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5000-series - Updates


greenstreet

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100 percent revenue service was recently proclaimed when the consists of two Belmont short-turns in the AM rush was noted to be all equipped with 5000 series railcars.  The two runs from 95th St. to Belmont and back were the last to feature the Budd railcars regularly. Because some 2600s are still in 98th St. yards, the possibility of an errant run of these cars is possible.

 

P1130401.jpg

5000s lined up in the 98th St.yard. The enlargement of the yard opened in Feb. 1993, used land in the Bishop Ford expressway that formerly was planned to run the Dan Ryan median line all the way to 103rd St. near Stony Island.

 

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How are the colors in the digital signs achieved? For instance, what color combinations result in red? How many "channels" are there?

The same way I sometimes stick alternate colors into a post or reply here. Here's the Wikipedia page displaying how colors are composed. The number of available colors is 16,777,216. But we probably need only 216 of them.

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the question occurs - I assume the sign is composed of LED's? How many individual LED's are there? Must be thousands. Also, the Wikipedia article describes how colors are achieved on a monitor. A car sign isn't quite the same thing mechanically. How are the color intensities controlled? By voltage variation?

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the question occurs - I assume the sign is composed of LED's? How many individual LED's are there? Must be thousands. Also, the Wikipedia article describes how colors are achieved on a monitor. A car sign isn't quite the same thing mechanically. How are the color intensities controlled? By voltage variation?

Some monitors are LED monitors, which are identical to the signs. LCD monitors are similar, but the colors are dimmed by a mechanical shutter instead of varying the voltage. The color intensities are achieved on the signs using "pulse width modulation," where the light is flashed on and off multiple thousands of times per second, but the time it is off is different than the time it is on (if it's on more, it's brighter, and vice verse).

I found a super high-res picture of a sign when I was making the textures for Train Simulator so I could count the pixels. There are 72 columns of pixels and 24 rows of them, and three LEDs per pixel (R + G + B) so that yields 5184 LEDs per sign. With the color destination signs alone, that's 15,552 LEDs per train car plus the inside ones. That's a lot of LEDs!

Edited by briman94
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the question occurs - I assume the sign is composed of LED's? How many individual LED's are there? Must be thousands. Also, the Wikipedia article describes how colors are achieved on a monitor. A car sign isn't quite the same thing mechanically. How are the color intensities controlled? By voltage variation?

Color intensities, and brightness of each individual LED, are controlled by pulse width modulation.  LEDs require a fairly specific voltage range to function correctly, so just lowering the voltage gradually would generally just cause the brightness of the LED to dim by just a little bit, then shut off entirely.  Instead, the full voltage is applied, but in pulses.  The longer the pulse, the brighter the LED appears.  This is why pretty much any photo or video of one of these LED signs looks weird - the full-on brightness of these LED signs would just be painfully bright, so they are dimmed via PWM.

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P1130270.jpg

100 percent revenue service was recently proclaimed when the consists of two Belmont short-turns in the AM rush was noted to be all equipped with 5000 series railcars.  The two runs from 95th St. to Belmont and back were the last to feature the Budd/Transit-Ameica railcars regularly. Because some 2600s are still in 98th St. yards, the possibility of an errant run of these cars is possible. But expect most Red line trains to be 100 percent 5000s from now on. A Red line train is viewed north of Marquette Rd.

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I saw a 5400 on Red today, obviously borrowed from Purple. Gap train north of Belmont this morning was still a 5000, so they've definitely got only 5000s on Red now. My guess is that now all the deliveries are done and they have all the 2600s off Red, they're able to manage their fleet better and determine how much they need on Red and are able to send some to Orange. What would really be something is if we saw one on Blue soon, but we know that won't happen for a decade or two.

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Yeah I just saw it down here on roosevelt orange. Its true no doubt about it. Run #700. In the consist #5693-94, #5641-42, #5647-48 and another.

I thought they didn't use #00 runs normally? It's not showing up on Train Tracker either so either it was the wrong run # or it returned to Midway and didn't leave with the same run.

I wonder how hard it would be for the CTA to record car numbers (or at least series) with the Train Tracker info. That could be really fun.

Edited by briman94
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Someone on the Chicago L Facebook group posted a picture of 5000s in service on the Orange Line. Car 5668 was in the picture.

Holy crud they did. I need to find this train! I've been waiting for this for years!

Yeah I just saw it down here on roosevelt orange. Its true no doubt about it. Run #700. In the consist #5693-94, #5641-42, #5647-48 and another.

About time!  I said it for 18 months.  Add to 63rd coming to be and no ban on 2600s on Brown line. 

As I mentioned a while ago, Orange Line possibly having 5600-5706.

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As I mentioned a while ago, Orange Line possibly having 5600-5706.

I sure hope it's permanent. I'm going to take a little adventure on the orange line tonight to see if I can spot them again. I heard that the train was a charter that they decided to use for service. Hopefully it stays.

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As I mentioned a while ago, Orange Line possibly having 5600-5706.

If it were, it would have been by now. No sense loading up the Red Line yards for better than a year now if the intent were to assign new equipment to the Orange Line.

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I'm at Midway...don't see anyany 5000s in the yard and didn't see any on my way here from State/Lake. Can't see the yard very well though since it's dark so there could be a few hiding up there.

I can't believe it, what I saw yesterday, the four car #5000 consist on the orange, was real. They must have been training. I didn't see #5668 in the consist today so there must be two 8 car consists at least. The run number I saw on the back of the train, it must have come out for just one trip and pulled in. If it was first to pull in, it would have been deep in the yard. Maybe you could have saw something on the midway pedestrian bridge. Red line still had a few higher numbered cars but i didn't see any only #5687-88. I'll be heading to midway tomorrow to see what's up.

If it were, it would have been by now. No sense loading up the Red Line yards for better than a year now if the intent were to assign new equipment to the Orange Line.

But the Red line doesn't need 454 cars either, take away the 26 #2600 cars i still have on the roster and that's roughly 428 cars. They only need 384 for service, so that's like 50 extra cars, but then I don't understand either why the green line is so bloated, 130 cars?? That's when they ran a fleet of #2400's only. They now have the newest cars, that seems too high also. So maybe Orange line will get the high cars like Garmon says and the green line will cough up a few to the red line. Maybe they could get Orange line to at least 80 #5000 cars or better, cause they will be unable to get that from just the red line without someone contributing to what the red line loses. They are probably aiming at an orange line only fleet of #5000's. They probably wouldn't do it if they had to mix cars.

 

Edited by BusHunter
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....

But the Red line doesn't need 454 cars either, take away the 26 #2600 cars i still have on the roster and that's roughly 428 cars. They only need 384 for service, so that's like 50 extra cars, but then I don't understand either why the green line is so bloated, 130 cars??...

 

If I were betting on anything, and remember, I don't work for the Executive Vice President of Rail Operations, is that maybe some 5200s get moved there, but not, as Garmon indicated 5601+. Might be like 74th having a bus swap to get NFs, but I am not aware of any situation where new equipment was sent to one garage or yard to be moved immediately to another. Sort of similar to Pace NS getting 6477+ instead of Pace NW sending it 6415-6422 after using them for a month.

Of course, I agree that neither the CTA bus or rail car bloat has been explained, but I still rely on the 7000s spec that the 7000s are supposed to replace 656 cars (not counting the 190 car expansion option) so some bloat has been planned for two years.

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If I were betting on anything, and remember, I don't work for the Executive Vice President of Rail Operations, is that maybe some 5200s get moved there, but not, as Garmon indicated 5601+. Might be like 74th having a bus swap to get NFs, but I am not aware of any situation where new equipment was sent to one garage or yard to be moved immediately to another. Sort of similar to Pace NS getting 6477+ instead of Pace NW sending it 6415-6422 after using them for a month.

Of course, I agree that neither the CTA bus or rail car bloat has been explained, but I still rely on the 7000s spec that the 7000s are supposed to replace 656 cars (not counting the 190 car expansion option) so some bloat has been planned for two years.

Well so far all the cars reported are #5600's, not #5200's. While they may not get #5601, it is possible for #5641 - #5706 to eventually show up on the orange. i doubt they are going to just send them 20 cars. It should be fun sharing a yard with #3200's that are almost going to look the same once they get led destinations. Probably they'll just segregate the yard between the two types. This way yard personnel will know what is positioned where.

As far as putting new equipment on one line and taking it away it has been done to the red line. The #5100's were taken away and sent to the green line.

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I saw a 4-car 5000 on the southbound Loop tracks just north of Wabash/VanBuren. Looked like it was waiting for signal clearance to proceed to Roosevelt. Had "Not In Service" signs and a run number of 800. That's a red line number, so maybe it's going from Howard to Midway? I imagine if operators at Howard log in, they get Howard run numbers. Couldn't see car numbers unfortunately.

Edited by briman94
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I saw a 4-car 5000 on the southbound Loop tracks just north of Wabash/VanBuren. Looked like it was waiting for signal clearance to proceed to Roosevelt. Had "Not In Service" signs and a run number of 800. That's a red line number, so maybe it's going from Howard to Midway? I imagine if operators at Howard log in, they get Howard run numbers. Couldn't see car numbers unfortunately.

Training train.

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The run numbers aren't an indication of where they are going, more like a number was needed to boot the train computers. Today's TT seems to be going all over the system.... like its training "foreign roads" operators..... those who can operate on other lines. I heard the word "connector" over the scanner.  Either they went to Dan Ryan or to the south side as they held up Orange trains.

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