new 7000-series railcars for CTA?

The first ten of the base 400 car order are now testing on blue...

...and here's a video of their Blue line debut. Turns out they were in actual revenue service...

They've been running break-in testing on all lines over the past couple of months. Pending successful revenue service testing of the first ten cars, the other 390 will proceed.

I am a bit surprised that they've decided to deploy them on the Blue first, considering the rather decrepit state of the Forest Park branch. I wonder how the succeeding sets will be assigned; to the Blue that's been siphoning cars off other lines to fill capacity gaps, or the Orange where they can be used to their full operational potential more quickly?

What's the latest on these cars?

by daybeers » Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:08 pm
What's the latest on these cars?

My understanding is they are now in revenue service on the Pink Line. I guess two 4-car sets are being used.

Took one for a spin 'round the Loop earlier this week. Very nice, with cameras everywhere. You're actually able to see yourself on one of the screens in the vestibule on the control end of the car, pretty cool.

For clarity, they are being tested in revenue service on Pink through tomorrow (Friday 6/11). Next week, I'm hearing they're gonna be testing up north, possibly on Yellow and/or Purple, don't know for sure...

CRRC has been incredibly slow with these. I hope they have fewer issues than the MBTA cars. I hope to catch some in September when I'm in Chicago; I didn't have time to hunt them down last weekend.

Have there been any updates in the last 6 months? As far as I know, CTA is still only running the original test set through all the different lines. How much longer before they are accepted for full-time revenue service?

Systemwide shakedown testing continues, with the focus shifting to the performance of the installed ATC signaling software. Next round of testing will be a quad (four car) set on the Red line Tuesday 1/4, between 0900 and 1500 according to the bulletin. If you'd like to hunt them down, there's no precise schedule available so you'll just have to hope the railfan gods are on your side in order to see them.

Meanwhile the suits have yet to give any indication on acceptance, so it appears testing in various phases will continue into the foreseeable future; at least through winter for sure...

Finally, after more than a year of in-service testing, the first production cars (7013 and 7014) have been delivered to the Skokie shops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIXNHehsQ0o

TurningOfTheWheel wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:29 pm I am a bit surprised that they've decided to deploy them on the Blue first, considering the rather decrepit state of the Forest Park branch. I wonder how the succeeding sets will be assigned; to the Blue that's been siphoning cars off other lines to fill capacity gaps, or the Orange where they can be used to their full operational potential more quickly?

The Blue Line relies on the 2600 and 3200 series, the oldest cars still in service. When it's been pointed out that this isn't a good look particularly for the first train visitors landing in O'Hare will see, the response is that the age of the O'Hare Branch line makes using mostly newer stock - as well as running service more frequently - not possible due to power demands. Was the 7000 series designed to be more efficient than the 5000 series? I hope so but I've been trying to look for some data on this and not come up with anything.