5000-series - Updates

[Sam92]

But does something like Purpange work? Or was it an Orple? Maybe it was Howard Morris?

I can see that happening based off a few observations. It would be a pretty big waste to install that trackwork on the incline and not use it after the Ryan shutdown.... Maybe as a PM supplement for outbound rush service? Orange Line Trains are pretty empty going toward the Loop in the PM and the subway has pretty heavy traffic with a lot of people alighting at Roosevelt. Maybe have a few Purple Lines can go through the subway and help with those crowds. CTA can advertise it the first few weeks, notifying customers that service to Midway is also available from the Subway in Roosevelt. The trains will run up the incline to the elevated structure then the way to Midway and then return to Linden the same way.

[BusHunter]

I can see that happening based off a few observations. It would be a pretty big waste to install that trackwork on the incline and not use it after the Ryan shutdown.... Maybe as a PM supplement for outbound rush service? Orange Line Trains are pretty empty going toward the Loop in the PM and the subway has pretty heavy traffic with a lot of people alighting at Roosevelt. Maybe have a few Purple Lines can go through the subway and help with those crowds. CTA can advertise it the first few weeks, notifying customers that service to Midway is also available from the Subway in Roosevelt. The trains will run up the incline to the elevated structure then the way to Midway and then return to Linden the same way.

Sounds reasonable, they are going to have to address Red line overcrowding at some point on the north side. I doubt it would be with longer trains and platforms on the Red line. I don't see why they couldn't merge the Purple and Orange together. There's obvious benefits, they wouldn't have to run more trains across a crowded loop elevated structure, that is slower. (taking two lines off the elevated structure would speed things up) Also they could address overcrowding in the subway with another line (more frequent service) Also if they wanted to add more Brown line service they could. (It's probably not helping running 6 car trains every third or fourth train on that branch anyway.) The only issue is the six car platforms on the Purple line in Evanston, but those stations are in a bad need of an upgrade, in fact they are the some of the oldest stations in the worst condition on the system.

[Busjack]

Sounds reasonable...

While I don't want to encourage going further afield that I already see I have, I'm sure that this depends on whether there is any "beef" left to the Circle Line proposal (which included running the Purple Line through the subway) and from the Wilson station proposal to have dual platforms for local and express. Also, one would have to pick up whatever "Brown Line" customers are served by the Purple Line going local south of Belmont.

Anyway, I brought it up more as a care assignment and storage exercise, and while Kimball Yard can't handle the number of Brown Line cars, there hasn't been anything similar said about the Purple Line with respect to Howard and Linden yards.

[Tcmetro]

Not to keep going off-topic, but... one of my thoughts is that after the reconstructions of Wilson and Loyola stations, why not route the Purple Line through the Subway and out to 95th, and turn the Reds on the center track at 16th and State. Two major benefits, better reliability because running times would be reduced on the more overcrowded Red trains, and capacity would better match demand on the Dan Ryan branch on the 6-car Purple Linden-95th trains. Additionally, more trains could be operated on the Brown Line during peak hours, and the express tracks could be taken advantage of to finally have an actual express line from the Loop to Howard.

[Busjack]

Not to keep going off-topic, but... one of my thoughts is that after the reconstructions of Wilson and Loyola stations, why not route the Purple Line through the Subway and out to 95th, and turn the Reds on the center track at 16th and State. Two major benefits, better reliability because running times would be reduced on the more overcrowded Red trains, and capacity would better match demand on the Dan Ryan branch on the 6-car Purple Linden-95th trains. Additionally, more trains could be operated on the Brown Line during peak hours, and the express tracks could be taken advantage of to finally have an actual express line from the Loop to Howard.

It has been suggested that the opposite would make more sense. The north and south Reds now are mismatched, but the Purple still wouldn't give the South Red enough capacity.

But maybe getting back to the point, someone at CTA must think that a 300 car fleet increase will take care of the problem.

[Mr.cta85]

Wow I've never thought about that but the idea of having two lines going through the state subway is brilliant! I hope the big shots at cta will seriously put that into effect. I agree with the purple line going from Howard or linden through the subway and coming up the old incline heading to midway ( I mean why even upgrade those tracks only for a 5 month period then disregard the old incline. I agree it would also help the Loop elevated as well less congestion and could run more Brown line trains. Great idea guys. Lets see what happens.

[chicagopcclcar]

You people are "late"...March 25, 2013. This has already been suggested and suggested. You could learn a lot from the archives of this forum. Not to mention that there are a lot more interesting discussions back in the depths back there.

http://forum.chicagobus.org/topic/3160-is-the-cta-tipping-its-hand/

[jajuan]

For this all this big explosion of speculation into combining lines and the such, Busjack's suggestion in that March 25th discussion that CTA may be looking for a way to short turn some North Reds at Roosevelt still seems a more reasonable use for the incline after the Dan Ryan work is done based on:

(1) reports he alluded to that the north end of the Red is transporting twice the load of the Dan Ryan end

(2) the fact that the Purple Line does indeed operate with six car trains compared to the eight car ones in operation on the Orange Line and its doubtful CTA would get money soon to pay for expanding the station platforms north of Howard (FYI to Tcmetro the Brown Line expansion project pretty much put the nail in the coffin on what was left of the express tracks between Armitage and Chicago Avenue since when they redid Sedwick, they rebuilt the platform over what was the express track structure in that section in addition to removing the what sections of express track were still around between Armitage and Chicago)

(3) the Red Line's headways being as small as three minutes make it a given that another line wouldn't fit in the subway without eating to the Red Line's service levels. Or did we forget that weekday service levels on the Red Line had to be reduced during the Wells Bridge Project to accommodate Brown Line trains terminating at Roosevelt?

[BusHunter]

It would be too difficult to short turn red line trains on the incline. The only way they could really do that is to install a crossover on the incline and they haven't done that. That's one reason they are doing that now, because they have the unused track to 95th and crossover at 16th. With all lines running, I don't think it can be done, that's one reason they sent the Brown line to 37th middle and even that had issues that's why they switched to turning the trains at 63rd/Red line.

I don't see really how adding a few extra trains in the subway would really be all that hard. The Brown line trains in the subway seemed to work and that basically would have same headway as the existing Orange line. And once the riding public discovers "Hey, the Purple/Orange line is making the same stops as the Red line to Fullerton or Belmont" that might actually result in less service demand for the Red line especially if the purple line starts having more transfer stations mid line like at Wilson or Loyola. They could actually have trains run every 3 minutes regardless of whether they are a Red or Purple/Orange.

[sw4400]

I'm not sure of the setup after the incline south of the State St. Subway portal after Roosevelt, but with Sam92 mentioning about Purple Line trains running to Midway via the Orange Line(Purplage, if you will), I had another thought in mind:

What about a rush period Brownage that runs to Midway via the State St. Subway. It begins at Kimball and makes Brown Line stops to Fullerton, then makes Red Line stops to Roosevelt, comes up on the rebuilt incline and connects to the Orange Line and makes all Orange Line stops to Midway. Reverse trip back through the Subway to the North Side Main at Fullerton and head back as a Brown Line train to Kimball.

I would set it up like this...

Loop

Midway(via Subway)

Loop

This service could begin at 6a and run until 9 or 10a then resume at 2p until 6 or 7p Mon-Fri. It's kind of a win/win for three rail lines if you think about it. It gives more trains to the Brown Line, Red Line and Orange Line while easing Brown Line congestion in the Loop during rush periods a bit.

[Busjack]

...

What about a rush period Brownage that runs to Midway via the State St. Subway. ..

Too cornfusing. Supposedly one of the reasons CTA went to color lines (other than to ape London or Boston) was that a certain number of riders--especially at the Albany Park end of the line--used languages that didn't even have a Roman alphabet. Also, it facilitated car cards with expressions such as "la linea cafe a la línea azul." So, how are they going to figure out "via Subway" without some sort of graphic not intelligible to the rest of us?

Not to mention the serving passengers south of Belmont or Fullerton mentioned before, as well as your point about connections at approximately 16th (i.e. can the train get from the incline on the center track to the now Orange Line on the outer track, although the Circle Line plan assumed so).

[chicagopcclcar]

Too cornfusing. Supposedly one of the reasons CTA went to color lines (other than to ape London or Boston) was that a certain number of riders--especially at the Albany Park end of the line--used languages that didn't even have a Roman alphabet. Also, it facilitated car cards with expressions such as "la linea cafe a la línea azul." So, how are they going to figure out "via Subway" without some sort of graphic not intelligible to the rest of us?

Not to mention the serving passengers south of Belmont or Fullerton mentioned before, as well as your point about connections at approximately 16th (i.e. can the train get from the incline on the center track to the now Orange Line on the outer track, although the Circle Line plan assumed so).

Didn't the Brown line subway reroutes assigned to Midway do it on a daily basis?? (Go from incline tracks to Orange line)

[Fails the Turing Test]

So the last documented delivery of 5000 series railcars from Bombardier was April 14. That's seven weeks ago!! Today is June!!

Looks like we know what's going on now: Another manufacturing problem at Bombardier's Plattsburgh assembly facility.

[Busjack]

Looks like we know what's going on now: Another manufacturing problem at Bombardier's Plattsburgh assembly facility.

Thanks. For the second time, it was for a reason other than posters here thought.

But what is unnerving is:

CTA officials said incomplete welds were found in 240 of the 250 rail cars delivered to Chicago and in operation on the Green, Pink and Red lines.

Eight of the 10 cars that did not have the assembly flaws were prototypes that Bombardier sent to the CTA for testing before the transit agency gave approval to start the production line two years ago, officials said.

That is notwithstanding that Brian Steele says everything is safe and overengineered. If this started with car 13, someone should have caught it by now.

[sw4400]

Bombardier is quickly sounding like the NABI equivalent of railcar builders. This might ruin any reputation for the CTA taking them up on a bid for the yet-to-be built 7000-Series Railcars. But where does that leave us as far as Transit Car manufactuers? Boeing-Vertol is long gone, Budd is out of business as is Morrison-Knudsen.

First brakes, then truck assembly issues, now this. My question is what else could be wrong? These cars started to be delivered and tested in 2009!!! Four years later, you think all the kinks would've been worked out.

[BusHunter]

Bombardier is quickly sounding like the NABI equivalent of railcar builders. This might ruin any reputation for the CTA taking them up on a bid for the yet-to-be built 7000-Series Railcars. But where does that leave us as far as Transit Car manufactuers? Boeing-Vertol is long gone, Budd is out of business as is Morrison-Knudsen.

First brakes, then truck assembly issues, now this. My question is what else could be wrong? These cars started to be delivered and tested in 2009!!! Four years later, you think all the kinks would've been worked out.

What's even more scary is that this will soon be the majority of the fleet. What happens when they retire "L" cars and get a problem that's severe enough to sideline the #5000 cars yet again. Come up with imaginary cars for the Red, Purple, Green, Yellow and Orange lines?

[jajuan]

Bombardier is quickly sounding like the NABI equivalent of railcar builders. This might ruin any reputation for the CTA taking them up on a bid for the yet-to-be built 7000-Series Railcars. But where does that leave us as far as Transit Car manufactuers? Boeing-Vertol is long gone, Budd is out of business as is Morrison-Knudsen.

First brakes, then truck assembly issues, now this. My question is what else could be wrong? These cars started to be delivered and tested in 2009!!! Four years later, you think all the kinks would've been worked out.

Yeah railcars are very complex machines to be sure, but four years should be more than enough time to find welding problems to this degree. I think we can agree that quality control is extremely lacking at Bombardier with all this going on. And This is the company CTA was going to make that big maintenance facility deal with before it got killed due to that questionable no bid process. It's ridiculous how badly the checks and balances seem to be failing first at Bombardier but also at CTA if its engineers missed that 96% of the cars delivered so far were effected given it took delivery of a sizable number of cars from them.

[Busjack]

... But where does that leave us as far as Transit Car manufactuers?

I mentioned a large number that attended the prebid meeting, including one with a plant in Illinois.

[Mr.cta85]

Bombardier is quickly sounding like the NABI equivalent of railcar builders. This might ruin any reputation for the CTA taking them up on a bid for the yet-to-be built 7000-Series Railcars. But where does that leave us as far as Transit Car manufactuers? Boeing-Vertol is long gone, Budd is out of business as is Morrison-Knudsen. First brakes, then truck assembly issues, now this. My question is what else could be wrong? These cars started to be delivered and tested in 2009!!! Four years later, you think all the kinks would've been worked out.[/quote

Yea that's true, the only company I can think of now is the one that rehabbed the 2600's. I wonder are they still in business.

[See Tea Eh]

Bombardier is hardly the "NABI" of railcar builders. They build railcars for cities throughout the world.

[buslist]

There are reports this morning that 5000 series deliveries were suspended due to weld defects on some recent cars. Reportedly the problem is solved and deliveries are resuming.

[Busjack]

....

Yea that's true, the only company I can think of now is the one that rehabbed the 2600's. I wonder are they still in business.

Maybe you could read up the thread, like the post immediately above yours.

Bombardier is hardly the "NABI" of railcar builders. They build railcars for cities throughout the world.

I previously thought so, but something like this going undetected for two years, when there are inspectors on site sure indicates that there is something wrong at the Plattsburgh plant. Now, whether their Adtranz unit in Germany does the same stuff, I don't know.

The NABI analogy holds only in that both involved, in part, skipping on welding. Can't tell if it is a misprogrammed robot or really that consistent human error. But at least here, CTA has put down its foot.

[Busjack]

Also interesting is the video in the Tribune article, slightly in point in that it says that warranty work is done there, and also that the Green Line Forest Park shop also does the Pink Line, which might (but probably doesn't) explain why they now have the same equipment. Also, a demonstration of the TOTS.

[jajuan]

Maybe you could read up the thread, like the post immediately above yours.

I previously thought so, but something like this going undetected for two years, when there are inspectors on site sure indicates that there is something wrong at the Plattsburgh plant. Now, whether their Adtranz unit in Germany does the same stuff, I don't know.

The NABI analogy holds only in that both involved, in part, skipping on welding. Can't tell if it is a misprogrammed robot or really that consistent human error. But at least here, CTA has put down its foot.

Yes this is true. Plus what helps CTA be able to put its foot down in this case compared to the NABI fiasco is that railcars have such a much longer service life than transit buses that CTA doesn't really find itself in as desperate a bind to have replacement railcars as they were in dire need of new buses in general and articulated buses especially in particular at the time that they took on the NABI artics. So in this case they can say to Bombardier, this is a big problem here and we need you to fix it ASAP before you go further.

[BusHunter]

Maybe you could read up the thread, like the post immediately above yours.

I previously thought so, but something like this going undetected for two years, when there are inspectors on site sure indicates that there is something wrong at the Plattsburgh plant. Now, whether their Adtranz unit in Germany does the same stuff, I don't know.

The NABI analogy holds only in that both involved, in part, skipping on welding. Can't tell if it is a misprogrammed robot or really that consistent human error. But at least here, CTA has put down its foot.

The problem was discovered by Bombardier, not CTA. They just agreed to CTA's terms upon hearing about it.