CTA 'L' Rosters

[MTRSP1900-CTA3200]

On 9/5/2021 at 10:18 PM, NovaBusFan said:

I remember that, the car was torn apart at the scene after a Brown Line train gave it a whooping for crossing the tracks.

Yeah. I’m not sure what happened to the lead car of the train though. I think it also derailed and hit the platform.

[NovaBusFan]

4 hours ago, MTRSP1900-CTA3200 said:

Yeah. I’m not sure what happened to the lead car of the train though. I think it also derailed and hit the platform.

I think #3447 and #3352 is still here or scrapped idk.

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

5227-5228 are now on pink line

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

5051-5052 moved to pink line. Still want 5197-5198 back on green line

[NovaBusFan]

On 11/30/2021 at 6:31 PM, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

5051-5052 moved to pink line. Still want 5197-5198 back on green line

I wonder what they’re still doing on the Red Line

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

2 hours ago, NovaBusFan said:

I wonder what they’re still doing on the Red Line

they supposed to be on green we only have 146 cars now

[NovaBusFan]

53 minutes ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

they supposed to be on green we only have 146 cars now

Out of 150

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

2 hours ago, NovaBusFan said:

Out of 150

So that’s means we have a car shortage 

[NovaBusFan]

1 hour ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

So that’s means we have a car shortage 

Most likely I can’t really confirm, I seen #5198 not too long ago earlier this week on the Red. 

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

1 hour ago, NovaBusFan said:

Most likely I can’t really confirm, I seen #5198 not too long ago earlier this week on the Red. 

yes i did too

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

Is there a updated roster that will come soon for the trains?

[Policeman]

5663 5664 5598 5597 5594 5593 Howard Yard to Linden Yard (Purple Line)

Here is 5663 (head car)

[Bus1883]

15 hours ago, Policeman said:

5663 5664 5598 5597 5594 5593 Howard Yard to Linden Yard (Purple Line)

Here is 5663 (head car)

Mileage swaps? Hopefully we have some #5400’s in exchange 

[garmon757]

22 hours ago, Policeman said:

5663 5664 5598 5597 5594 5593 Howard Yard to Linden Yard (Purple Line)

Here is 5663 (head car)

 

6 hours ago, Bus1883 said:

Mileage swaps? Hopefully we have some #5400’s in exchange 

Howard can use any cars for revenue service regardless of their assigned car numbers.

[Bus1883]

37 minutes ago, garmon757 said:

 

Howard can use any cars for revenue service regardless of their assigned car numbers.

Oh ok, because mainly purple is entirely 5400-series while a few #5520s are used for the yellow Line while the Red runs #5200’s, #5300’s, #5500’s, #5600’s and #5700’s except #5711 thru #5714

[artthouwill]

42 minutes ago, garmon757 said:

 

Howard can use any cars for revenue service regardless of their assigned car numbers.

To take this one step further, Howard Yard can use any car on Red, Yellow,  or Purple Lines.  That's the reason why the cars on those lines have a Red, Purple and Yellow map.  The cars can go to any of the three lines without any map swapping. 

[Busjack]

On 10/3/2022 at 5:07 PM, Policeman said:

5663 5664 5598 5597 5594 5593 Howard Yard to Linden Yard (Purple Line)

Here is 5663 (head car)

 

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

To take this one step further, Howard Yard can use any car on Red, Yellow,  or Purple Lines.  That's the reason why the cars on those lines have a Red, Purple and Yellow map.  The cars can go to any of the three lines without any map swapping. 

Furthermore, as implied by @artthouwill, seeing a Purple Line on the Loop doesn't mean it's from Linden Yard. A certain number of cars from Howard Yard were always needed to maintain northbound service between Howard and Linden when southbound trains are running to the Loop. While they used to couple more cars at Linden (4 Linden cars would be coupled to 2 cars from Howard), now CTA appears to run 6-car trains full time. Linden has a capacity of 108 cars, but recently CTA has only stored something like 6 trains there (36 cars). Everything else is stored at Howard.

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

38 minutes ago, Busjack said:

 

Furthermore, as implied by @artthouwill, seeing a Purple Line on the Loop doesn't mean it's from Linden Yard. A certain number of cars from Howard Yard were always needed to maintain northbound service between Howard and Linden when southbound trains are running to the Loop. While they used to couple more cars at Linden (4 Linden cars would be coupled to 2 cars from Howard), now CTA appears to run 6-car trains full time. Linden has a capacity of 108 cars, but recently CTA has only stored something like 6 trains there (36 cars). Everything else is stored at Howard.

i can back you up to there’s always a set or 2 of 6 car 5400’s sitting in the east end of the yard by the maintenance building/wash all those are used as pull in/pull outs from howard to linden to the loop 

[Bus1883]

4 hours ago, artthouwill said:

To take this one step further, Howard Yard can use any car on Red, Yellow,  or Purple Lines.  That's the reason why the cars on those lines have a Red, Purple and Yellow map.  The cars can go to any of the three lines without any map swapping. 

The odd part is that, usually the Red Line keeps #5201-02, #5217-18, #5227-5400, #5501-5518, #5527-5710. While the Purple keeps their #5400’s assigned #5711-5714 were swapped to the Purple Line two years ago.  Surprisingly when the Pink and Green Lines shared each others cars they had their own assigned Line maps whenever they transfer each others cars over every weekend or some weekdays or so they changed the maps. Last time the #5400’s ran on the Red Line was somewhere in 2014 I can remember when the #5000’s were still being delivered. 

[garmon757]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

 

Furthermore, as implied by @artthouwill, seeing a Purple Line on the Loop doesn't mean it's from Linden Yard. A certain number of cars from Howard Yard were always needed to maintain northbound service between Howard and Linden when southbound trains are running to the Loop. While they used to couple more cars at Linden (4 Linden cars would be coupled to 2 cars from Howard), now CTA appears to run 6-car trains full time. Linden has a capacity of 108 cars, but recently CTA has only stored something like 6 trains there (36 cars). Everything else is stored at Howard.

That is correct and on top of your post, we have to use every car that’s available for “Car Balancing”, especially when we have a high amount of defects that can put a strain on any yard (Howard/Linden/95th) and when we don’t have room in the yards. 

[garmon757]

5 hours ago, artthouwill said:

To take this one step further, Howard Yard can use any car on Red, Yellow,  or Purple Lines.  That's the reason why the cars on those lines have a Red, Purple and Yellow map.  The cars can go to any of the three lines without any map swapping. 

Exactly!

[MTRSP1900-CTA3200]

Aside from the car card maps inside, the Purple Line 5000s are also noisier and ride rougher than the 5000s on the other Loop lines because they are also Red and Yellow railcars. While up at Wellington a few months ago I saw the Pride Train doing a run on the Purple Line, even though it’s historically been run on the Red Line most of the time. There are some 2600s on the Orange Line that ride smoother than the Purple Line 5000s.

“Oh the station is rumbling right now! Must be a Purple Line rolling in…”

This is similar to a Metra UP-NW Line train coming in to Ogilvie from Harvard or Crystal Lake and leaving as a UP-W Line train to Elburn.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, busfan2847 said:

Yes, attached

0-CTA_Rail Car Assignments 2022-07-01.pdf 80.73 kB · 7 downloads

Thanks.

Several things I noticed:

• It helps that the cars are categorized by terminal. For instance, the Blue 5000s are listed at 54th, and while not exclusive, the lower 5000s are at 98th while the higher ones are at Howard. It also appears that Linden is no longer a terminal.
• 168 cars at Kimball seems right, so Brownage cars must have then been classified as Orange. That differs from some lists posted on chicago-l.org.
• While a total of about 500 2600s was anticipated in the discussion that the first "expansion" option of 100 would have to be exercised to retire all 2600s and 3200s, there has to be a lot of bloat. For instance, it is hard to conceive more cars on Blue than Red, nor 188 cars on Orange (I previously noted that 48 cars were no longer needed after Brownage was cut).
• I had made a comment about shuffling junk, but Brown already got 2600s.

[artthouwill]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

Thanks.

Several things I noticed:

• It helps that the cars are categorized by terminal. For instance, the Blue 5000s are listed at 54th, and while not exclusive, the lower 5000s are at 98th while the higher ones are at Howard. It also appears that Linden is no longer a terminal.
• 168 cars at Kimball seems right, so Brownage cars must have then been classified as Orange. That differs from some lists posted on chicago-l.org.
• While a total of about 500 2600s was anticipated in the discussion that the first "expansion" option of 100 would have to be exercised to retire all 2600s and 3200s, there has to be a lot of bloat. For instance, it is hard to conceive more cars on Blue than Red, nor 188 cars on Orange (I previously noted that 48 cars were no longer needed after Brownage was cut).
• I had made a comment about shuffling junk, but Brown already got 2600s.

To your last point point concerning bloat, I think the rail fleet was bloated before the pandemic.   Given the large number of 2600s, perhaps this is by design as to try to spread out some of the wear and tear of these cars

  This could also explain why Blue has more cars than Red and that's to ensure there's no shortage of cars when breakdowns and maintenence are factored in.   Now that CTA had cut back service levels and is taking delivery of new cars, the bloat seems excessive,  but with CTA set to retire 78 2600 series cars and convert a few more to work cars, they seem to be managing it well.

[Busjack]

2 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

This could also explain why Blue has more cars than Red and that's to ensure there's no shortage of cars when breakdowns and maintenence are factored in. 

Which basically covers the point that I was implying: that one shouldn't assume a 1 for 1 replacement; maybe the originally conceived 656 cars (base, and first 2 options) may be sufficient to replace 2600s and 3200s. CTA probably will need options 3 and 4 only when RLE is complete and the bottlenecks are out of the RPM.