700-series XE40 - Deliveries & Assignments

[BusOps]

2 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

Might be thinking too much into it, but with the 27 or so all-electric buses the CTA should be procuring in the next year or two, plus the talk of replacing the New Flyer D40LF's in 2020 with all-electric buses(or a large quantity of that order being all-electric), I wonder if they could even be placed at FG or NP. Because they require charging stations and these garages are outside, would they have to order Hybrids or Clean Diesels to operate out of here? I imagine with the elements the equipment is exposed to yearly, it would cause damage to the stations with rain/snow & other debris in the air getting into the electronics. I wonder if CTA may one day do a indoor barn for NP and FG. I think it could be done, but the buses will have to be temporarily relocated while the buildings are being built.

Well I know at FG CTA bought all the property to the east of their current location so it would be easy for them to expand there.

[Busjack]

11 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Might be thinking too much into it,

No you didn't.

11 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Because they require charging stations and these garages are outside

Most automobile charging stations are outside.

Also, the en route chargers mentioned in the grant materials are outside.

[jajuan]

If anyone wants to see 701 this morning it's currently being used as an apparent training bus. It's on Western trailing 1744 and shadowing its every move as 1744 does its NP run on the local 49 route. I first spotted both at Roosevelt. When the X49 I was on caught up with them at Division, that's when I noticed 701 shadowing 1744's every move. The odd thing though is 701 did have a 7 garage sticker and sported run 7999 since its definitely too early for new pick prep.

[BusHunter]

31 minutes ago, jajuan said:

If anyone wants to see 701 this morning it's currently being used as an apparent training bus. It's on Western trailing 1744 and shadowing its every move as 1744 does its NP run on the local 49 route. I first spotted both at Roosevelt. When the X49 I was on caught up with them at Division, that's when I noticed 701 shadowing 1744's every move. The odd thing though is 701 did have a 7 garage sticker and sported run 7999 since its definitely too early for new pick prep.

Yeah Andre said it went to 77th two weeks ago, it hasn't been seen either in those 2 weeks except by you and mrcta85. Why it would be training on Western is a little mystifying as 77th doesn't run there. I guess it would be too disruptive to run on King Drive for instance. Funny though this is the second sighting on a 74th ran route. If i didn't know better I'd say it was training for 74th.

[Busjack]

7 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Why it would be training on Western is a little mystifying as 77th doesn't run there.

Again, it may be an endurance test, as 49 is about as long a route as it gets (15.5 miles), except maybe for 9. Then the mystery is why it is at 77 instead of NP.

[BusHunter]

5 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Again, it may be an endurance test, as 49 is about as long a route as it gets, except maybe for 9. Then the mystery is why it is at 77 instead of NP.

Still though, if the bus were not going to run there, why is it being evaluated on the #49? It seems they are seeing how much battery it uses up like it will run on the #49. That doesn't really make sense. The #8 would be almost as similar as #49, plus it might hit areas of heavy traffic on the north side so I bet the running time is similar. 

Why not NP? Can this be charged at an outdoor facility?

[jajuan]

44 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Yeah Andre said it went to 77th two weeks ago, it hasn't been seen either in those 2 weeks except by you and mrcta85. Why it would be training on Western is a little mystifying as 77th doesn't run there. I guess it would be too disruptive to run on King Drive for instance. Funny though this is the second sighting on a 74th ran route. If i didn't know better I'd say it was training for 74th.

Well this time it seems it was training for NP since the bus it was shadowing on Western was an North Park bus. I should also point out , though I implied it from the run number, that 701 wasn't in revenue service. It was marked "NOT IN SERVICE" and wasn't taking any passengers. It seems so far it got transferred to 77th to do nonrevenue endurance tests on different route corridors across the system. Speaking heavy traffic, there is the traffic buildup and slowdown from the north section of the Chicago River up to Waveland in the extended construction zone stemming from the Western Avenue Corridor Improvement Project, where according to the project details we'll see the reconstruction of the bridge over the river, the restructuring of the Western/Belmont/Clybourn intersection now that the Western bypass bridge is no more, the building of a street median, and the addition of a third traffic lane in each direction to be used during morning rush between 7 AM and 9 AM and evening rush between 4 PM and 6 PM.

[artthouwill]

33 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Still though, if the bus were not going to run there, why is it being evaluated on the #49? It seems they are seeing how much battery it uses up like it will run on the #49. That doesn't really make sense. The #8 would be almost as similar as #49, plus it might hit areas of heavy traffic on the north side so I bet the running time is similar. 

Why not NP? Can this be charged at an outdoor facility?

The 8 is 2 miles shorter than the 49 in each direction,  though one would think that the 8 still would be a good test route.   At least on Western,  if the bus needs a charge,  it can easily get to Kedzie,  assuming the charging station is still there. 

[Busjack]

34 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Well this time it seems it was training for NP since the bus it was shadowing on Western was an North Park bus. I should also point out , though I implied it from the run number, that 701 wasn't in revenue service. It was marked "NOT IN SERVICE" and wasn't taking any passengers.

Those were the 2 things that made me think an endurance test, as it is different than anything else that has been revenue service, and by being forced to tail a revenue run, is made a bit more inefficient than it otherwise would be (I assume that if in a real bunching scenario, it could pass the leader, but here you said it wasn't doing so).

Maybe it tails something on 79th next.

[jajuan]

6 hours ago, Busjack said:

Those were the 2 things that made me think an endurance test, as it is different than anything else that has been revenue service, and by being forced to tail a revenue run, is made a bit more inefficient than it otherwise would be (I assume that if in a real bunching scenario, it could pass the leader, but here you said it wasn't doing so).

Maybe it tails something on 79th next.

No it didn't pass the leader this time, but the X49 I rode at the time passed both of them. It definitely would have passed 1744 up had it been shadowing the X49 bus I was aboard instead. On quick side note that gets to an observation I made of the X49 compared to X9. An X49 that catches up to a local bus will almost always pass that local as that local bus stops to serve a local stop. On the X9 however, you have a definitive small chance of the express bus playing trail the local scenario that annoyed some riders in the time of X9 and X49's first iterations prior to their 2010 eliminations. I suppose that's because in the current iterations, the stop spacing of the local Ashland route is a quarter mile for most of the route while the quarter mile stop spacing for the local Western bus is concentrated mostly south of Roosevelt Road among the number named streets with north of Roosevelt on Western still being largely one eighth of a mile except the stretch between Diversey and Irving Park and between the Brown Line and Foster. 

[TaylorTank1229]

700 is at 54th/Cermak Pink Line eastbound on #21.

[BusHunter]

Yeah it's usual location I bet #253 was the run too. Now I wonder where's #701. It's like where's waldo on that bus.

[BusHunter]

On Friday, April 29, 2016 at 10:21 PM, BusOps said:

Well I know at FG CTA bought all the property to the east of their current location so it would be easy for them to expand there.

They got some kind of operate vacancy sign on the cab company. It's like a zoning sign.

[i8itall4u]

701 has been assigned to 77th for at least a month now.

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, i8itall4u said:

701 has been assigned to 77th for at least a month now.

Yeah I know, but it doesn't really explain why they were testing on Western. Possibly it could be a long term test to see where the electric buses coming in would best work. Maybe they don't intend on actually putting #701 in service there at all.

[sw4400]

48 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Yeah I know, but it doesn't really explain why they were testing on Western. Possibly it could be a long term test to see where the electric buses coming in would best work. Maybe they don't intend on actually putting #701 in service there at all.

With the way swapocalypses occur, where 700 and 701 are at, I would look for these 27 electric buses(whenever CTA gets a manufacturer to win the bid they have yet to put out there) to be split and stationed at 77th(home of #700 for testing) and K(home of #701 for testing). Some New Flyers will be moved from K to other garages, maybe even some of 77th's Novas.

[BusHunter]

1 minute ago, sw4400 said:

With the way swapocalypses occur, where 700 and 701 are at, I would look for these 27 electric buses(whenever CTA gets a manufacturer to win the bid they have yet to put out there) to be split and stationed at 77th(home of #700 for testing) and K(home of #701 for testing).

If you go to the original press release they state what routes they were looking at. Mostly downtown routes like #29, #3, #124. Don't know really where #49 plays into that. They might just scatter them when they can. They'll probably have the option to charge them at towers on specific lines (in the press release) or just run them charged out of the garage. The trouble with towers is you have to have an operator that will not damage the bus doing it. At the garage you would have trained personnel doing it and you could limit that to a small crew in charge of it.

If I was CTA, I would just scrap the towers idea and try to get an extended range bus even if it did cost more. Maybe they could put the tower money toward it. If they are really getting 8 hours on this #253 run on the #21 and that is not extended range, feasibly then an extended range bus should get them a little over double that. So 16-18 hours is not bad. That is basically a day's work on most lines and then they charge them overnight as vehicles do better gas mileage at night and start over in the morning.

[XE NewFlyer]

do these buses run on weekends?

[jesi2282]

2 hours ago, XE NewFlyer said:

do these buses run on weekends?

Not really, now it seems they only pop up on the #21 or #52 during the week, usually assigned to the same run. It's rare even to see an 800 on weekends, but it does happen once in a while.

[jajuan]

5 hours ago, jesi2282 said:

Not really, now it seems they only pop up on the #21 or #52 during the week, usually assigned to the same run. It's rare even to see an 800 on weekends, but it does happen once in a while.

800s never really got used much on weekends. The weekend sightings made these days are actually more often than what's typically been the norm for these buses.

[XE NewFlyer]

last weekend 800 was on 10 and something 800 on 130 and more 800s were on some more routes that i forgot

[sw4400]

24 minutes ago, jajuan said:

 

Correct. The money wasn't from a redirected order for artics. It was redirected money from CTA changing its mind on looking into modifying the D60LFRs to DE60LFRs. I remember that from Busjack giving CTA management rare praise for doing something smart. 

To keep the posts separate and on topic, I'll reply here.....

Why does this article state otherwise, @jajuan? This is the quote..... link here

According to the reports from Chicago, CTA got permission to switch an $8.1 million federal grant for 26 hybrid, articulated buses (60-foot) to 27 standard-sized electric buses (40-foot).

This grant says it's for 26 Hybrid Articulated buses. There is 67(now 66) Clean Diesel Articulated buses and 33(32 now, I guess) Hybrid Articulated buses. So the 26 doesn't match the number of Hybrids or Clean Diesel buses. I think CTA would want to have the money on hand to modify all 67 buses at once, not do a little here and a little there. This is where that grant for the 27 Electric Buses is to come from.

Where did these 26 Hybrid Articulated buses come from that the CTA had a Federal Grant for? Was this part of the planned BRT bus program that was ultimately failed for Ashland? 26 specially designed BRT Artics for Ashland would've been enough for the service. Maybe 14 in service and 12 spares.

[jajuan]

5 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

To keep the posts separate and on topic, I'll reply here.....

Why does this article state otherwise, @jajuan? This is the quote..... link here

According to the reports from Chicago, CTA got permission to switch an $8.1 million federal grant for 26 hybrid, articulated buses (60-foot) to 27 standard-sized electric buses (40-foot).

This grant says it's for 26 Hybrid Articulated buses. There is 67(now 66) Clean Diesel Articulated buses and 33(32 now, I guess) Hybrid Articulated buses. So the 26 doesn't match the number of Hybrids or Clean Diesel buses. This is where that grant for the 27 Electric Buses is to come from.

Where did these 26 Hybrid Articulated buses come from that the CTA had a Federal Grant for? Was this part of the planned BRT bus program that was ultimately failed for Ashland?

They weren't ordering more artics sw. That money was originally for trying to convert diesel artics to hybrids. As Busjack says, if they were intending that money for an artic order they could have redirected it to paying for the electric buses in full with no help from a CMAQ grant. 

[Busjack]

7 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

According to the reports from Chicago, CTA got permission to switch an $8.1 million federal grant for 26 hybrid, articulated buses (60-foot) to 27 standard-sized electric buses (40-foot).

Another flack who was not accurate.

If you look at the primary sources, not articles, it was money to convert diesel buses to hybrid.

[jajuan]

2 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Another flack who was not accurate.

If you look at the primary sources, not articles, it was money to convert diesel buses to hybrid.

And wasn't CTA itself one of those primary sources in its press release?