CTA 'L' Rosters

[Tcmetro]

There is a new show called "The Red Line" which may be what was filming. 

[Aiden Tabucic]

2 hours ago, Tcmetro said:

There is a new show called "The Red Line" which may be what was filming. 

Since you said that I’m looking forward to the show 

[BusHunter]

8 #2600s have shifted to the orange line. #2775-76, #2943-44, #2625-26 and another one they have been updated on my l roster you can add 2629-30 to brown and 2909-10 to orange.

[renardo870]

Questions....are the 16 5200 cars that was transferred from the Red to the Pink to run on the Blue Line from Racine to Jeff Park during rush hours still listed officially as Red Line equipment or are they considered Pink Line equipment, even though they run Blue?? And are the 2 AM and 1 PM trips helping the crush loads or would they consider running an additional trip...i.e. Racine to Jeff Pk, Jeff Patk to UIC, UIC to Jeff Park and then Jeff Park to Racine?

[NewFlyerMCI]

13 hours ago, renardo870 said:

Questions....are the 16 5200 cars that was transferred from the Red to the Pink to run on the Blue Line from Racine to Jeff Park during rush hours still listed officially as Red Line equipment or are they considered Pink Line equipment, even though they run Blue??

Officially Pink Line equipment, I believe

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Officially Pink Line equipment, I believe

Probably all that counts is that it is assigned to 54th Yard.

[BusHunter]

Could have sworn I saw a quad set of 5000s one morning at 1100am on the blue line at irving pk. Out of service but 1100am is when they train. I cant explain it.

[renardo870]

On 12/22/2018 at 11:00 PM, Busjack said:

Probably all that counts is that it is assigned to 54th Yard.

I was just curious, since it list (50) 5001-5050 on the Pink Line and not the 16 transferred from the Red as it still says 5203-5400 on the Red Line assignment list.

[renardo870]

It seems like the Pink Line trains are jammed packed during the rush hours. As a suggestion why not run 6 cars during the rush hours? Since Pink/Green interchange rail cars like Red/Purple/Yellow, it should be doable. Example, if Pink Line runs 8 or 9 trains @ 4 car consist during rush hours it would only need 16-18 additional cars or 2 more cars per consist making it 48-54 cars in revenue service. Pink has 50 cars assigned on its yard. You have 16 borrowed Red cars for Blue Line short turn Racine to Jeff Park. 54th yard can hold an estimated 100 cars if my memory serves me right. So including up to 3 spare cars, you can maybe store 10-20 cars or 'interchange' 18  more cars from Green during rush hour. Would that be possible to do? 

[artthouwill]

43 minutes ago, renardo870 said:

It seems like the Pink Line trains are jammed packed during the rush hours. As a suggestion why not run 6 cars during the rush hours? Since Pink/Green interchange rail cars like Red/Purple/Yellow, it should be doable. Example, if Pink Line runs 8 or 9 trains @ 4 car consist during rush hours it would only need 16-18 additional cars or 2 more cars per consist making it 48-54 cars in revenue service. Pink has 50 cars assigned on its yard. You have 16 borrowed Red cars for Blue Line short turn Racine to Jeff Park. 54th yard can hold an estimated 100 cars if my memory serves me right. So including up to 3 spare cars, you can maybe store 10-20 cars or 'interchange' 18  more cars from Green during rush hour. Would that be possible to do? 

Many people have been advocating for 6 cars on the Pink Line.   I would personally like to see 8 car consists on the Green Line, even if they only ran on the Ashland/63 trains.

However, the Pink Line is only crowded between downtown and Polk St stations.  That is a small portion of the route which isn't quite enough to justify 6 cars.  

[chicagocubs6323]

On 12/26/2018 at 12:05 PM, artthouwill said:

 

However, the Pink Line is only crowded between downtown and Polk St stations.  That is a small portion of the route which isn't quite enough to justify 6 cars.  

The Green Line is only crowded between Roosevelt and Ashland/Lake and it has 6 cars.  Why can't the Pink?  Pink Line trains do stay packed until it hits Damen or Western during evening rush

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, chicagocubs6323 said:

The Green Line is only crowded between Roosevelt and Ashland/Lake and it has 6 cars.  Why can't the Pink?  Pink Line trains do stay packed until it hits Damen or Western during evening rush

I've experience standing loads out to Pulaski. Depends if the train is late or not. You have a valid argument it just seems cta dont want to do that. I think since the intervals have been beefed up because now every train goes direct, not so in the blue line era, they just dont feel they need it. They need to do like green line send out a couple 5 o clock trains with more cars. That is definitely the trouble hour. 

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, chicagocubs6323 said:

The Green Line is only crowded between Roosevelt and Ashland/Lake and it has 6 cars.  Why can't the Pink?  Pink Line trains do stay packed until it hits Damen or Western during evening rush

The west side Green Line is crowded from downtown to Central.   I ride it to Oak Park often during the p.m. rush.  It could certainly qualify for 8 cars like the Forest Park Blue Line.

Consider that the Pink Line once was the Douglas branch if the Blue Line that ran 8 cars.  At least half of the cars south (west) of Polk ran empty.  This was the reason this branch was separated from the  Blue Line to begin with.  Could it be done?  Yes.  Is it prudent?  No.

[NewFlyerMCI]

On 12/27/2018 at 12:10 PM, chicagocubs6323 said:

The Green Line is only crowded between Roosevelt and Ashland/Lake and it has 6 cars.  Why can't the Pink?  Pink Line trains do stay packed until it hits Damen or Western during evening rush

Mhm, the Green Line can be crowded from Garfield headed north and especially 47th headed north.

[Tcmetro]

The Pink Line has changed quite a bit since being separated from the Blue 12 years ago. At peak, trains become crowded by Western and are typically full (sometimes crush loaded) at Damen or 18th. The Polk station has a much bigger draw for reverse commuters (likely from Brown Line or Oglivie station). Six-car trains would be nice to have at peak, or perhaps send every other Blue Line train to 54th at rush-hours instead of turning at UIC. This would ease the crush-load issue, provide a direct connection between Pilsen/LV and UIC, and faster travel times to the office core of the Loop without the train congestion on the L. 

At off-peak times the Pink Line is pretty light, but as we see on the other lines (Green, Brown, Orange, Purple) cars are added and removed from trains between peak and off-peak periods.

I think the Green Line is a good example of ridership increasing from service improvements. A couple of years ago, the Green Line went from 10 min to 7.5 min frequencies at peak. Also, there have been a number of new housing starts in Oak Park, West Loop, Bronzeville, and Woodlawn as well as the addition of the new stations at Morgan and Cermak. With the new Damen station opening in due time, it may be beneficial to put more Pink line trains on the Blue Line and improve the Green to 5-6 min frequencies. 

The biggest limit to service improvements on the L is the loop. If ridership and demands keep increasing, there will need to be some improvement which could likely present itself as a modified revival of the Brown/Orange Franklin St subway. 

[Busjack]

4 hours ago, Tcmetro said:

The biggest limit to service improvements on the L is the loop.

The question there is the on and off statements that the Loop is at capacity, given that it doesn't have the load when Lake-Dan Ryan ran there. If the issue is electric power, the rehab of the 10 E. Lake substation should help. Otherwise, Tower 18 is the constraint.

On the issue of longer Pink and Green Line trains, there are 714 cars available to that and RPY, and while I don't have the numbers, I bet there is still a surplus on Red, compared to rush hour load plus a spare ratio. I guess that RPY base is something like 430, and there are 490 available after deducting 224 on PG.

[andrethebusman]

T18 is the limiting factor on the loop. Before the subway when all NS ran via the Loop, rush hour backups were normal as far back as Chicago Ave. Trains could round the loop as close as 50 FEET apart, but you could only push so many per hour thru the junctions.

[scotthilly]

Hey guys. 245 AM and I was driving down Sheffield when I saw a train going southbound, bearing “not in service” signs between diversey and Fullerton. 

 

The end of the 8 car train was definitely 3200 or 5000 series, as the LED Destination signs gave it away. I could’ve sworn I saw pantrograph trays, so to speak, on the last two- could these be more brown line 3200’s moving to the blue line? 

Even more odd to me was that I could’ve sworn the first couple cars were 2600’s, without the corrugated sides. If anyone has any ideas what was happening there, please let me know. I know they wouldnt move 2600 back to blue, but that they wouldn’t move 3200 back to orange. My best guess is that this was for a brownage run. Let me know!

[chicagocubs6323]

On 12/26/2018 at 12:05 PM, artthouwill said:

On 2/17/2019 at 2:48 AM, scotthilly said:

Hey guys. 245 AM and I was driving down Sheffield when I saw a train going southbound, bearing “not in service” signs between diversey and Fullerton. 

 

The end of the 8 car train was definitely 3200 or 5000 series, as the LED Destination signs gave it away. I could’ve sworn I saw pantrograph trays, so to speak, on the last two- could these be more brown line 3200’s moving to the blue line? 

Even more odd to me was that I could’ve sworn the first couple cars were 2600’s, without the corrugated sides. If anyone has any ideas what was happening there, please let me know. I know they wouldnt move 2600 back to blue, but that they wouldn’t move 3200 back to orange. My best guess is that this was for a brownage run. Let me know!

According to the Chicago "L" group on Facebook, that train was sent to Midway for wheel truing.

[pudgym29]

The 3200s with the running boards for the (now-removed) pantographs cannot be sent to the Blue Line due to the restricted dimension of a train in the Kennedy Expressway median, and the Kimball Ave. subway.

[scotthilly]

Saw a set of 3200’s going clockwise on the loop this morning as an instruction train. Is this just training for brown line operators? If so, why is it reverse? My guess would be that it is for training but i found that weird. Maybe a roster shakeup coming, but I can’t think of what- unless they’re planning a huge shift. 

 

Best guess is maybe theyre considering 3200 back to orange? Not sure. Let me know!

[WCR]

10 minutes ago, scotthilly said:

Saw a set of 3200’s going clockwise on the loop this morning as an instruction train. Is this just training for brown line operators? If so, why is it reverse? My guess would be that it is for training but i found that weird. Maybe a roster shakeup coming, but I can’t think of what- unless they’re planning a huge shift. 

 

Best guess is maybe theyre considering 3200 back to orange? Not sure. Let me know!

Probably just training for operating trains in general, not necessarily an indicator for an assignment shift like it would be with buses.

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

Neither of the rosters shows a few of the 56XX's on the green line and the 5000's on the blue line.

[Sam92]

30 minutes ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

Neither of the rosters shows a few of the 56XX's on the green line and the 5000's on the blue line.

The blue line 5000's are from 54th therefpre not assigned to blue

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

3 hours ago, Sam92 said:

The blue line 5000's are from 54th therefpre not assigned to blue

I saw some 5203 and higher cars on the blue line.