Random CTA

[artthouwill]

2 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Oh no that wasn't OT that was extra board work and to still have my wisdom teeth I'd hope to never have them pulled out. Speaking of which check out the Covid convoy.

I don't know why dentists always want to pull wisdom teeth.   If mine aren't infected, loose, or painful, mine are staying in.   I think putting wisdom teeth is the beginning of more dental work.   No thank you. 

Today shouldn't be an bad as the Bears aren't playing.   CTA  still has the Air and Water Show and the Cubs to deal with. 

[sht6131]

1 hour ago, Policeman said:

I'm guess either a glitch or the same run number 

 

1949    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
1953    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
1995    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
2012    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
2016    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
2018    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)
8198    72: North    72 -804    5 (Chicago)

Add 7927  72 North    72-804   5 (Chicago)  Probably borrowed from 77th

[Policeman]

4 minutes ago, sht6131 said:

Add 7927  72 North    72-804   5 (Chicago)  Probably borrowed from 77th

And 1302/7986

[Shannoncvpi]

5 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Oh no that wasn't OT that was extra board work and to still have my wisdom teeth I'd hope to never have them pulled out. Speaking of which check out the Covid convoy.

Aw dam always the extra board lol but man now they got all the covid buses there must need oil chamges since they arent at their home garages but yea it was only 1 bother me tooth 32 but he started talking bout the other 3 & how they could do so I said cut the check get all 1 shot deal 

[Shannoncvpi]

3 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I don't know why dentists always want to pull wisdom teeth.   If mine aren't infected, loose, or painful, mine are staying in.   I think putting wisdom teeth is the beginning of more dental work.   No thank you. 

Today shouldn't be an bad as the Bears aren't playing.   CTA  still has the Air and Water Show and the Cubs to deal with. 

Yea only 1 was bothering me but he was talking bout the other 3 I said cut the check just knock em all out at once 

[Policeman]

5 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Oh no that wasn't OT that was extra board work and to still have my wisdom teeth I'd hope to never have them pulled out. Speaking of which check out the Covid convoy.

I actually had saw 1938 near 79th and Stony Island

[Shannoncvpi]

3 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I don't know why dentists always want to pull wisdom teeth.   If mine aren't infected, loose, or painful, mine are staying in.   I think putting wisdom teeth is the beginning of more dental work.   No thank you. 

Today shouldn't be an bad as the Bears aren't playing.   CTA  still has the Air and Water Show and the Cubs to deal with. 

I'm just glad to have em out now I'm on med leave I go back to school tommrow missed Thursday & friday imma go get some parts for my business in a lil while for the first time since having these suckas snatched but its all good tho 

[strictures]

4 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I don't know why dentists always want to pull wisdom teeth.   If mine aren't infected, loose, or painful, mine are staying in.   I think putting wisdom teeth is the beginning of more dental work.   No thank you. 

Today shouldn't be an bad as the Bears aren't playing.   CTA  still has the Air and Water Show and the Cubs to deal with. 

They get removed because in most people they come in crooked & don't fully come in.  Mine had to be pulled in my early 20s when they finally came in, because they were impacted & painful.  The anthropologists say our jaws are much smaller than our ancestors, from just a few hundred years ago.

[Policeman]

Something random

[Shannoncvpi]

1948 needs a hood replacement

[Shannoncvpi]

Just happen to be thinking about it what went wrong with the 500's for CTA to retire all of them way early I see they wasnt brought with fed funds cuz they when into serive in like 06-07 & was kbocked off by 14/15

[YoungBusLover]

1 hour ago, Shannoncvpi said:

Just happen to be thinking about it what went wrong with the 500's for CTA to retire all of them way early I see they wasnt brought with fed funds cuz they when into serive in like 06-07 & was kbocked off by 14/15

Simple, they were the Lemons of the fleet, very problematic from the time they entered service up until they got retired. A few were purchased by Kankakee from what I remembered and one was kept briefly by CTA as a ventra info bus but other than that they just weren't as popular.

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Shannoncvpi said:

Just happen to be thinking about it what went wrong with the 500's for CTA to retire all of them way early I see they wasnt brought with fed funds cuz they when into serive in like 06-07 & was kbocked off by 14/15

Well the parent company was NABI. That should explain that. They could have gotten way better buses from someone like Eldorado. The Opus' were probably the worst choice. But I think I heard that the small buses dont have a 12 FTA year service life like the 40 footers. I thought I might have heard it was 8 or 9 years. I remember reading it in one of the Pace bus stories when they talked about retiring the eldorkos. 

[NewFlyerMCI]

29 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Well the parent company was NABI. That should explain that. They could have gotten way better buses from someone like Eldorado. The Opus' were probably the worst choice. But I think I heard that the small buses dont have a 12 FTA year service life like the 40 footers. I thought I might have heard it was 8 or 9 years. I remember reading it in one of the Pace bus stories when they talked about retiring the eldorkos. 

Even the last NABI 35-LFWs and 40-LFWs are still putting in work after all these years (looking at Dallas, Houston and the state of NJ). However, the bus was started by Chance Coach and was then bought by NABI, who then ceased production 2 years later (probably for the host of issues these buses experienced with various agencies).

Just a quick browse of CPTDB's page on the optima opus, there's at least 2-3 agencies that got 5-10 years out of the buses and then had to suddenly retire or sideline them. No way to know back then for CTA to know what we know now, but they'd have done much better with a Gillig or NF

[Shannoncvpi]

4 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Simple, they were the Lemons of the fleet, very problematic from the time they entered service up until they got retired. A few were purchased by Kankakee from what I remembered and one was kept briefly by CTA as a ventra info bus but other than that they just weren't as popular.

Aw ok didnt know what was up with em

[Shannoncvpi]

6882 running on the 28 just ran across it 

[NovaBusFan]

6 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

Just happen to be thinking about it what went wrong with the 500's for CTA to retire all of them way early I see they wasnt brought with fed funds cuz they when into serive in like 06-07 & was kbocked off by 14/15

We’ll apparently those were never heavy duty buses like the 40 footers and wasn’t expected to last up to 12 years of service from the FTA guidelines, they were a little jumpy when I rode one of the #500s in 2007 when I was 5. They were only mainly used on light routes like the 172 and on side streets. I truly do miss them a bit after they were retired in 2014 around the same period of time the #900s were being retired from service on a scale of 6 out of 10. I like the #900s better 10 out of 10 over the #500s tbh. #526 and #544 are the last two remaining on CTA property along with lonely #905 which is the only bus in the #900s left.

[Shannoncvpi]

5 hours ago, NovaBusFan said:

We’ll apparently those were never heavy duty buses like the 40 footers and wasn’t expected to last up to 12 years of service from the FTA guidelines, they were a little jumpy when I rode one of the #500s in 2007 when I was 5. They were only mainly used on light routes like the 172 and on side streets. I truly do miss them a bit after they were retired in 2014 around the same period of time the #900s were being retired from service on a scale of 6 out of 10. I like the #900s better 10 out of 10 over the #500s tbh. #526 and #544 are the last two remaining on CTA property along with lonely #905 which is the only bus in the #900s left.

I forgot about that cuz back in 07 I rode on 1 on the 85 with my moms it had a 6000 as a follow & it was a weak bus 

[NovaBusFan]

10 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

I forgot about that cuz back in 07 I rode on 1 on the 85 with my moms it had a 6000 as a follow & it was a weak bus 

True they were the weakest, I think FG and 103rd ran them, the bus side of CTA was so fun back then. 

[busfan2847]

1 hour ago, NovaBusFan said:

True they were the weakest, I think FG and 103rd ran them, the bus side of CTA was so fun back then. 

They started of at 103rd (501-516) for UC routes, Forest Glen (517-532) Jefferson Park feeder routes and North Park (533-544) less used Evanston routes. 501-529 moved to Archer in Mar-08 with the UC routes and also used on the 55A, 55N (and other Midway feeder routes) . By Dec-09 the North Park buses had moved to Forest Glen who now had 530-544, When Archer closed 501-520 moved to 103rd and 521-529 to Forest Glen (530 & 531 had moved to FG the year before). After the Archer closure they tended to move from 103rd to Forest Glen and back! Some also appeared at 77th. CTA really did not have sufficient routes for so many small vehicles! They were ideal vehicles for the University of Chicago routes which used narrow parked up side streets, however at peak times they needed to run more buses than they did to shift the crowds!

They were new in 2006 and withdrawals started in 2013 (544 went in 2012). 501-3/5/6/8-12/7/9/26/7/30/2-4/6/9/40 were the last in service withdrawn in Jan or Feb 2014

[artthouwill]

48 minutes ago, busfan2847 said:

They started of at 103rd (501-516) for UC routes, Forest Glen (517-532) Jefferson Park feeder routes and North Park (533-544) less used Evanston routes. 501-529 moved to Archer in Mar-08 with the UC routes and also used on the 55A, 55N (and other Midway feeder routes) . By Dec-09 the North Park buses had moved to Forest Glen who now had 530-544, When Archer closed 501-520 moved to 103rd and 521-529 to Forest Glen (530 & 531 had moved to FG the year before). After the Archer closure they tended to move from 103rd to Forest Glen and back! Some also appeared at 77th. CTA really did not have sufficient routes for so many small vehicles! They were ideal vehicles for the University of Chicago routes which used narrow parked up side streets, however at peak times they needed to run more buses than they did to shift the crowds!

They were new in 2006 and withdrawals started in 2013 (544 went in 2012). 501-3/5/6/8-12/7/9/26/7/30/2-4/6/9/40 were the last in service withdrawn in Jan or Feb 2014

The question is why they ordered so many?  Was it a matter of getting 45 for the price of 30?  Usually large orders can have a discount rate per vehicle as opposed to a smaller order.

Remember CTA purchased 15 used 35ft Orion Is from Pace for use on the UC routes.  Since those routes really only needed 5 buses max, some wound up on routes like the 28.

With 45 Optima buses,  some wound up on crazy routes.   My first Optima ride was one the 36 Broadway.   The bus was packed like a sardine can, and rherre was an empty 40 ft follower who would not pass us.

Even with Archer having the UC and Midway routes, and then used them on the 39 and 43, they still had an abundane of Optima.  timas.  I think 25 to 30 might have worked better.

[Sam92]

10 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

The question is why they ordered so many?  Was it a matter of getting 45 for the price of 30?  Usually large orders can have a discount rate per vehicle as opposed to a smaller order.

Remember CTA purchased 15 used 35ft Orion Is from Pace for use on the UC routes.  Since those routes really only needed 5 buses max, some wound up on routes like the 28.

With 45 Optima buses,  some wound up on crazy routes.   My first Optima ride was one the 36 Broadway.   The bus was packed like a sardine can, and rherre was an empty 40 ft follower who would not pass us.

Even with Archer having the UC and Midway routes, and then used them on the 39 and 43, they still had an abundane of Optima.  timas.  I think 25 to 30 might have worked better.

Then the amount of interlining that started increasing didn’t help either. You’d have a lightly used route interlined with something heavy like 68 and 56, 88/81, etc so you’d have optimas end up on a heavy run being crush loaded while a 40ft ended up on a feeder wasting space

[NovaBusFan]

3 hours ago, busfan2847 said:

They started of at 103rd (501-516) for UC routes, Forest Glen (517-532) Jefferson Park feeder routes and North Park (533-544) less used Evanston routes. 501-529 moved to Archer in Mar-08 with the UC routes and also used on the 55A, 55N (and other Midway feeder routes) . By Dec-09 the North Park buses had moved to Forest Glen who now had 530-544, When Archer closed 501-520 moved to 103rd and 521-529 to Forest Glen (530 & 531 had moved to FG the year before). After the Archer closure they tended to move from 103rd to Forest Glen and back! Some also appeared at 77th. CTA really did not have sufficient routes for so many small vehicles! They were ideal vehicles for the University of Chicago routes which used narrow parked up side streets, however at peak times they needed to run more buses than they did to shift the crowds!

They were new in 2006 and withdrawals started in 2013 (544 went in 2012). 501-3/5/6/8-12/7/9/26/7/30/2-4/6/9/40 were the last in service withdrawn in Jan or Feb 2014

Oh ok thx for the clarification 

[NewFlyerMCI]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

The question is why they ordered so many?  Was it a matter of getting 45 for the price of 30?  Usually large orders can have a discount rate per vehicle as opposed to a smaller order.

Remember CTA purchased 15 used 35ft Orion Is from Pace for use on the UC routes.  Since those routes really only needed 5 buses max, some wound up on routes like the 28.

With 45 Optima buses,  some wound up on crazy routes.   My first Optima ride was one the 36 Broadway.   The bus was packed like a sardine can, and rherre was an empty 40 ft follower who would not pass us.

Even with Archer having the UC and Midway routes, and then used them on the 39 and 43, they still had an abundane of Optima.  timas.  I think 25 to 30 might have worked better.

 

2 hours ago, Sam92 said:

Then the amount of interlining that started increasing didn’t help either. You’d have a lightly used route interlined with something heavy like 68 and 56, 88/81, etc so you’d have optimas end up on a heavy run being crush loaded while a 40ft ended up on a feeder wasting space

I still think 35ft buses have their place at CTA, especially at the FG, 103rd & 74th, but there would definitely need restructuring to make it work. Maybe the West Midway routes interlined with each other? Those routes being interlined with the 59 and not each other still doesn't make sense to me, I just assumed it was for driver reliefs. 

But yeah, routes like the 55A, 30, 111A, 93, 54A, 96, etc don't need consistent 40 ft service

[NovaBusFan]

13 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

 

I still think 35ft buses have their place at CTA, especially at the FG, 103rd & 74th, but there would definitely need restructuring to make it work. Maybe the West Midway routes interlined with each other? Those routes being interlined with the 59 and not each other still doesn't make sense to me, I just assumed it was for driver reliefs. 

But yeah, routes like the 55A, 30, 111A, 93, 54A, 96, etc don't need consistent 40 ft service

True give the #500s the lightest routes they can chew on.