Search

I wound up catching one in revenue service on Tuesday, 24 hours before they went bye-bye for good - by accident. I overslept for work on Tuesday, and missed my usual Metra train. Wound up driving down and parking at a lot next to the Eisenhower on the UIC campus, and took the Blue line into the loop...

The word going around is that revenue usage of 2200-series CTA cars has come to an end, following the AM rush period yesterday (July 31st). No word yet on if there will be a "formal" retirement ceremony in the near future. A dark day for traction foamers and fans of angular 1960s design, a...

I figure this is somewhat "newsworthy" and as good of a place to post about it as any: IRM took delivery of CTA 2243-2244 this week; one car on Wednesday, one on Thursday. So far they've been re-joined at the drawbar, wired back to one another, and ran themselves about a foot in either dir...

I've always figured that this is how it works, not just with the CTA but public transportation agencies in general: 1). Upper management sets a policy which permits photography, within reason. Most photos are fine, although if you're being unsafe or using a tripod then you'll be asked to stop. 2). M...

Metra's roots of having freight management go back to the RTA's assumption of commuter rail service. Back when that happened, you had lots of ex-Rock Island and Milwaukee Road managers who came on board to run things as their respective roads went bankrupt. At that time that was good for the system ...

This does seem to be Pagano Metra vs. New Metra, with the former winning out this round. With Clifford you got the feeling that at some point in the near future the agency might actually become a real, modern mass transit system, rather than the operation we have now, whose middle management treats ...

Wait they're scrapping 53? Was it in rough shape? Car 53 is (soon to be was) in pretty rough shape: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidfullarton/sets/72157626562618313/ Monticello isn't exactly scrapping it; rather the car is basically IRM's to do what we want with it, and given our own needs and pr...

IRM gets lots of old CTA stuff as it is, and a variety of things (mostly signs) are available on www.irm.org. Although people like us on this forum would be interested in things like old wayside signals, the overall market for those things is actually pretty small. Example: IRM has been working with...

I went on a drive a little while ago to see what's going on with the Dan Ryan branch now that it's been shut down for 15 hours. Work is already underway; it appeared that some electrical work was being done between 87th and 95th, and other work of an undetermined nature was being done between 35th a...

Your best bet is going to be to look around at local passenger rail agencies, or state DOTs with a rail division. Freight railroads may have some positions which deal with GIS, but they're going to be fewer and further between than on the passenger side of things. You can also look around at enginee...

Running Purple in the subway is an idea. However, that's a 2-track line, right? Wouldn't the Purple trains then get stuck behind the Red Line trains and not make travel any faster? Presently the Purple Line Express trains make the same local stops as Brown/Purple/Green/Pink line trains do in the lo...

Although Super Steel is best known for being in charge of the Turboliner rehabs and assembling the LIRR locomotives, they probably made most of their money quietly assembling 300+ Nippon-Sharyo gallery cars in Milwaukee for Metra/CalTrain/VRE/CSS. It's not explicitly stated in this article but N-S's...

Agreed. The 710 prime mover's production dates back to the mid 80s, and I'm sure development predates that by -/+ 5 years. Sooner or later it's going to be replaced by something else.

Of note, the model number of this new engine is C175-20. That's a 20 cylinder prime mover.

EMD is apparently trying to make use of a crate of "Winnebago" windshields it has laying around La Grange....

Given that barring track-dashers from boarding is being practiced on both Metra and (at least) UP operated lines, I suspect it's an order that came down from the top.