Seating layout change in car 5520

[strictures]

I rode the Swift today & got in car 5520. Next to the motorman's cab on both sides of the aisle, one seat section of two seats has been removed. Has anyone else seen this? Have they been removed due to damage, someone thinking they can cram more people into the L car or has common sense come to CTA management & they're going to change the seats to a forward/backward layout like they should've been from the start?

I was in a hurry & managed to cut off the car number in the photos. I also don't know if 5519 has been changed.

[Pace831]

13 minutes ago, strictures said:

I rode the Swift today & got in car 5520. Next to the motorman's cab on both sides of the aisle, one seat section of two seats has been removed. Has anyone else seen this? Have they been removed due to damage, someone thinking they can cram more people into the L car or has common sense come to CTA management & they're going to change the seats to a forward/backward layout like they should've been from the start?

I was in a hurry & managed to cut off the car number in the photos. I also don't know if 5519 has been changed.

This was discussed here. Supposedly the seats were removed to store 55 gallon barrels of de-icing fluid, though I don't recall anyone reporting they saw them "in action".

[briman94]

I haven't seen any of the Red Line with this change yet; I only saw it on a small number of Green Line cars. Supposedly it was, as Pace said, for storing those large barrels of de-icer during de-ice runs, but I've never seen that space used for de-icing, and if a Red Line car just popped up with seats removed, I have a hard time believing it's strictly for de-icing purposes (I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure it's actually spring now; of course now that I say that, it's going to snow tomorrow).

[BusHunter]

#5301-02 I believe has this. Once they removed the seats they never put them back. They should call these "MAX" cars. I don't believe they'll ever get the seats back. Maybe someone will eventually put some seats that lift like for a wheelchair or at least a jump seat.

[Lost on Belmont]

On 5/8/2016 at 1:26 PM, briman94 said:

I haven't seen any of the Red Line with this change yet; I only saw it on a small number of Green Line cars. Supposedly it was, as Pace said, for storing those large barrels of de-icer during de-ice runs, but I've never seen that space used for de-icing, and if a Red Line car just popped up with seats removed, I have a hard time believing it's strictly for de-icing purposes (I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure it's actually spring now; of course now that I say that, it's going to snow tomorrow).

I've seen several on the Red Line with this change over the past few months.