Crazy MAN Artic story

[chitowndude84]

Had a story that popped in my head from my childhood thought I'd share it with you guys

 

Back around early-mid 90's around my 8th or 9th birthday, I had a CRAZY event happen to me as a kid

 

One day me and my family had finished a downtown trip to the museum and we were at the Howard station waiting for the 97 Skokie bus and out of nowhere a CTA supervisor came up to my dad yelled his name and went nuts, Greeted him (his old college roomate) they talked in private and then he came up to me and said that my dad had told him that it was my birthday soon and that I was a big transit fan and then asked me what was my favorite bus, So I said that MAN artic over there.

 

What happens next is INSANE to this day

 

He told my me and my dad to hold on for a minute,  Went over and talked to the driver of the MAN artic and then came back to us and said "There's your 97 bus to skokie, Happy Birthday" !!!!

I was happy and I remember we were the first to board the bus and all the other confused passengers waiting for a 4400 TMC followed us behind lol

 

So just wondering for those of you who knew CTA policy back in the 90's. Was this a possible termination event ??  How lucky was I to experience this ???

[BusHunter]

No a supervisor can run a bus from another route. It's not a big deal as long as the bus wasn't needed. Like there was a missed run in front of it. Ive seen optimas on the #152. As long as theres a bus. Now if a bus was pulled off a route and not replaced the supervisor would need a good reason to do that like no yellow line service or a service disruption. In fact artics will run the 97 in such instances.

[strictures]

I was waiting for a SB #4 Cottage Grove bus at Jackson/Michigan one day several years ago & after 30 minutes, we all asked the supervisor there [the little supervisor's booth was still there] told us there wasn't any & at least 6 SB #3 King Dr. buses had passed.  We also hadn't seen a single NB #4 either.   So he turned the next #3 into a #4 & it was packed by Roosevelt.  Two more #4s caught up by Pershing & it turned out that that supervisor short turned them. 

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, strictures said:

I was waiting for a SB #4 Cottage Grove bus at Jackson/Michigan one day several years ago & after 30 minutes, we all asked the supervisor there [the little supervisor's booth was still there] told us there wasn't any & at least 6 SB #3 King Dr. buses had passed.  We also hadn't seen a single NB #4 either.   So he turned the next #3 into a #4 & it was packed by Roosevelt.  Two more #4s caught up by Pershing & it turned out that that supervisor short turned them. 

Yeah it's such a long route that buses can bunch up and not make it into the loop. They will do some short turning around cermak or roosevelt and lsd is a good alternative sb to get those buses in place or you could lose the street and have to do a reload. One day there was a six pack nb they all either turned short or some jumped on lsd. They can put the #4 riders on a 3 nb at cermak but if one bus goes into the loop or two in the place of 6 intervals they will be late from the heavier than normal  loads.  Usually a pullin at 79th will be the lucky bus chosen but it can happen with any bus just short turn it sb that's all. I wonder if service has gotton worse on the 4 since the sb extension? It needs some x service now.

[jajuan]

Yeah it doesn't seem like he did anything too far out the norm if he was indeed filling a spot caused by a big delay. I remember a point of waiting for a #76 at Sheridan and Diversey. The route had gotten backed up to the point of the delay being over a half hour heading west. So a supervisor monitor buses at that intersection pulled a #151 short that was heading to Belmont/Sheridan instead of Belmont/Halsted off route. He instructed that operator to finish his run up to Belmont and loop around back to Diversey to become a #76. What made it so memorable was that it was a Flx 6000 assigned to Kedzie at that time. There was even a time that Diversey got backed up enough that supervisor filled that run by pulling an operator off the #152, and that operator just happened to be driving a MAN Americana that was borrowed from Kedzie.

[strictures]

9 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Yeah it's such a long route that buses can bunch up and not make it into the loop. They will do some short turning around cermak or roosevelt and lsd is a good alternative sb to get those buses in place or you could lose the street and have to do a reload. One day there was a six pack nb they all either turned short or some jumped on lsd. They can put the #4 riders on a 3 nb at cermak but if one bus goes into the loop or two in the place of 6 intervals they will be late from the heavier than normal  loads.  Usually a pullin at 79th will be the lucky bus chosen but it can happen with any bus just short turn it sb that's all. I wonder if service has gotton worse on the 4 since the sb extension? It needs some x service now.

The #4 just needs a few more buses.  There are too many on the #3, but for some reason, the CTA won't admit that there are far fewer people living along King Dr. than before.  So much was demolished along the street, that the buses on King, just don't carry the loads they used to, but Cottage Grove & Michigan Ave. have boomed lately.

[chitowndude84]

 

15 hours ago, BusHunter said:

No a supervisor can run a bus from another route. It's not a big deal as long as the bus wasn't needed. Like there was a missed run in front of it. Ive seen optimas on the #152. As long as theres a bus. Now if a bus was pulled off a route and not replaced the supervisor would need a good reason to do that like no yellow line service or a service disruption. In fact artics will run the 97 in such instances.

 

 

IIRC, The 97 bus we were waiting on was running late so that could be another reason ?? who knows ?? 

 

And I lived in Skokie most of 90's and NEVER once saw another artic on the 97 again ??. Must have happened during extremely rare circumstances ??

 

Dave

 

[Busjack]

8 hours ago, chitowndude84 said:

 

 

 

IIRC, The 97 bus we were waiting on was running late so that could be another reason ?? who knows ?? 

 

And I lived in Skokie most of 90's and NEVER once saw another artic on the 97 again ??. Must have happened during extremely rare circumstances ??

 

Dave

 

The real question is not the instances posted by others of supervisors used to having the authority to try to maintain schedules (such authority apparently being taken over by the computerized dispatch center) but that somehow the supervisor authorized essentially a joyride.

[chitowndude84]

22 minutes ago, Busjack said:

The real question is not the instances posted by others of supervisors used to having the authority to try to maintain schedules (such authority apparently being taken over by the computerized dispatch center) but that somehow the supervisor authorized essentially a joyride.

 

??? I can only assume it was the mid '90's, Less Policy/bureaucracy back then ???

[Busjack]

12 minutes ago, chitowndude84 said:

 

??? I can only assume it was the mid '90's, Less Policy/bureaucracy back then ???

That could be the only explanation, given later stinks about overtime and CTA not being allowed to count deadheads as in service mileage, not to mention the computerized dispatch, which I just mentioned again.

[chitowndude84]

4 hours ago, Busjack said:

That could be the only explanation, given later stinks about overtime and CTA not being allowed to count deadheads as in service mileage, not to mention the computerized dispatch, which I just mentioned again.

 

As Archie and Edith sang, "Those were the days" 

 

 

Dave

[jajuan]

On 5/2/2018 at 10:46 PM, strictures said:

The #4 just needs a few more buses.  There are too many on the #3, but for some reason, the CTA won't admit that there are far fewer people living along King Dr. than before.  So much was demolished along the street, that the buses on King, just don't carry the loads they used to, but Cottage Grove & Michigan Ave. have boomed lately.

Could be that since the #1 no longer serves areas south of 35th Street, CTA looks at it now as a sort of supplement to the #4 and doesn't feel a need to put more buses on the actual #4 route for that reason.