes. Seeing Optimas on #11 or hearing about them being on #81W didn't make sense to me. They were overused and thus accelerated their age greatly. If they were used strictly for the UIC routes and Evanston runs, they might've still been with us until 2018, which was their 12-year mark.

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Exactly. The CTA thought of them too much like the 4900-Series TMC's and 4915-Series Orions and put them on just about every route possible, short and long, in addition to being on UIC routes and Evanston routes. Seeing Optimas on #11 or hearing about them being on #81W didn't make sense to me. They were overused and thus accelerated their age greatly. If they were used strictly for the UIC routes and Evanston runs, they might've still been with us until 2018, which was their 12-year mark.

U of C, but your point is well taken. Personally, I couldn't figure out why they ordered more than 15. Maybe there was a point to running them on the far NW side, but considering that CTA wasn't consistent about that, gave most of those routes to Pace, and was running them where they didn't belong, they didn't make much sense.

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The big problem is the way CTA sets up "trains" (what a bus does all day). For instance, out of Forest Glen, 81W, 68, 85A, and 88 (and 56A and 69 until they were dropped) and 90 and the former 64 and 90N were all grouped together and buses move between them all day. As a result, while a bus might be on a route that only needs a small bus part of the day, the rest of a day it is on a route that definitely needs a big bus. This was not the case when the Optimas were bought, but started soon afterwards. When they were new, an Optima on 85A stayed on 85A all day for instance.

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It was a bus chassis. However, it wasn't a unibody. Read above.

These weren't, as Pace put it, "eleven passenger paratransit vehicles," or in common parlance, vans.

My mistake. But either way they sat on a chassis that was definitely too weak for all the punishment CTA put them through. And the yearly spouting of potholes on Chicago streets during and after every winter weren't much help with these buses either. And given they were using 1000s on the U of C routes long before they reported that they set their minds to phase these buses out, there wasn't any need true need to call for these buses to be less than the standard 102" wide. They called for a short bus that was 96" wide, but as Busjack mentioned long ago there were no 30 foot wheelchair accessible buses of that width being manufactured. Closest thing was 99" so they ended going for the Optima. If not for them wanting a narrow bus, they probably could have gotten a decent bus built on a stronger chassis at the 30 foot length

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NF always had a D30LF.

That's my point, but they couldn't get those because they had to want narrow buses, which given how much they restructured the U of C routes starting soon after they got the contract with U of C to take over the service proved to be an unnecessary requirement. Archer sometimes using Novas and D40LFs when it briefly had the routes and 103rd for the longest time also using its 40 foot buses while having the Optimas on the 100, 106 and 108 a lot of times proved that.

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Evanston has not had a "dedicated fleet" in years. Starting in 2010, 201,205,206 were all thru-routed with 97 and run from both Forest Glen and North Park, which was and still is too heavy a route to run baby buses on. Currently, 97 and 201 share buses from North Park, while 54A, 205, 206 share buses from Forest Glen. While sharing buses between routes is more "efficient" and does reduce the pullout count, it results in a "lowest common denominator" effect, whereby you need to use the biggest bus that the heaviest route in the group needs on all routes in the group. Pace has some of the same problems for the same reason, with 270 for instance yesterday having a couple of Axxesses, Orion 6's, and some 2600 small ElDorados on it.

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Last regular use of 500's was on 111A-Pullman Shuttle. Towards the end, they were the "buses of last resort" at 103rd, you sent one out if there was nothing else left at the yard. Drivers hated them as they were rough riding and given to road failures. Maintenance had little use for them either, as they figured time and money was better spent on a regular bus that would almost certainly go out today rather than something that might sit unused for days as "unneeded".

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  • 2 weeks later...

Jibes with my latest observations on the artic front. I also notice you're still referring to the 4000s as D60LFs, when they're actually DE60LFs since they're hybrid buses, and all the 4300s as DE60LFRs when only 4300-4332 are hybrids. 4333-4399 are D60LFRs meaning those 4300s not at 103rd or Kedzie are the D60LFRs. We don't want our non-Chicago members who've never been to Chicago visiting for the first time and expecting all the 4300s to have roof fins for example. :P:)

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Jibes with my latest observations on the artic front. I also notice you're still referring to the 4000s as D60LFs, when they're actually DE60LFs since they're hybrid buses, and all the 4300s as DE60LFRs when only 4300-4332 are hybrids. 4333-4399 are D60LFRs meaning those 4300s not at 103rd or Kedzie are the D60LFRs. We don't want our non-Chicago members who've never been to Chicago visiting for the first time and expecting all the 4300s to have roof fins for example. :P:)

@jajuan: Most likely just a typo... I find myself doing a lot of those as I type quickly. I'm sure he meant DE60LF

@BusHunter: I don't understand the point of this update... I was looking for bus changes only to find none. The change of differentiating leased hybrids from Stimulus-funded hybrids doesn't seem to warrant a new list, when you could've just updated the old one. That's just my opinion, however.

I thought there was a change in rosters here...

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@jajuan: Most likely just a typo... I find myself doing a lot of those as I type quickly. I'm sure he meant DE60LF

@BusHunter: I don't understand the point of this update... I was looking for bus changes only to find none. The change of differentiating leased hybrids from Stimulus-funded hybrids doesn't seem to warrant a new list, when you could've just updated the old one. That's just my opinion, however.

I thought there was a change in rosters here...

The point of the change was more 4000s for 4300s between North Park, Chicago, and 77th happened over the weekend. That or he was taking into account more 4120s were showing up at Chicago, more than 4203-4207 were showing up at 77th, and more 4340s + 4350 along with more 4390s were showing up at North Park than were realized. So there was a roster change in any case, it was among artic assignments.

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The point of the change was more 4000s for 4300s between North Park, Chicago, and 77th happened over the weekend. That or he was taking into account more 4120s were showing up at Chicago, more than 4203-4207 were showing up at 77th, and more 4340s + 4350 along with more 4390s were showing up at North Park than were realized. So there was a roster change in any case, it was among artic assignments.

What change?

There was no change from my last update from him on 4/19/14(Saturday). The only changes with the artics is he broke up 4000-4149 and 4150-4207 as the first was part of a Seattle order and the latter was the Stimulus order. Not really a roster change from four days ago, just a separation of artics that were ordered in 2008-2009. There was a change on Saturday, yes... but he has his latest roster dated 4/22/14(Tuesday), and it matches the rosters I updated on Saturday here, here and here

My rosters match his and I haven't changed one bus today.

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Great work, BH & SW.

Just two very minor corrections:

As far as I know, 1350 is still at Chicago Ave. --- unless it migrated within the past few days. Numerically, it's all by its lonesome.

4197 showed up on one of the NP express routes earlier today. So it hasn't been moved YET. But I wouldn't be surprised if it migrates next Friday night along with some or all of the other 4190s. I'm guessing that there'll be one final artic swap between 77th and NP. Look for more 4350s along the North Side lakefront.

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I changed the rosters due to Jajuan's observation. A change in how something is grouped is a change in roster in my opinion. I gave the stimulus artics it's own designation because they were not ordered/received with the others and that's how I prefer to group it.

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