doepack wrote:As much as I liked the skip-stop service, it wasn't always applied evenly to all routes. Pulling out a map from 1981, I noticed that the sum of A and B stations on the Ravenswood and Lake/Dan Ryan routes resulted in an an odd number, meaning that one group of trains was actually slightly faster than the other since it skipped an extra stop. But it seemed to work best on routes with densely packed stations, with somewhat negligible results (in terms of actual time savings) on routes within expressway medians...
I agree. If they returned to it, they would need to apply it so that the trains moved smoothly. They would also need to see how much traffic there was between intermediate stops as to limit as much as possible passengers having to change trains. However, on lines that have only two tracks, it would work better than express trains where you would have to schedule a large gap between the all stop train and the express. Otherwise the following express would be crawling, looking at approach and stop signals.
The Eisenhower expressway actually has room in the median for a third track which could be used for express service. I read that it was designed that way in case the C.A.&E. wanted to run downtown, but they couldn't get to a terminal without using a subway and they had many wooden cars which weren't allowed in subways.