Supervisors - Radio Callsigns

[cea1991]

As an avid scanner fanatic there is one thing and one thing only I don't understand. The control dispatcher often needs to get ahold of "R" & "K" units. I assume a "K" unit is a supervisor, however is there a document somewhere that lists the CTA units and their radio callsigns? Thanks. 

[BusHunter]

7 hours ago, cea1991 said:

As an avid scanner fanatic there is one thing and one thing only I don't understand. The control dispatcher often needs to get ahold of "R" & "K" units. I assume a "K" unit is a supervisor, however is there a document somewhere that lists the CTA units and their radio callsigns? Thanks. 

The K's are usually setup like this. There are 4 districts crossing the city north to south, 10's do the far south side, 30's do the middle south side, the 50's do the middle and 70's do the north. From east to west starts the 1's in those, like K71 does like north Lake Shore area or K11 would do the Hegewisch area. Now the farther west you go the K numbers are higher like K76 would work Jeff Pk and surrounding areas, where K73 might serve Albany Park. Now where I get confused is like what is K78, just an additional rush hour unit or is it a different unit, like each unit does a certain time like K76, K77, K78 do different shifts. Of course mobile cars drop at night to a trickle, but it seems like the standard is 4 cars per city section or 16 total. If you notice the tow trucks are set up this way (4 trucks 210, 230, 250 and 270 set up south to north lowest to highest) like truck 230 or 210 would never go to FG or 270 would never go to 103rd, but if there are like excessive shop tows they might. The only exception is they can all tow to south shops. I think 230 came to FG to help tow out the #9800's, but it's sort of rare. That might also happen in bad weather when the tows get crazy.

[cea1991]

On 1/4/2016 at 10:55 PM, BusHunter said:

The K's are usually setup like this. There are 4 districts crossing the city north to south, 10's do the far south side, 30's do the middle south side, the 50's do the middle and 70's do the north. From east to west starts the 1's in those, like K71 does like north Lake Shore area or K11 would do the Hegewisch area. Now the farther west you go the K numbers are higher like K76 would work Jeff Pk and surrounding areas, where K73 might serve Albany Park. Now where I get confused is like what is K78, just an additional rush hour unit or is it a different unit, like each unit does a certain time like K76, K77, K78 do different shifts. Of course mobile cars drop at night to a trickle, but it seems like the standard is 4 cars per city section or 16 total. If you notice the tow trucks are set up this way (4 trucks 210, 230, 250 and 270 set up south to north lowest to highest) like truck 230 or 210 would never go to FG or 270 would never go to 103rd, but if there are like excessive shop tows they might. The only exception is they can all tow to south shops. I think 230 came to FG to help tow out the #9800's, but it's sort of rare. That might also happen in bad weather when the tows get crazy.

Thanks BusHunter! I know they like to keep even numbers with the K's so that if they need that employee to stay longer than the normal shift, with that specific duty, then they can assign the odd number to that same unit on the 2nd or 3rd shift as to not confuse themselves over the radio.