7900-series Nova LFS - Updates

[Busjack]

14 minutes ago, garmon757 said:

That may be a possibility but I can't see them being in service in mid-Feb (depending on the delivery). My focus about them now is 8200s deliveries tagging along with the remaining 8100s because it seems like the deliveries are unpredictable as I speak.

The issue there is that the 8200s were a separate order, and Mayor Emanuel said in the CTA Press Release that "The agency expects to begin receiving the first of the new 125 buses as early as May 2016."

[garmon757]

1 minute ago, Busjack said:

The issue there is that the 8200s were a separate order, and Mayor Emanuel said in the CTA Press Release that "The agency expects to begin receiving the first of the new 125 buses as early as May 2016."

I know but hell, who knows. Can't live life without the unexpectedness.

[sw4400]

43 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

That sure is one dirty bus!! They must have been driving it through snow storms or some heavily salted roads. Someone should just take that through the bus wash, it takes 5 minutes. It looks bad being a new bus looking that way.

There may be more inside the building or at bus and truck, if not they'll be here soon. More will probably be coming this weekend. Maybe they can get these into service by mid February. Being it's such a small amount of buses CTA may wait until all 22 are at south shops to put them in service, but that depends on whether they have the room.

It also depends on how long the Prevost people need to do whatever it is they do with the new arrivals(I remember seeing Prevost vans in some of the photos of the new Novas in the past). That, plus CTA installing fareboxes, clever device units, etc... I don't know how quickly they install and test all the equipment before getting the bus over to it's garage for 1st assignment. As I understand, the plates and stickers are already on premises before the bus even arrives(I'm not sure how that's possible since CTA needs to send to the DMV the vehicle info, including VIN's).

[Busjack]

20 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

I'm not sure how that's possible since CTA needs to send to the DMV the vehicle info, including VIN's

They get them from Andre in advance. Also, I'm sure municipal fleet operators get their own procedures. It isn't by luck that Pace had a whole bunch of plates that matched the fleet numbers, although that hasn't been the case lately.

I remember in the days before renewal stickers, you could buy plates at banks. First National were FN ####, Devon Bank were DV ####.

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, garmon757 said:

That may be a possibility but I can't see them being in service in mid-Feb (depending on the delivery). My focus about them now is 8200s deliveries tagging along with the remaining 8100s because it seems like the deliveries are unpredictable as I speak.

It just takes about 3 weeks to get them in service, but if these are going to Chicago, they don't really need buses so what's the hurry. I think they'll wait until they are all here, but if Novabus is going to delivery like 7-10 a week in 3 weeks 22 buses could at least be as far as south shops.

More and more I believe the #8200's are being built right now. If you go back to when the #7900's were all delivered, Novabus paused a little until the #8000's were here and also paused when starting the #8100's delivery so the timeframe you're looking at could be maybe 2 months (if doing 50 buses now) if not more, like I say if they are going to build the 100 buses now that could be at least 4 months before they deliver. You can always go back to my delivery dates for #7900's and see the pauses as I'm documenting delivery on here. There should be a link on the roster.

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

Why do you assume that everyone is stockpiling inventory for the sake of doing so? More than likely these go out when they get fare boxes, Clever Devices, and programming.

Because they are!! Fg should have at least 60 #1000's by now and try and try as they might, buses keep going other places. This is happening in rail too, why else are they dragging their feet on sending #5000's to the Orange line. It's inevitable that they will be going there once the #2600's are gone. Now look at this, when Chicago gets these 22 #8178's, we would expect Fg to finally get some #1000's at least or heck even send fg the #8178's, but no I can bet you dollars to donuts that FG gets niete on this bus overflow at Chicago. Now how can anyone explain that otherwise?  I'll be really shocked when they do get the #8200's, if they do.

[Mr.cta85]

I personally don't think Chicago Garage will even get 100 buses like 77th and 74th did, how many do they have now over 70 right? Maybe just maybe the Novas that just arrived at south shops and beyond are all going to FG. You just never know lol cause like I said before FG will definitely get their share of new buses but they may get them sooner than expected. 

[Busjack]

11 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Because they are!!

The inexpiable bloat seems a different issue than getting new equipment in service. For instance, CTA went to great lengths to get the last 40 or so rail cars in service, instead of relying on keeping them at the shops because the track collapsed.

[Busjack]

25 minutes ago, Mr.cta85 said:

I personally don't think Chicago Garage will even get 100 buses like 77th and 74th did, how many do they have now over 70 right? Maybe just maybe the Novas that just arrived at south shops and beyond are all going to FG. You just never know lol cause like I said before FG will definitely get their share of new buses but they may get them sooner than expected. 

On this one, I figure the allocation will be like in 2001 and C will get 100. As BusHunter indicates, the real question will be when some garages start giving up NFs.

Apparently, some of your sources are better than others.

[jajuan]

4 hours ago, BusHunter said:

It just takes about 3 weeks to get them in service, but if these are going to Chicago, they don't really need buses so what's the hurry. I think they'll wait until they are all here, but if Novabus is going to delivery like 7-10 a week in 3 weeks 22 buses could at least be as far as south shops.

More and more I believe the #8200's are being built right now. If you go back to when the #7900's were all delivered, Novabus paused a little until the #8000's were here and also paused when starting the #8100's delivery so the timeframe you're looking at could be maybe 2 months (if doing 50 buses now) if not more, like I say if they are going to build the 100 buses now that could be at least 4 months before they deliver. You can always go back to my delivery dates for #7900's and see the pauses as I'm documenting delivery on here. There should be a link on the roster.

Them starting to build the 8200s now could fit the "start receiving the first of the 125 new buses as early as May 2016" timeframe mentioned in the press release.

3 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Because they are!! Fg should have at least 60 #1000's by now and try and try as they might, buses keep going other places. This is happening in rail too, why else are they dragging their feet on sending #5000's to the Orange line. It's inevitable that they will be going there once the #2600's are gone. Now look at this, when Chicago gets these 22 #8178's, we would expect Fg to finally get some #1000's at least or heck even send fg the #8178's, but no I can bet you dollars to donuts that FG gets niete on this bus overflow at Chicago. Now how can anyone explain that otherwise?  I'll be really shocked when they do get the #8200's, if they do.

Well one answer we did see to Chicago's bloat was buses to 74th to help start X9 service since most of the extra buses 74th received did come from Chicago Garage. Maybe some further bloat can be explained by buses being needed for reimplementation of 11 and 31 in the coming months. 

[Busjack]

4 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Maybe some further bloat can be explained by buses being needed for reimplementation of 11 and 31 in the coming months.

But that's 2 buses.

[jajuan]

11 minutes ago, Busjack said:

But that's 2 buses.

Yeah or maybe up to 4 if CTA actually plays it smart and try 31 out on a similar headway of a short route like the 43, which uses 3 buses on average. I know you're going to question what's there to draw that type of headway, but why waste everyone's time bringing back a route only to restrict it to the one hour headway that killed it in the first place? Either way though, that's far less than what they needed to shift to restart X9. So the last part of my above comment was only a joke. 

[garmon757]

Getting way off topic guys. The last five posts have been moved to "Return of the X, Rapid, BRT-Lite, Limited Stop Routes (was X9, X49) Thread" topic due to irrelevancy of this topic.

[BusHunter]

7 hours ago, Mr.cta85 said:

I personally don't think Chicago Garage will even get 100 buses like 77th and 74th did, how many do they have now over 70 right? Maybe just maybe the Novas that just arrived at south shops and beyond are all going to FG. You just never know lol cause like I said before FG will definitely get their share of new buses but they may get them sooner than expected. 

Really,  if I was in charge of new bus assignments, I would look at it like who is in greater need of buses. Chicago has all new rehabbed buses and new buses. Fg has a fleet of 14 year old buses,. some 15 years old. So what I would suggest is that even if Chicago has to get 100 #8100's maybe they could play around with the fleet a little and either send fg the #8178's or send them older #8100's, as loaners because they are in greater need. Now when the #8200's show up they can send either the new or used #7900's back to Chicago, no harm no foul and everyone is happy. It would just be 22 buses anyway and they could start retiring some of these crappy 2001 buses that don't seem to have working destinations anymore. It would be a good gesture anyway.

I wonder in the long term if CTA will exercise the #8325 - #8349's? If they plan on cutting out FG on new buses for another 12 years, I would think either 150 or 175 buses could really help out the glen. 50 or 60 #6400 buses continuing on until who knows when (2019 or 20) need to be rush hour service only buses to make it 18 - 20 years. I'm thinking in terms of the final #4000 MAN standards, which made it a few more years with a small fleet. That's a similar comparison.

[jajuan]

5 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Really,  if I was in charge of new bus assignments, I would look at it like who is in greater need of buses. Chicago has all new rehabbed buses and new buses. Fg has a fleet of 14 year old buses,. some 15 years old. So what I would suggest is that even if Chicago has to get 100 #8100's maybe they could play around with the fleet a little and either send fg the #8178's or send them older #8100's, as loaners because they are in greater need. Now when the #8200's show up they can send either the new or used #7900's back to Chicago, no harm no foul and everyone is happy. It would just be 22 buses anyway and they could start retiring some of these crappy 2001 buses that don't seem to have working destinations anymore. It would be a good gesture anyway.

I wonder in the long term if CTA will exercise the #8325 - #8349's? If they plan on cutting out FG on new buses for another 12 years, I would think either 150 or 175 buses could really help out the glen. 50 or 60 #6400 buses continuing on until who knows when (2019 or 20) need to be rush hour service only buses to make it 18 - 20 years. I'm thinking in terms of the final #4000 MAN standards, which made it a few more years with a small fleet. That's a similar comparison.

At least with the MAN 4000s, their final years were mainly to handle 145 and 146 and the rush hour only 135 and 136 compared to the remaining NOVA 6400s now exclusively operating a whole garage full of routes. 

[BusHunter]

8 minutes ago, jajuan said:

At least with the MAN 4000s, their final years were mainly to handle 145 and 146 and the rush hour only 135 and 136 compared to the remaining NOVA 6400s now exclusively operating a whole garage full of routes. 

Yeah but the point is if you give them 125 buses, they will still have #6400's out there, maybe not on the weekends, but on the weekdays. A few more buses and you could knock that back to rush hour only buses and who knows maybe only a minority of those would be ran in a rotating fleet putting even less miles on them. Plus if Fg puts low miles on buses, you could save the buses to help with places out south like 77th, which would use up there buses quicker. They could rotate the fleet now and then and keep the #7900's stable at X amount of miles.

[jajuan]

1 minute ago, BusHunter said:

Yeah but the point is if you give them 125 buses, they will still have #6400's out there, maybe not on the weekends, but on the weekdays. A few more buses and you could knock that back to rush hour only buses and who knows maybe only a minority of those would be ran in a rotating fleet putting even less miles on them. Plus if Fg puts low miles on buses, you could save the buses to help with places out south like 77th, which would use up there buses quicker. They could rotate the fleet now and then and keep the #7900's stable at X amount of miles.

I think you're misreading me a bit. I made that comment more to agree with you that CTA is doing current FG route riders a great deal worse than the NP riders of about 12-15 years ago can say they were getting by riding the above mentioned few routes that still operated with Americanas.

[Busjack]

11 hours ago, BusHunter said:

I wonder in the long term if CTA will exercise the #8325 - #8349's? I

• Probably not, since the 27 electric buses are going to be purchased with that money.
• You still seem obsessed that FG is going to stay status quo until 2022.

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

• Probably not, since the 27 electric buses are going to be purchased with that money.
• You still seem obsessed that FG is going to stay status quo until 2022.

Well CTA has stated that #6400 buses will continue into 2019 in the 27 electric buses document, so my obsession is based on fact. Besides how is Fg going to replace 257 buses when they are only slated to receive 125 #8200's? They might be able to replace 160 with that but that still leaves 100 buses. Even giving fg the rest of the #8200's will not totally eradicate the #6400's, but it would be close. Maybe 30 left if they got all buses, 60 if they got the #8325's.

Because the #8325's price is set in the contract it would be dumb to pass up what is essentially a deal with locked in pricing from a few years ago. I would find the cash to make it so, as John Luke Picard would say. CTA seems to have lots of cash with all these new stations popping up. I find it hard to believe they can't afford it and why would they not do it, they do have 15 year buses to replace. I don't see NF's coming to the glen but inevitably that's what will happen anyway in time unless they want 24 year buses out here!! 

 

[Busjack]

6 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Well CTA has stated that #6400 buses will continue into 2019 in the 27 electric buses document, so my obsession is based on fact.

 

And I said above that the 27 electrics were justified as replacing Novas. Try to put 2+2 together.

8 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Besides how is Fg going to replace 257 buses when they are only slated to receive 125 #8200's?

How did 74th replace 220 6000s? All the sudden there were swaps of 1000s from C and 103. Now we get into the inexplicable bloat, but it isn't going to last forever.

10 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Because the #8325's price is set in the contract it would be dumb to pass up what is essentially a deal with locked in pricing from a few years ago.

Depends on what you get out of this statement in the budget:

"In addition, FY 2016-2020 funding of $22 million will support the purchase of up to 50 electric or clean diesel buses."

Maybe 27 electric and 23 diesel, so maybe the option is not dead.But, by my figuring, CTA will need another $3 million.

[jajuan]

54 minutes ago, Busjack said:

And I said above that the 27 electrics were justified as replacing Novas. Try to put 2+2 together.

How did 74th replace 220 6000s? All the sudden there were swaps of 1000s from C and 103. Now we get into the inexplicable bloat, but it isn't going to last forever.

Depends on what you get out of this statement in the budget:

"In addition, FY 2016-2020 funding of $22 million will support the purchase of up to 50 electric or clean diesel buses."

Maybe 27 electric and 23 diesel, so maybe the option is not dead.But, by my figuring, CTA will need another $3 million.

True whatever the 125 Smart Buses don't cover, it shouldn't be too hard to rearrange 1000s among the current bloat at other garages to cover the rest. And $3 million dollars shouldn't be all that difficult for them to find in that few year time frame since that amount is a small percentage of what they typically have exchanging hands in a year's time when looking at their total capital and operations budgets.

[BusHunter]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

And I said above that the 27 electrics were justified as replacing Novas. Try to put 2+2 together.

How did 74th replace 220 6000s? All the sudden there were swaps of 1000s from C and 103. Now we get into the inexplicable bloat, but it isn't going to last forever.

Depends on what you get out of this statement in the budget:

"In addition, FY 2016-2020 funding of $22 million will support the purchase of up to 50 electric or clean diesel buses."

Maybe 27 electric and 23 diesel, so maybe the option is not dead.But, by my figuring, CTA will need another $3 million.

Contrary to what you think, I think they may order the #8325's. If there is any substance to them saying they will replace the Novas with 27 electrics, if they gave Fg the rest of the #8100's (#8178 - #8349) they would have maybe 30 left, but I think they still want Fg to remain all Nova for as long as possible. Sounds to me like they are worried they can't afford the 27 electrics so they are stealing from Peter (the nova bus contract) to pay Paul. (the electric bus dream)  If gas prices remain low, electric buses may not be that important. Clinton had a balanced budget when he was in office and it looks like Hillary is going to be the next Pres, so gas prices may be a worry of the past.

But the bottom line to your statement is you can't put 2+2 together without all the new Novas left to deliver going to FG and that is really dreaming when you say they are going to FG maybe 77th wouldn't be a dream.  

[Busjack]

19 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Sounds to me like they are worried they can't afford the 27 electrics so they are stealing from Peter (the nova bus contract) to pay Paul. (the electric bus dream)

Obviously you didn't read the documentation on that application (discussed here and confirmed here) The quoted part of the budget said that there was $22 million to buy 50 electric or diesel buses. The CMAQ paperwork indicates that there was $8 million of money already approved to convert diesel artics to hybrid that would be repurposed to pay the additional cost of buying 27 electric buses. So, the money (or at least most of it) is there. I then stated that maybe the budget, in light of the CMAQ repurposing, may mean 27 electric buses and 23 diesel ones (which would be most of the remaining Nova contract). That isn't that hard to figure out.

If 103rd gets 4 electric buses, that's 4 1000s that can go to FG. If K gets 6 more electric buses, that's 6 1000s that can go to FG. And, so forth.

[Sam92]

Forgot to mention this but 8182  has been gone for some days from where they first delivered it to so it may be at it's new garage. I know I've seen them working on it and the other Nova for a few days before it moved with stuff like the destination sign being tweaked but the other Nova is still there. 

[BusHunter]

2 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Forgot to mention this but 8182  has been gone for some days from where they first delivered it to so it may be at it's new garage. I know I've seen them working on it and the other Nova for a few days before it moved with stuff like the destination sign being tweaked but the other Nova is still there. 

No more #8100's showed up at south shops?