Spring 2024 Rail Pick

[renardo870]

With the Spring 2024 Rail Pick coming up on April 7th, are they going to restore runs on the rails that were cut like the Brownage supplemental service and other services that will be closer to pre covid numbers?

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, renardo870 said:

With the Spring 2024 Rail Pick coming up on April 7th, are they going to restore runs on the rails that were cut like the Brownage supplemental service and other services that will be closer to pre covid numbers?

No.  There's still a staffing shortage.  

[wayfaringrob]

12 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

No.  There's still a staffing shortage.  

Carter made a comment at transportation committee about increases in service in the next few weeks, and I just don't understand how that's feasible when we're seeing alerts along the lines of "we can't get anyone to come to work right now, good luck out there" under the current schedule. I understand that that is usually more of a late night occurrence, and maybe they really are prepared to increase service at other times, but you can't help but be skeptical at this point.

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, wayfaringrob said:

Carter made a comment at transportation committee about increases in service in the next few weeks, and I just don't understand how that's feasible when we're seeing alerts along the lines of "we can't get anyone to come to work right now, good luck out there" under the current schedule. I understand that that is usually more of a late night occurrence, and maybe they really are prepared to increase service at other times, but you can't help but be skeptical at this point.

I don't know what's in the scheduling computer, but Carter has gone both ways: suggesting that things were getting better, but also putting out a Press Release of his comments to the City Council apparently refuting some columnist saying just make all the flaggers operators.

[Busjack]

Here's another question: In trying to figure out how many cars CTA would need after RPM and RLE, it looks like CTA is running about half of current rail capacity, Looking at the tracker and schedules indicates afternoon rush of 20 Red Line trains (160 cars), 6 Orange Line trains (48 cars), and 11 Brown Line trains (88 cars). Does that sound correct?

[artthouwill]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

Here's another question: In trying to figure out how many cars CTA would need after RPM and RLE, it looks like CTA is running about half of current rail capacity, Looking at the tracker and schedules indicates afternoon rush of 20 Red Line trains (160 cars), 6 Orange Line trains (48 cars), and 11 Brown Line trains (88 cars). Does that sound correct?

The Red Line capacity today seems low considering today was opening day for the Cubs AND  the White Sox were also playing at home.

[Busjack]

CTA Press Release that new timetables will be be effctive April 7, and  "The new schedule enables the agency to dynamically add scheduled service to align with the growing rail operator workforce throughout the spring and summer." The updated timetables are here.

I first saw this in the Sun-Times, which sounded skeptical.

[Elkmn]

Not true. Service cuts upon service cuts. It's to a point where the purple line runs every 15-30 minutes during saturdays, and this might be an error, but there's 50 minute gaps on the gl branches, and the yellow line is running every 20 minutes. The only hope is the more frequent blue line schedules. I'm done with the 'l', metra should expect a new semi-regular rider.

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Elkmn said:

Not true. Service cuts upon service cuts. It's to a point where the purple line runs every 15-30 minutes during saturdays, and this might be an error, but there's 50 minute gaps on the gl branches, and the yellow line is running every 20 minutes. The only hope is the more frequent blue line schedules. I'm done with the 'l', metra should expect a new semi-regular rider.

There's one early morning 50 minute gap on the  Cottage Grove branch and one 50 minute gap on the Ashland/63 branch in the evening.   If it's a mistake,  then almost the entire schedule is wrong.  But if not, then there has to be a reason why.    

[NewFlyerMCI]

59 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

There's one early morning 50 minute gap on the  Cottage Grove branch and one 50 minute gap on the Ashland/63 branch in the evening.   If it's a mistake,  then almost the entire schedule is wrong.  But if not, then there has to be a reason why.    

It's not a mistake, @Busjack quoted what Dorval said in his above message. This is the service they know they can provide now, and as they train more operators into service, they can fill in the gaps (although, and this is my speculation, the physical schedules won't be updated until the next pick, the trains will just phase in).

There are also more gaps. Two 30 min gaps on morning O'hare bound trains, 7-15 min headways on Blue thru Clark/Lake from 5:30-7:30p, the two green line gaps you mentioned, an ~100 min gap btwn West 63rd trains in the evening, and as @Elkmn mentioned, the new yellow and purple headways. I read somewhere that Blue (O'hare) gained weekday and weekend trains, and Brown only saw a minor weekend decrease, but every other line saw about a 7-13% decrease across weekday & weekend

[Tcmetro]

These schedules are hilariously bad. What a joke.

20 min yellow line service started a few months ago with the speed restrictions on the line.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

but every other line saw about a 7-13% decrease across weekday & weekend

I guess that's why @Elkmn said not true and @Tcmetro said what a joke, when any gains were matched with cuts on other lines.

[NewFlyerMCI]

If this is the way it has to be done, I guess, but some of these gaps are pretty brutal. No train for an hour to East 63rd btwn 4-5p. 24 min headways from Harlem btwn 6:30p-8:15p. No trains to West 63rd for 96 minutes. No departure from Forest Park for 30 minutes, during rush hour. I suppose this schedule being released answers my question, but I really wonder if it would've been better to just reduce headways uniformly rather than some of these service gaps. The slow zones being concentrated to the Blue & Green lines don't help much either

[Busjack]

10 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

but I really wonder if it would've been better to just reduce headways uniformly rather than some of these service gaps.

The real question is where the demand is. If people are packed like sardines on the O'Hare and few are going to 63rd, you send the crew to O'Hare, even though that counters the feds paying to rebuild ridership. Green Line still has the Red Line as an alternative.

[artthouwill]

11 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

If this is the way it has to be done, I guess, but some of these gaps are pretty brutal. No train for an hour to East 63rd btwn 4-5p. 24 min headways from Harlem btwn 6:30p-8:15p. No trains to West 63rd for 96 minutes. No departure from Forest Park for 30 minutes, during rush hour. I suppose this schedule being released answers my question, but I really wonder if it would've been better to just reduce headways uniformly rather than some of these service gaps. The slow zones being concentrated to the Blue & Green lines don't help much either

I looked at the Blue Line schedule from Forest Park and noted the one 30 .instead gap at the back end of the rush hour  ( 5:43p - 6:13p).  In between are two trips scheduled from UIC Halsted, with the second one departing 15 minutes before the arrival of the one from Forest Park.   I could be wrong but my guess is that CTA has done an exhaustive study of who's riding when.  They may have determined that,  based on boarding, there's little to no ridership on the Forest Park branch during those times.   Therefore the 30 minute gap can be justified and they can use the short turns to keep up with demand on the O'Hare branch.   The ridership gap between the O'Hare branch and the Forest Park branch is wider than the Howard branch and Englewood and Jackson Park branches.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

I looked at the Blue Line schedule from Forest Park and noted the one 30 .instead gap at the back end of the rush hour  ( 5:43p - 6:13p).  In between are two trips scheduled from UIC Halsted, with the second one departing 15 minutes before the arrival of the one from Forest Park.   I could be wrong but my guess is that CTA has done an exhaustive study of who's riding when.  They may have determined that,  based on boarding, there's little to no ridership on the Forest Park branch during those times.   Therefore the 30 minute gap can be justified and they can use the short turns to keep up with demand on the O'Hare branch.   The ridership gap between the O'Hare branch and the Forest Park branch is wider than the Howard branch and Englewood and Jackson Park branches.

I was thinking similarly, but was wondering with the Green Line why certain groups of trains were only going to Cottage Grove, instead of what CTA did the last time the Green Line was short--run Harlem-Ashland trains and a shuttle between Cottage Grove and Garfield.

But I guess you missed that Howard trains quit running to 63rd about 30 years ago,or meant to say Harlem. 😚

[Tcmetro]

The schedules look like they just eliminated the blocks that didn't get chosen in the last pick.

[artthouwill]

12 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I was thinking similarly, but was wondering with the Green Line why certain groups of trains were only going to Cottage Grove, instead of what CTA did the last time the Green Line was short--run Harlem-Ashland trains and a shuttle between Cottage Grove and Garfield.

But I guess you missed that Howard trains quit running to 63rd about 30 years ago,or meant to say Harlem. 😚

I meant Howard  and Englewood  and Jackson Park.   The disparity was the reason behind the realignment.  I was pointing out the current disparity between the Blue Line branches is wider than  that of the old Howard- SSM    The difference us that rge South Side trains couldn't be short turned.  But you bring up a point.   Why couldn't CTA short turn Green Line trains at Roosevelt using 13th Street Middle tracks?

My other thought was that Cottage Grove was the shorter of the two branches and would be faster to turn trains back to Harlem,  but that doesn't explain why sometimes the Ashland branch has multiple trains and the Cottage Grove branch has the gaps.

[Busjack]

55 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

Why couldn't CTA short turn Green Line trains at Roosevelt using 13th Street Middle tracks?

Half were somewhere around there or at 35th during the Dan Ryan rebuild when only "Red" Line trains went to Ashland, while there were still Harlem-Cottage Grove Green Line trains.

But you bring up something that Chicagoans understand that NY high school YouTubers and infant commenters there don't: The two ends of an interlined route should match, and their proposals to eliminate the Tower 12 junction by joining the Orange and Pink lines or to "avoid the problem the A train has" by linking the Brown with 63rd-Ashland would not work (although in the early days of the subway, there were Englewood-Ravenswood trains). You also imply another problem with the high schooler's plan to short turn trains at Adams-Wowbosch: there's a middle at 13th and CTA rebuilt the Morgan middle, but there isn't a turnback on the Loop.

Anyway, I guess the "dynamic" of the schedule is using new operators to fill in the missing trips, as opposed to increasing frequency overall.

[Sam92]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

Half were somewhere around there or at 35th during the Dan Ryan rebuild when only "Red" Line trains went to Ashland, while there were still Harlem-Cottage Grove Green Line trains.

But you bring up something that Chicagoans understand that NY high school YouTubers and infant commenters there don't: The two ends of an interlined route should match, and their proposals to eliminate the Tower 12 junction by joining the Orange and Pink lines or to "avoid the problem the A train has" by linking the Brown with 63rd-Ashland would not work (although in the early days of the subway, there were Englewood-Ravenswood trains). You also imply another problem with the high schooler's plan to short turn trains at Adams-Wowbosch: there's a middle at 13th and CTA rebuilt the Morgan middle, but there isn't a turnback on the Loop.

Anyway, I guess the "dynamic" of the schedule is using new operators to fill in the missing trips, as opposed to increasing frequency overall.

I remember the short greens being Roosevelt AM rush and outer Loop PM rush. Turning back at 35th was for the browns during the wells bridge rebuild along with some of those going to 63rd middle. In any case these gaps just seem weird overall; part of me wanted to say that maybe the group of cottage Grove runs ending together while leaving a gap was to bring in some trains earlier and thus lower the frequency earlier but that doesn't explain the gap where s bunch of trains end at Ashland. Also Brown is showing similar gaps to the blue with random 20-30 min headways. With those occuring around rush hour maybe some type of mass shift change where they're bringing multiple operators back to clock out? 

[artthouwill]

11 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

I remember the short greens being Roosevelt AM rush and outer Loop PM rush. Turning back at 35th was for the browns during the wells bridge rebuild along with some of those going to 63rd middle. In any case these gaps just seem weird overall; part of me wanted to say that maybe the group of cottage Grove runs ending together while leaving a gap was to bring in some trains earlier and thus lower the frequency earlier but that doesn't explain the gap where s bunch of trains end at Ashland. Also Brown is showing similar gaps to the blue with random 20-30 min headways. With those occuring around rush hour maybe some type of mass shift change where they're bringing multiple operators back to clock out? 

I considered that but also considered " lunch" breaks .  Instead of operators filling gaps for lunch,  the operators are " lunching " themselves.  The schedules are allowing them to fall back without extra operators filling in .  Maybe the multip6trips to one branch are split shift runs.  

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

Maybe the multip6trips to one branch are split shift runs.

But that doesn't explain those to 63-Cottage Grove, which isn't a reporting terminal.

[artthouwill]

Someone has to report there.  The last two trains at night to Cottage Grove berth there overnight and depart about 410 and 440 or so.  They don't deadhead from Harlem.   Unlike Ashland which has a yard and stub tracks, Cottage Grove can only berth a maximum of two trains.   This is why the first departure to Harlem is from 63rd and Ashland. But the first departure from Harlem is to Cottage Grove.  When it gets there, it is the next departing train, but more than likely a different operator.  

Before the new schedule operators would alternate operating their trips to Ashland or Cottage Grove regardless of where they started.  With the new schedule I don't know if that's still possible. 

[Busjack]

11 hours ago, artthouwill said:

Someone has to report there.  The last two trains at night to Cottage Grove berth there overnight and depart about 410 and 440 or so.  They don't deadhead from Harlem.   Unlike Ashland which has a yard and stub tracks, Cottage Grove can only berth a maximum of two trains.   This is why the first departure to Harlem is from 63rd and Ashland. But the first departure from Harlem is to Cottage Grove.  When it gets there, it is the next departing train, but more than likely a different operator.  

Before the new schedule operators would alternate operating their trips to Ashland or Cottage Grove regardless of where they started.  With the new schedule I don't know if that's still possible. 

I don't think that's the case. It was stated that trains pull out of Racine, reverse over the junction at 59th, and then start at Cottage Grove. See here on chicago-l.org, which says "the Green Line (of which the Jackson Park and Englewood were now a part) was closed in 1994 and when they reopened in 1996 trains were no longer dispatched from 61st. With 61st Yard now only for nonrevenue equipment, all South Side Green Line runs, still numbered in the 600s, are dispatched from Ashland. Those runs whose first in-service trip begins at Cottage Grove-East 63rd (on the former Jackson Park branch) simply "run lite" (with no passengers) from Ashland to East 63rd."

I don't think CTA is so nuts as to leave two trains unattended in the middle of Woodlawn.

[scotthilly]

Someone referenced this is another thread and I wanted to chime in. This new schedule is absolutely, 100% an improvement.

im a rush hour brown / purple line commuter and there’s trains approaching twice as often. I’d get to Armitage at 7:45 and it’d be 7/12/20 min waits. Now, it’s more than not 2/5/8/12. Same in the afternoon; trains are running at least 50% more and are rarely crush loaded. A few weeks ago you’d have to let them go by, during rush, at merchandise mart and at armitage.

 

Saturday service is also better and the schedule is legitimately followed. With that said, the 25 min gaps on Saturday / Sundays is quite brutal.

 

but to say this is just service cuts and worse is entirely wrong. Sorry, but green line every 50 mins from one branch that goes 2 miles is not impactful compared to brown / blue rush additions.