CTA 2200s: 1969-2013

The 2400's can't go soon enough. They have bum doors and bum a/c. Makes for a miserable ride in the AM. I sincerely wish they would've tossed the 2400's and kept the 2200's.

MACTRAXX wrote:Will the CTA preserve a pair for their historical fleet as I feel they should?

Illinois Railway Museum is the custodian of CTA's historic collection. There really was a street railway carhouse somewhere in Chicago stuffed with historic CTA cars intended for preservation decades ago. IRM got almost everything, except Fox River Trolley Museum got a post office street car, and the Chicago History Museum got the first elevated car. The only things CTA has kept are a pair of 1920s elevated cars and maybe a bus or two.

Don't forget, CTA sill has a pair of 4000's and a pair of 2000's painted green. The 4000's make it out once a year, the 2000's have been holed up at Skokie for over a decade.

When it comes time for the 2400s, 2401-02 (pilot prototype set) would be a candidate for IRM.

And in the 2020s, 3199-3200 would be a shoe-in, being the last cars built by the Budd Company.

The South Side Rapid Transit painted 2000s were evicted from Skokie to IRM at the same time time the 2200s were shipped to IRM. Whatever the Pullman factory museum plans were for those cars, it is apparently not happening now. Sounds like IRM will be using the green 2000s as a parts supply for their other 2000s and all the other high performance cars in the collection.

Not totally gone yet: Saw a six car set at Harlem Ave. yard wearing the red "A Congress Milwaukee" signs while riding by on UP/W; think they've been there at least a week or so. Car numbers are 2345/46, 2327/28, couldn't get the other two; the 2327/28 pair was among the eight cars used during the farewell trip in August. IIRC, there was a two-car set kept at 61st St. yard during the Dan Ryan rehab project, and I wonder if the 2345/46 pair was doing the honors. Anybody with more information about how these cars wound up at Harlem and how long they're expected to stay please chime in...

Those were the cars used on the *actual* last train of 2200s, a private charter that ran several weeks after the final public trip. The charter began and ended there; I guess the cars have just not yet been removed.

They've been parked there for weeks. I saw 'em too. Some have doors open.

It seemed like the scrapper was picking them up as fast as CTA cleared them.

More charters? One more Snowflake?

I still think another set should be saved. There's still time!

2243 and 2244 have now been equipped with trolley poles to run at IRM.

Taking the place of the set of 2200s in the Harlem yard on the Green Line is a set of candy-cane 2400s. I am not sure why they are there, but I've noticed they remain in the same spot. Could they have been pulled from service to eventually receive a similar fate?