Eight car trains ALL the time...

Does anyone know (or would care to guess) why CTA seems to be committed to running eight car trains on the Blue line at all times; nights and weekends included? Special events I can understand, but somehow, it doesn't make much sense to me to run trains that long at 1am on a Sunday night, and doing so can increase the potential of crime and vandalism. Cutting transit cars at terminals can't be that labor intensive, can it?

I've seen a few occasions where the 8 car Blue Line trains are cut to 4 cars. Usually weeknights are when I've seen the cuts. In some of these instances the 2200/2300 series cars are leading.

My guess for not cutting the cars now is the increased running times at night with the trackwork between Jefferson Park and Cumberland.

I've recently been in the city on Sundays and noticed that Red line trains also appear to be in 8-car consists. In the past I recall them being cut to 6 cars, and maybe 4 on weekends, especially when there was no ballgame scheduled at Wrigley or the Cell. I know there's construction going on between Armitage and Belmont, but that can't be the only reason for 8-car trains. Brown line trains (at least the ones I saw) still run at 4 cars on Sundays.

Its funny, but I can remember when they ran 2 car trains on the Lake Street and Ravenswood lines on Sundays. Two 4000s on Lake and two 6000s on Ravenswood.

The Englewood-Jackson Pk./Howard trains usually had 4 6000s on Sundays. The Evanston Shuttle had a single 1-50 car and the Skokie Swift didn't run.

I don't remember what the Congress-Douglas/Milwaukee trains had then because the Kennedy line hadn't been built yet so I never really rode them.

F40CFan wrote:I don't remember what the Congress-Douglas/Milwaukee trains had then because the Kennedy line hadn't been built yet so I never really rode them.

Congress/Douglas ran two car trains during middays, evenings, and weekends; this lasted well into the 70's after the Kennedy extension came online. Rush hour trains were six cars, and 6000s still made up the majority of the equipment, until the 2400s were delivered circa 1978; amd even then, it still took about 5 years for the 6000s to be completely phased out. Sometimes you'd see 4-car trains on this route on weekends during the holiday season, a practice that lasted into the early 80's; these were presumably "shopper's specials", and there would usually be a few 6000s in that mix.

Also, back then, you could always tell the end of rush hour when, on the Douglas branch, the last six-car train that ran past my house was almost always a 6000 series, and it was followed less than five minutes later by a two car 2200 or 2400; then it would just be two cars, usually of the newer equipment for the rest of the evening. Once in a great while I'd see a two-car 6000 series train in revenue service late in the evening, but that was pretty rare, and wouldn't happen again after 1980 or so. Ah, those were the days...

doepack wrote:Once in a great while I'd see a two-car 6000 series train in revenue service late in the evening, but that was pretty rare, and wouldn't happen again after 1980 or so. Ah, those were the days...

Now that you jogged my memory, I do remember two car 6000s or 2200s on the Kennedy line. You're right, those were the days...

Even into the 90's, you could still see 2-car trains on O'Hare-Congress/Douglas on weekends.

Everyone: I remember short 2-car CTA trains myself-especially on night or certain weekend services-speaking of them does anyone remember when the CTA-I believe it was in the 80s well before the CTA went OPTO-stopped having conductors collect fares on trains? I remember certain lighter-used stations had a "PAY ON TRAIN" sign-when it was displayed or lit off hours that was in effect.

I recall 8-car trains were the norm then on lines like Lake-Dan Ryan and the Englewood/Jackson Park-Howard for rush hour service and was the longest train 6 cars on lines such as Ravenswood? Has ridership increased today to the point that 8 car trains are necessary at almost all times?
MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote: I recall 8-car trains were the norm then on lines like Lake-Dan Ryan and the Englewood/Jackson Park-Howard for rush hour service and was the longest train 6 cars on lines such as Ravenswood? Has ridership increased today to the point that 8 car trains are necessary at almost all times?
MACTRAXX

Ravenswood always maxed at 6 cars. In the near future when the brown line renovations are done, they will be able to handle 8 car trains.

From what I've seen, there are times on the weekends and evenings when 8 car trains are justified.

I picked my son up at River Road yesterday and they were running 4-car trains.

Last Friday night as I was breezing along the Kennedy heading into downtown I saw a couple of 4 car trains along with 8 car trains on the O'Hare branch.

Haven't ridden it in a while, but the Green line was running a couple years ago, and likely still is, "two-car specials" during pretty much any off peak time periods. Kind of annoying since off-peak timeslots don't necessarily equal only a few riders.

Had to do a double-take while on 290 a couple of nights ago: Blue was running four car trains!! And even that's too many for late-night service, but it's a helluva lot better than the eight-car sets, which were commonplace at all hours of the day, night, & weekends. But knowing CTA, it's probably just temporary...

My theory on the four car night trains is the CTA wasn't cutting sets during the O'Hare branch slow zone project. Maybe to keep more equipment in service versus taking them out of service temporarily and not having enough equipment in the chance of an unforseen delay. In fact, last weekend I saw a few four car sets run during the overnight hours at the Damen/Milwaukee station in Bucktown/Wicker Park.

Ravenswood was eight-car trains Friday and Saturday. I think Wellington is the last station to be modernized so the 8-car operation has begun.