Pace Bus Moves

[rotjohns]

11 hours ago, BusHunter said:

This might be to get rid of Orions at West, but what is replacing the south buses. CNG's?

South does have some lower passenger routes like the 367 and 372.  But in all honesty, Busjack's right.  There was no point in sending the 6600s to South and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if West is the best place to send them either.  West just got 3 Orions from NW so they may not be in that big of a hurry to get rid of the them yet and West doesn't really have a low ridership route (maybe 317?).  It just confirms the fact that the 6600s really was a mistake purchase that Pace isn't admitting to because they really don't know where to put them now.

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, rotjohns said:

South does have some lower passenger routes like the 367 and 372.  But in all honesty, Busjack's right.  There was no point in sending the 6600s to South and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if West is the best place to send them either.  West just got 3 Orions from NW so they may not be in that big of a hurry to get rid of the them yet and West doesn't really have a low ridership route (maybe 317?).  It just confirms the fact that the 6600s really was a mistake purchase that Pace isn't admitting to because they really don't know where to put them now.

West has #319 and I'm not sure how many riders #305 gets nowadays. South is gonna lose everything NABI anyway if they are to become the land of CNG. The orions are older and will be leaving soon. I wouldn't doubt we start seeing south NABI's arriving at SW soon. I'd just like to know what's the delay in CNG delivery, but most likely they will be next in the delivery of buses from eldorado.

[Busjack]

On 10/7/2015 at 10:38 AM, garmon757 said:

I don't recall #6622 and #6649 being at South from River but they're out there. 

I said a month ago, they came from NS.

[jesi2282]

6110 at West and 6156 at SW...

[rotjohns]

16 hours ago, jesi2282 said:

6110 at West and 6156 at SW...

6156 was previously noted, but 6110 is news.  That bus was just showing at SW last week.  Strange....  

[BusHunter]

So what is left at NW for Orions? I need to start up a process of elimination list for them. I'm going to put some lists up on the roster if anyone's interested, then maybe in a month if I don't see the bus it will be removed from the roster.

[garmon757]

Not sure it #6605 and #6647 were swapped but they're at West.

[BusHunter]

#6159 is now on the #381, so all the 2004 buses must be eventually destined for SW. This makes me believe that the NW Orions will soon be gone, by my counts there seems to be only 20 remaining.

[rotjohns]

On 12/23/2015 at 1:55 PM, BusHunter said:

#6159 is now on the #381, so all the 2004 buses must be eventually destined for SW. This makes me believe that the NW Orions will soon be gone, by my counts there seems to be only 20 remaining.

Not sure if this was mentioned already, but with the report already out that 15500-15520 (17 of them) are at the acceptance center and should be out in service very soon, the Nabis at South will start to be on the move.  Possibly the 6260s they acquired go back to West as well as some 6161s.  But that could mean that West sends some 6300s to NW to start cleaning out the remaining Orions.  Then when more CNGs arrive, more Nabis go West and the remaining 6300s could go to SW to clear out those Orions (except 6156-6161). It would mean that West would end up with potentially have a lot of the 6161s, which hit 13 years old in 2016.  Which brings up the other question:  Could some of these buses hit retirement?  Or do they work on getting rid of the 6600s first?  

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, rotjohns said:

But that could mean that West sends some 6300s to NW to start cleaning out the remaining Orions.

Very unlikely. W has some Orion VIs to clean out. Also, West's history has been not to get older.

As I said before, the more likely scenario is that NW keeps some Orion VIs until the Pulse buses show up, approximately one year from now.

1 hour ago, rotjohns said:

Could some of these buses hit retirement?  Or do they work on getting rid of the 6600s first?  

Both are the same age and were delivered together. Given that some of S's 6600s disappeared (except for 6660 to W) when the NS ones were transferred to S, maybe the 6600s are already biting it.

Anyone trying to do the math can figure that 92 Axess buses have come in since Oct. 2013, and 91 CNGs are coming, and there were 154 Orion VIs being or to be replaced, so that knocks out only about 29 of the about 175 2003 NABIs of both sizes.

If I were guessing anything, SW is going NABI until or if  the 72 buses in the 2016 budget arrive.

[BusHunter]

I don't think nw would ever become NABI. At best they may try to get them a few more eldorkos maybe from either sw or ns. The NABI's are definitely going to sw from south. A few of the west #6262's that went to south with probably go back to west and takecare of the orion's there. So feasably by spring or summer thatmay be Iit for the orions except for #6156-61.

[i8itall4u]

Pace's new buses are on the road, at least at South division. One was working the 352 sb yesterday afternoon @ 187th. Did not get the number.

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, i8itall4u said:

Pace's new buses are on the road, at least at South division. One was working the 352 sb yesterday afternoon @ 187th. Did not get the number.

See here.

Also, Webwatch indicates 15507 and 15508 are in service this morning.

[garmon757]

Having those CNGs with 5 digits seems really odd though. Why not just call them the 6500s?

[Busjack]

45 minutes ago, garmon757 said:

Having those CNGs with 5 digits seems really odd though. Why not just call them the 6500s?

That basically gets down to why the hybrid paratransits were 111xx, and the current paratransits are 140xx, 141xx, and 142xx. Apparently someone at Pace is using a numbering system where the first 2 digits is the year (not necessarily corresponding to the VIN), and the 3rd is the type of equipment.

I said last year I was surprised that the 6400s weren't something like 14300s, but that was that.

I also have the feeling that starting with 6500s ran the risk of overlapping the 6600s if an option was exercised. It might also be necessary to put CNGs in a separate series, because they can't be assigned elsewhere.

[garmon757]

8 minutes ago, Busjack said:

That basically gets down to why the hybrid paratransits were 111xx, and the current paratransits are 140xx, 141xx, and 142xx. Apparently someone at Pace is using a numbering system where the first 2 digits is the year (not necessarily corresponding to the VIN), and the 3rd is the type of equipment.

I said last year I was surprised that the 6400s weren't something like 14300s, but that was that.

I also have the feeling that starting with 6500s ran the risk of overlapping the 6600s if an option was exercised. It might also be necessary to put CNGs in a separate series, because they can't be assigned elsewhere.

I seriously thought about that too (overlapping 6600s) but hey, if 5 digits works for them then oh well.

[artthouwill]

Now that South is receiving their CNG buses, it will be interesting to see where their NABIS wind up.   Will they first go to West and retire West Orions? Wil some of the 6600s from both South and West make their way to SW and retire SW's Orions?   What will happen to the Express buses at South?   This thread should be active very soon. 

[Busjack]

Predictable (after 464 canned) 2701 to FV:

[Busjack]

Looking for something else, I found 6219 on 606:

Full sized bus to River?

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Looking for something else, I found 6219 on 606:

Full sized bus to River?

Interesting to say the least.   A mighty long way from South. 

[BusHunter]

Could be replacements for the highway eldos. (#6379's) I think if 45 buses to dundee is really whats it going to have it sounds like it will be all the highway eldos new and old except for maybe 6377-78.

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Could be replacements for the highway eldos. (#6379's) I think if 45 buses to dundee is really whats it going to have it sounds like it will be all the highway eldos new and old except for maybe 6377-78.

I really doubt that. First I documented that some of the 6490s went from Prairie Stone to the River garage, so your assumption that East Dundee runs everything is false. Second, if in fact all I-90 service would be out of East Dundee, instead of East Dundee being a branch of NW, River wouldn't have a need to replace the buses.

What's more likely is that 6219 is not yet junk, and, 5 years later, Heather Armstrong got her request to run 40 foot buses on 606.

5 hours ago, artthouwill said:

A mighty long way from South. 

South has 20 new buses, which apparently run full time, so it can afford to transfer a couple.

[Busjack]

On 6/3/2016 at 10:40 AM, garmon757 said:

Having those CNGs with 5 digits seems really odd though. Why not just call them the 6500s?

 

On 6/3/2016 at 11:24 AM, Busjack said:

..

I also have the feeling that starting with 6500s ran the risk of overlapping the 6600s if an option was exercised....

Since 25 options have now been exercised for 6485-6509, we now know the answer to that one. We would be, on receipt of the 91 CNGs at 6601.

There probably would also be the issue that the 25 Express buses would have been in the middle of the CNG series, although I suggested other ways to avoid that (like making the Expresses 16800-25. bit Pace didn't do that).

[BusHunter]

10 hours ago, Busjack said:

I really doubt that. First I documented that some of the 6490s went from Prairie Stone to the River garage, so your assumption that East Dundee runs everything is false. Second, if in fact all I-90 service would be out of East Dundee, instead of East Dundee being a branch of NW, River wouldn't have a need to replace the buses.

What's more likely is that 6219 is not yet junk, and, 5 years later, Heather Armstrong got her request to run 40 foot buses on 606.

South has 20 new buses, which apparently run full time, so it can afford to transfer a couple.

Putting a new spin on our theories here, it could be just that the #6600's are going to be the first nabi's that will retire. We've been shown signs like the disappearance of the #6650's. So Pace wants to let them go, they are inferior, especially on #606. They would probably want a 40 foot bus there. Maybe they read my post of the #606 I saw filled to the door leaving rosemont. You know it's funny, I talked about the 3 toll gates closed at the rosemont toll plaza and now almost every bus (at least it was last week) is doing the alternate expy entrance (I-90, I-294, I-190Wb, Mannheim, I-190eb, to River Rd to the terminal) Maybe someone is listening. It is free advice.

Getting back to our Dundee theories, if 45 buses ran out of Dundee, if they didn't do the I-90 express what would they do? It almost sounds idiotic to run a bus like #610 out of nw when dundee is right down the street from prairie stone. Contrary to what you think, I think Dundee will get it all, the whole Expy corridor, but not until next year when this is fully operational. We're still in the present here, which is not the future and things have yet to be finished yet. This just seems to me like a orientational stage to see how things are running. Dundee presently has what 10 pullouts? That's 1/4 operations. Nobody finds that odd?

Now if we look at the I-55 corridor, all buses run out of Heritage. So this assumption sounds like a safe bet.

Could also be simply River does not have any space for these new buses so they go to Dundee. That would explain why a River driver was driving a Dundee bus. There are technically no Dundee drivers yet. You could probably say Dundee has opened but it is unofficial.

[Busjack]

14 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Putting a new spin on our theories here, it could be just that the #6600's are going to be the first nabi's that will retire. We've been shown signs like the disappearance of the #6650's

They being at Ravinia already establishes that.

14 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

They would probably want a 40 foot bus there. Maybe they read my post of the #606

Or maybe they listened to Heather Armstrong. Same thing, just 5 years before you. Or maybe the Transitmaster passenger counter. Or just trying to get a bus in front of HQ (no, that would never happen).

14 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

, if 45 buses ran out of Dundee

The article said "some 40."

I had my surmises about that in the New Express Routes topic, but I said they were "random hypothetical thoughts." For instance, I don't know that the overpriced trolley contract has anything to do with the distributor service.