Blue Line Rehab

[trainman8119]

Anybody go out between Jeff Park and Harlem and notice the work being done lately. I went that way on the way home from work on Saturday night, and it looked like a war zone near Nagle. The entire median was dug up !!!! Going through today on the way to the loop, and there were enough workers on the tracks in assorted areas between Harlem and Montrose to start the Edens project (if the highway department had that many people standing around, they wouldn't need 2 years to finish their projects).

Any way, the moral to the story here, is I thought the slow zones out there were because the ties were so bad. Going by today, I noticed new rail, ties, 3rd rail, ballast, signals, the entire schtick !!! Now, ballast would come with the new ties, but entirely new rail with new 3rd rail sections and signals. Did the CTA play us for fools by claiming the slow zone were just bad ties. Was the Federal Governmant being nice which allowed them to add to the cost of the project. Or was the enitre slow zone thing just another whining ploy by the CTA exects to cover up a more serious problem. Seems to me they over priced the work so they could do more than just replace ties to eliminate the supposed slow zone. Did they divert money from other slow zone projects to do work that was not outlined ??? Or did they just combine 2 or 3 projects into one and do it all at once. I know uncle sam doesn't like money used for things they didn't give it for (see the North Ave bus garage land swap deal for example), but something seems a little bit fishy to me here.

[Busjack]

The only fast reply is that people on other boards claim that if the ties go, the rails get bent under traffic and have to be replaced. That is supposedly why the Dan Ryan needed such a complete rehabilitation a couple of years ago.