Final Destination

[mikeymc77]

So seeing that the 6400 Novas will end their service at FG, it got me wondering where series of the past had finished up in service. I remember the 5300 Flxibles were at C. And I believe the 4400 TMCs were at NP. The 6000 Flxibles were in storage after cuts. But before that I'm pretty much clueless, plus I don't know if the NABIs count seeing that it was a defect that retired them. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide

[sw4400]

1 hour ago, mikeymc77 said:

So seeing that the 6400 Novas will end their service at FG, it got me wondering where series of the past had finished up in service. I remember the 5300 Flxibles were at C. And I believe the 4400 TMCs were at NP. The 6000 Flxibles were in storage after cuts. But before that I'm pretty much clueless, plus I don't know if the NABIs count seeing that it was a defect that retired them. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide

1983 9800 and 1600-Series Flyer D901A: Forest Glen 2002

1985 4000-Series M.A.N Americanas: North Park and Forest Glen 2004

1989-1990 4400-Series TMC RTS: North Park

1990-1991 5300-Series Flxible Metro: Kedzie and 103rd

1994-1995 6000-Series Flxible Metro: Forest Glen and 74th(Last garages to use them before cuts)

1995 5800-Series New Flyer D40LF: North Park and Forest Glen(Some were used at Forest Glen near end of life.... 2-3 of them)

2006 500-Series Optima Opus: North Park and Forest Glen. 103rd ditched them pretty much, using 40' buses on UIC routes.

That's as much as I know..... info on the 7000 and 7100-Series M.A.N Articulateds and the 1000, 7400, 9000 and 9600-Series GM Fishbowls will hopefully be supplied by someone a little more knowledgeable of their final home garage(s).

 

[cta5658]

I remember when the 7100's were retired, the last two (7143 and 7167) finished their service days at 103rd Garage when the NABI's came in

[mikeymc77]

I would have sworn the last 5300s were at Chicago. We were even trying to guess the last one in service and there were some pictures I believe, but Im not 100% positive.

[sw4400]

12 minutes ago, mikeymc77 said:

I would have sworn the last 5300s were at Chicago. We were even trying to guess the last one in service and there were some pictures I believe, but Im not 100% positive.

The New Flyers pushed them out to Kedzie and 103rd. Chicago was New Flyer and Nova from 2007-2008. I remember this because I rode #5725 on Damen a couple times(K route) and the bus had a "C" sticker on the window(CTA stopped using the "5" sticker and replaced it with the "C" sticker) maybe for easier identification, but regardless, it was a Chicago Garage bus.

[jajuan]

9 hours ago, sw4400 said:

1983 9800 and 1600-Series Flyer D901A: Forest Glen 2002

1985 4000-Series M.A.N Americanas: North Park and Forest Glen 2004

1989-1990 4400-Series TMC RTS: North Park

1990-1991 5300-Series Flxible Metro: Kedzie and 103rd

1994-1995 6000-Series Flxible Metro: Forest Glen and 74th(Last garages to use them before cuts)

1995 5800-Series New Flyer D40LF: North Park and Forest Glen(Some were used at Forest Glen near end of life.... 2-3 of them)

2006 500-Series Optima Opus: North Park and Forest Glen. 103rd ditched them pretty much, using 40' buses on UIC routes.

That's as much as I know..... info on the 7000 and 7100-Series M.A.N Articulateds and the 1000, 7400, 9000 and 9600-Series GM Fishbowls will hopefully be supplied by someone a little more knowledgeable of their final home garage(s).

 

A few corrections to this. The last ever MAN 4000s were at North Park only. Yes some were at Forest Glen for a while after the Flyer 9800s and 1600s went bye bye. but they were all gone from Forest Glen by the end of 2002 due to Forest Glen getting the last option of 6400 series Novas. From that point up to June 2004, only NP had the MAN 4000s.  Between April and June 2004, what remained of them only came out during AM and PM rush for duty on 135 and maybe 136 due to the introduction of 148 and its interline with the then 145. It was standard practice after CTA got wheelchair accessible buses that any and all new bus routes be automatically designated accessible routes. 146 had already been pretty much made accessible prior to April 2004. The last of the 5300s were indeed retired from Chicago as Mikey mentioned. CTA5750 in fact was one of the members who took pictures of them as they were retired from service as Mikey referenced. Yes they had been pushed out by the NFs to 103rd for a while (Kedzie never got any back after pushing what they had left to Chicago and 103rd though they did get more 6000s back for a while in a move to get more NFs to 74th), but some of the final NFs delivered to CTA went to 103rd briefly to push the last ones back up to Chicago. Transfers of the highest numbered NFs from 103rd to Chicago along with direct deliveries of the rest of the NFs left in the NF order in turn knock off those 5300s from Chicago. So you had that one backward. Also the last ever 4400s were retired from 77th not North Park. The NFs pushed what remained at North Park to 77th and 103rd. They would spend their final three months at those two garages with their numbers dwindling until getting down to the final three ever, which were retired from 77th. So you missed that one also. All this is backed up by the info from BH's links to retired CTA buses at the bottom of his rosters. In fact the info asked about by Mikey in this thread as far as relatively recent retirements (those that came after 2000) can be found in those links. 

[Busjack]

New looks at 69th, until it closed.

[jajuan]

15 minutes ago, Busjack said:

New looks at 69th, until it closed.

69th closed in 1995, but chicagobus.org lists the fishbowls as surviving until 1996. So maybe a small number survived at 74th to be in line with Kevin's info on the the original site of the forum. 

[See Tea Eh]

On 9/3/2016 at 3:25 AM, mikeymc77 said:

I would have sworn the last 5300s were at Chicago. We were even trying to guess the last one in service and there were some pictures I believe, but Im not 100% positive.

They were.  I don't remember the last one in service (very vague memory says it was 5643, but I could be completely wrong on that).  Chicago was definitely the last garage to run them in service.  I got a chance to ride one around the lot at Chicago a day or two after it was retired.

[Busjack]

7 hours ago, jajuan said:

69th closed in 1995, but chicagobus.org lists the fishbowls as surviving until 1996. So maybe a small number survived at 74th to be in line with Kevin's info on the the original site of the forum. 

All I know is what I observed, in that in early Sept. 1995, Midway Station was pretty much all 9000s, 700s (later determined to be what was left of the South Suburbans), and a couple of MANs, a couple of weeks later it was mostly 6000s, some 4400s (transferred from NP when it got 5800s), and the couple of MANs, and routes 9, 55, 63, and {I think} 67 were announced accessible at once. If there were any stragglers,they were few and far between. But 74th started with about 170-180 accessible buses.

Other last runs Propanes at NP (according to busdrawings.com, some of the 8800s that were at 69th when it was converted from propane to diesel in 1973 ended up on the north side), and Trolley Buses, North Ave. (3-24-73, although K apparently had 12 Roosevelt until 1-73).

 

 

 

[jajuan]

36 minutes ago, Busjack said:

All I know is what I observed, in that in early Sept. 1995, Midway Station was pretty much all 9000s, 700s (later determined to be what was left of the South Suburbans), and a couple of MANs, a couple of weeks later it was mostly 6000s, some 4400s (transferred from NP when it got 5800s), and the couple of MANs, and routes 9, 55, 63, and {I think} 67 were announced accessible at once. If there were any stragglers,they were few and far between. But 74th started with about 170-180 accessible buses.

Other last runs Propanes at NP (according to busdrawings.com, some of the 8800s that were at 69th when it was converted from propane to diesel in 1973 ended up on the north side), and Trolley Buses, North Ave. (3-24-73, although K apparently had 12 Roosevelt until 1-73).

 

 

 

I'm not disputing what  you observed. I'm just saying maybe a small number of Fishbowls lasted into the early months of the change from 69th to 74th because I do remember having similar observations myself with routes from 69th/74th. (The 8 was still one at the time by the way, so it was included in that announcement with the others you mentioned). I also remember still having some very sporadic sightings of Fishbowls until about very early 1996. I remember being shocked each time because I thought before each sighting that the last of them were finally gone.