2600-series - Updates & Retirements

[Rhys Pate]

2980 must have been retired and scrapped (went to Scrap Metal Services on October 23rd, 2020). Why was 2980 retired? 3111 must also be retired, but why?

[Rhys Pate]

Since the 7000-series production cars have made their debut, eventually, the 2600-series cars will be retired. Likely, the Illinois Railway Museum will want at least 1 pair of 2600-series cars for their CTA car collection. Will the Illinois Railway Museum want 3199-3200 because those cars were the last railcars ever built by Budd/Transit America?

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

10 hours ago, Rhys Pate said:

2980 must have been retired and scrapped (went to Scrap Metal Services on October 23rd, 2020). Why was 2980 retired? 3111 must also be retired, but why?

3111 is with 2662 at Skokie shops. Idk why 3111 may be retired but ima do some history check and see if I can find a reason why.

[Bus1883]

21 minutes ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

3111 is with 2662 at Skokie shops. Idk why 3111 may be retired but ima do some history check and see if I can find a reason why.

Fire

8 hours ago, Rhys Pate said:

Since the 7000-series production cars have made their debut, eventually, the 2600-series cars will be retired. Likely, the Illinois Railway Museum will want at least 1 pair of 2600-series cars for their CTA car collection. Will the Illinois Railway Museum want 3199-3200 because those cars were the last railcars ever built by Budd/Transit America?

I hope CTA keeps #2601-2602 and #3199-3200 for a few work service cars or Heritage fleet cars and I wish IRM can own to pairs of CTA cars but most definitely they will get a pair of #2600’s 

10 hours ago, Rhys Pate said:

2980 must have been retired and scrapped (went to Scrap Metal Services on October 23rd, 2020). Why was 2980 retired? 3111 must also be retired, but why?

#3111 has suffered a fire at Forest Park. #2980 was involved in a derailment toward O’Hare 

[Bus1883]

12 hours ago, Rhys Pate said:

Since the 7000-series production cars have made their debut, eventually, the 2600-series cars will be retired. Likely, the Illinois Railway Museum will want at least 1 pair of 2600-series cars for their CTA car collection. Will the Illinois Railway Museum want 3199-3200 because those cars were the last railcars ever built by Budd/Transit America?

Yes they were the last ones built by Budd company in 1987. Unfortunately the retirement of the #2600’s will slowly happen we may feel that the #7000’s could have a bit issues going on soon but we will see especially when MBTAs #7000’s were pulled OOS numerous times due to a few major issues or so. Maybe in another 4-5 years from now they should be all gone before CTA feels safe to quickly accept the #7000’s to put out the #2600’s.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Bus1883

[dailycommuter62]

I would think they keep 2893-98 the holiday train cars, after the yellow line went all third rail these 6 were used for service outside of holiday train service. Now for the past 5+ years the cars are kept in storage instead of being put back in regular service so the mileage on these cars must be minuscule and in pristine shape compared to a regular 2600.

[Busjack]

Something is going to the scrapper:

[Bus1883]

52 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Something is going to the scrapper:

Looks like that’s possibly for the 2600’s, we need at least 100 7000’s to replace 100 cars of the 2600’s.

[artthouwill]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

Something is going to the scrapper:

 

1 hour ago, Bus1883 said:

Looks like that’s possibly for the 2600’s, we need at least 100 7000’s to replace 100 cars of the 2600’s.

Unless there are severely damaged cars from the other series, i would imagine 100 2600s would be accurate.   But I don't think CTA has to wait for 100 7000 series cars to arrive before selling those 2600s for scrap.  Just like the 7000s aren't all arriving at once, CTA won't send all 100 cars to the scrapper at once.  

Based on reports, 8 to 16 2600s will be entirely

  They will probably be among the first to be scrapped.  We know that CTA is in possession of at least 24 7000 series cars and maybe even more.  Therefore CTA is ahead of the curve.

I haven't been to Rosemont or Skokie yet to see what's new onsite.

[Tcmetro]

I downloaded the documents and it's for 22 2400s and 78 2600s. 

[Bus1883]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

 

Unless there are severely damaged cars from the other series, i would imagine 100 2600s would be accurate.   But I don't think CTA has to wait for 100 7000 series cars to arrive before selling those 2600s for scrap.  Just like the 7000s aren't all arriving at once, CTA won't send all 100 cars to the scrapper at once.  

Based on reports, 8 to 16 2600s will be entirely

  They will probably be among the first to be scrapped.  We know that CTA is in possession of at least 24 7000 series cars and maybe even more.  Therefore CTA is ahead of the curve.

I haven't been to Rosemont or Skokie yet to see what's new onsite.

Those 8-16 cars I heard will retire from Midway soon one to two 8-car sets of 7000’s go into effect.

CRRC however has 60+ cars made through different stages not sure if they’re all completely built or not. Wikipedia says 22 cars are in service and 42 have been built soon those numbers will change. 

[Bus1883]

2 hours ago, Tcmetro said:

I downloaded the documents and it's for 22 2400s and 78 2600s. 

they’re planning on replacing the work motors apart of the contract? 

[Tcmetro]

3 hours ago, Bus1883 said:

they’re planning on replacing the work motors apart of the contract? 

The documents don't specify. I'm not really familiar with the work trains or other non-revenue equipment so I couldn't speculate on that.

[artthouwill]

4 hours ago, Bus1883 said:

they’re planning on replacing the work motors apart of the contract? 

it seems like the work cars of the 2400 series are going away.   More than likely some 2600’s will take their place eventually.  Perham zine of the Holiday Train cars will become work cars.  It remains to be seen if any 5009s or 7000s or even some 3200s will be retrofitted for Holiday Train service in the future. 

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

7 hours ago, artthouwill said:

 

Unless there are severely damaged cars from the other series, i would imagine 100 2600s would be accurate.   But I don't think CTA has to wait for 100 7000 series cars to arrive before selling those 2600s for scrap.  Just like the 7000s aren't all arriving at once, CTA won't send all 100 cars to the scrapper at once.  

Based on reports, 8 to 16 2600s will be entirely

  They will probably be among the first to be scrapped.  We know that CTA is in possession of at least 24 7000 series cars and maybe even more.  Therefore CTA is ahead of the curve.

I haven't been to Rosemont or Skokie yet to see what's new onsite.

from really recent news 50 2600’s from blue line are heading to kimball while 50 3200’s from kimball are heading to rosemont (3457-3458) will be part of da moves

[artthouwill]

40 minutes ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

from really recent news 50 2600’s from blue line are heading to kimball while 50 3200’s from kimball are heading to rosemont (3457-3458) will be part of da moves

I don't know why this swap didn't happen already.  Brown Line will still boast the ROOFBOARD 3200s. 

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

from really recent news 50 2600’s from blue line are heading to kimball while 50 3200’s from kimball are heading to rosemont (3457-3458) will be part of da moves

Given that such a move makes no sense (just either retire 2600s from Blue, or send 7000s to Orange and retire 2600s there; but why downgrade Orange or Brown?), who makes these decisions? I'm not asking for proper names (I wouldn't know those people), but is it some Manager of Rail Operations, some Transportation Manager, or some stuffed shirt at HQ?

Or is this just the garage rumor mill?

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Given that such a move makes no sense (just either retire 2600s from Blue, or send 7000s to Orange and retire 2600s there; but why downgrade Orange or Brown?), who makes these decisions? I'm not asking for proper names (I wouldn't know those people), but is it some Manager of Rail Operations, some Transportation Manager, or some stuffed shirt at HQ?

Or is this just the garage rumor mill?

It actually does make sense when you consider CTA can't ( or won't) run the 7000s the entire length of the Blue Line.  My question was why all of the 3200s weren't swapped ( roofboard cars excluded) when CTA initially sent 4200s to the Blue Line?   However. Because of the track conditions and power supply on the Forest Park branch,  I still think CTA would be better off just putting the 7000s on the Orange and Brown Lines first until they come up with a plan in conjunction with IDOT concerning rebuilding the Ike and Forest Park branch.  

CTA already has 2 sets of 5000s running between Racine and Jefferson Park.   There are only so many UIC short turns to run with 7000s before CTA has to consider the Brown and Orange alternative or start running the 7000s the full length of the Blue Line.   With the COVID schedule at least the 2600s won't get ran as hard as they are on the z

Blue Line 

 

[Bus1883]

12 hours ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

from really recent news 50 2600’s from blue line are heading to kimball while 50 3200’s from kimball are heading to rosemont (3457-3458) will be part of da moves

Brown line is deeply downgrading. This could have been happened lol. 3457-58 is going to turn into a beat up rock on the blue line real soon… But at least we’ll see a 2600 with Blue LEDs.

[busfan2847]

12 hours ago, artthouwill said:

it seems like the work cars of the 2400 series are going away.   More than likely some 2600’s will take their place eventually.  Perham zine of the Holiday Train cars will become work cars.  It remains to be seen if any 5009s or 7000s or even some 3200s will be retrofitted for Holiday Train service in the future. 

The 2400 work cars are being replaced by 2600 work cars 3109/10, 3139/40, 3149/50, 3159/60, 3169/70, 3179/80, 3189/90, 3199/3200 according to a Rail Car Assignment list from 7/1/2022. No 2400 cars were listed.

[Bus1883]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Given that such a move makes no sense (just either retire 2600s from Blue, or send 7000s to Orange and retire 2600s there; but why downgrade Orange or Brown?), who makes these decisions? I'm not asking for proper names (I wouldn't know those people), but is it some Manager of Rail Operations, some Transportation Manager, or some stuffed shirt at HQ?

Or is this just the garage rumor mill?

This really don’t make sense tho why downgrade the Brown Line next after the Orange Line did in 2018? This could be a sign that where the 7000s will go next, send the production cars to the Orange Line first then Brown while blue May suffer from older equipment until it’s their time to retire theirs.

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

2 hours ago, busfan2847 said:

The 2400 work cars are being replaced by 2600 work cars 3109/10, 3139/40, 3149/50, 3159/60, 3169/70, 3179/80, 3189/90, 3199/3200 according to a Rail Car Assignment list from 7/1/2022. No 2400 cars were listed.

by any chance do u have that list?

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

It actually does make sense when you consider CTA can't ( or won't) run the 7000s the entire length of the Blue Line.  My question was why all of the 3200s weren't swapped ( roofboard cars excluded) when CTA initially sent 4200s to the Blue Line?   However. Because of the track conditions and power supply on the Forest Park branch,  I still think CTA would be better off just putting the 7000s on the Orange and Brown Lines first until they come up with a plan in conjunction with IDOT concerning rebuilding the Ike and Forest Park branch.  

CTA already has 2 sets of 5000s running between Racine and Jefferson Park.   There are only so many UIC short turns to run with 7000s before CTA has to consider the Brown and Orange alternative or start running the 7000s the full length of the Blue Line.   With the COVID schedule at least the 2600s won't get ran as hard as they are on the z

Blue Line 

 

as of right now it is confirmed from multiple sources 7000’s are going to blue line after that orange might be next there are rumors of brown being the next line after blue to grab em but it’s yet to be confirmed 

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

as of right now it is confirmed from multiple sources 7000’s are going to blue line after that orange might be next there are rumors of brown being the next line after blue to grab em but it’s yet to be confirmed 

I know Blue Line is slated to get the 7000s first as they already have some.  We also know that they have been limited to the morning rush and limited to running between O'Hare and UIC.  Garmon757 said that they were testing software AND that the Forest Park branch lacked the necessary power upgrades.  Based on this, it seems crazy to continue to assign 7000s to the Blue Line if CTA can't or won't run these new cars the full length of the route.  There are only so many short turns they can run and two of those are operated by the Pink Line. 

Meanwhile the 2600s are racking up ridiculous mileage on the Blue Line 

  Why not swap some 2600s with Brown Line 3200s where the 2600s would take less of a beating?  Or just assign the 7000svto run the full length of the Blue Line regardless of power and tracks.   I rode 2616 the other day.   This car will soon be 42 years old and it's running on CTA'S longest rail line.  Does anyone remember the delays and breakdowns the 2200s had from running so hard on this same line?

 

[Busjack]

52 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

Why not swap some 2600s with Brown Line 3200s where the 2600s would take less of a beating? 

Because they are supposed to be retired by 7000s.

Also, no saying they would take less of a beating on the Brown Line, which at least had higher passenger loads.

It seem like the priority is to convert the newer ones to work cars, instead of using them for passenger service, although the 2 are not mutually incompatible.