CTA Moves Antique Cincinnati Cars

On Sunday, April 14, 2013, the CTA transferred the two Cincinnati Antique Cars from Linden Shop to Skokie Shop to clear up shop space for servicing Red line trains when the Ryan Branch of the Red line closes for a five months rehab this coming May. The closure will also close the 98th St. Red line shop facility, thus the need for additional space. The transfer also provided an opportunity to check rail car clearances and to assess rail car performance. To accomplish those goals, the cars travelled as far as the Loop 'L' before arriving at Skokie Shops. A special signboard marking the 90th anniversary of the cars was carried on the front. Dozens of passengers waiting regular Purple, Red, and Brown line service were surprised when the two 4000 series cars rumbled by them. The amusing story among some of the participants aboard the 4000s was, "If we stop and open the doors...would they get on?"

David Harrison

Chicagopcclcars wrote:On Sunday, April 14, 2013, the CTA transferred the two Cincinnati Antique Cars from Linden Shop to Skokie Shop to clear up shop space for servicing Red line trains when the Ryan Branch of the Red line closes for a five months rehab this coming May. The closure will also close the 98th St. Red line shop facility, thus the need for additional space

I was wondering where they were going to store some of the cars once the rehab gets underway. I imagine Howard St. yard is going to get pretty crowded as well. Too bad Wilson yard doesn't exist anymore...

How come they're not using Upper 63rd to store trains for the duration of the rebuild?

Tadman wrote:How come they're not using Upper 63rd to store trains for the duration of the rebuild?

You haven't been keeping touch.....Upper 61st yard IS being used. For the weekends when the Englewood branch of the Green line was closed, in March and April, 61st St. yards was used to store extra Green line trains I saw as many as 20 cars on one Sunday. 61st St. does not have shop facilities. I understand they are building some simple crew facilities there in anticipation of the five month Ryan Red shutdown. During the shutdown, all Green line trains will go to Cottage Grove while the rerouted Red line trains will go to Ashland/63.

DH

DH: Interesting news on the coming "split" of CTA terminals for the Dan Ryan Re-Construction Project...

When I read your post I realized that Englewood-Howard would represent the rerouted Dan Ryan trains
and Jackson Park-LAKE would represent the regular Green Line service...

It is kind of ironic remembering that Englewood-Howard trains once used red and Jackson Park-
Howard used green on station and train roll signs...

Getting back to the Cincinnati cars topic: I remember my first year visiting Chicago as a teen-ager
back 40 years ago in 1973(!!!) and how these cars were used in Evanston Express service-their last
year of service as I later found out...These two cars look great and they have been preserved well...

MACTRAXX

Yes, with a little imagination one can conceive that the rerouted Howard /Ashland Red line trains are an incarnation of the old Howard/ Englewood. But there is no incarnation of the Howard /Jackson Park as the Green line trains originate at Harlem. Regarding roll sign colors, yes the Red line 2600 series have gotten new roll signs with a red "Ashland". But the 5000 series cars on the Red line will use their green "Ashland" signs. Despite what some railfans think, the 5000 series rollsigns are not programable in a way that colors and text can easily be changed. At least that is what CTA personnel have told me.

DH

Despite what some railfans think, the 5000 series rollsigns are not programable in a way that colors and text can easily be changed. At least that is what CTA personnel have told me.

Unbelievable, yet totally believable at the same time.... We spend all this money on these cars with all this crazy new equipment that somehow we've made it through 100+ years of elevated railroading without (such as the light-up real-time map) and we can't reprogram the destination signs by doing something simple like plugging in a laptop.

<slow clap>

PCC: I remembered my mistake here: I should have mentioned "Jackson Park-LAKE instead of Howard...

The Englewood-Howard trains will use their former route via the State Street Subway to Howard
during the Dan Ryan Re-Construction Project...

The Jackson Park,or 63/Stony Island trains will use their regular route via the Loop L to Harlem/Lake
on the Lake Street L...

That should clarify things...MACTRAXX

I noticed on the 1985 CTA MAP that the various "L"/subway routes are marked with colors, well in advance of the formal color designations now used (after the Howard and Dan Ryan lines were joined together as the RED LINE).

Lake-Dan Ryan West-South route is GREEN.

STATE STREET SUBWAY Howard/Englewood/Jackson Park North-South route is RED (Jackson Park service cut back to "University").

DEARBORN STREET SUBWAY O'Hare/Congress/Douglas West-Northwest route is BLUE.

Ravenswood route is BROWN.

Evanston route is PURPLE.

Skokie Swift route is ORANGE (there being no Midway Airport line at the time).

P231: The color coding began in the late 70s actually...

After the RTA began they issued maps in color-quite a contrast to what the CTA's maps had
previous to that time and they used colors to designate the CTA's routes and as we now know
those eventually evolved into the CTA routes-and now color names-we have today...

MACTRAXX

You're right! I looked at the November, 1976 RTA MAP and it does show that they had already gotten out their crayons and colored in the various "L" lines.

However, on that map, the RAVENSWOOD Line was colored PURPLE and the EVANSTON Line was colored BROWN, instead of the other way around.

Purple is the school color for Northwestern University in Evanston (and the Wildcats).