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Discussion related to commuter rail and rapid transit operations in the Chicago area including the South Shore Line, Metra Rail, and Chicago Transit Authority.

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 #1528202  by orangeline
 
This is a snippet from the October 27, 2019 Brown line schedule. Please refer to the yellow highlighted areas.


Brown Line sked.JPG
Brown Line sked.JPG (155.15 KiB) Viewed 1482 times
 #1528367  by doepack
 
orangeline wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 8:34 amOut of curiosity, I looked up schedules for both lines and noticed that the Orange to Brown change occurs no later than 7:09 am while the Brown to Orange change happens no later than 8:54 am. The timing is such that it appears to me the Orange to Brown trains reach Kimball and then about 15 minutes later leave as Brown to return to Midway as Orange. There are 6 such trains each way Monday - Friday.

1. Is my assessment of the timing correct?
2. Why does CTA do this and only on weekday mornings?
3. Would there be any advantage to, say, instead extend Purple line Express trains (6 cars instead of 8) from the Loop to Midway in the am and pm?
1. That is correct, as confirmed by the current schedules for both routes. Six morning "brownage" trains that make Midway to Kimball and back to Midway round trips. According to the schedules, in the Loop, the switch from Orange to Brown occurs at Harold Washington Library; serving the Van Buren and Wells portions of the Loop before heading to Kimball.

Meanwhile, the switch from Brown to Orange happens at Adams/Wabash, serving the Lake and Wabash segments of the Loop before heading to Midway. Normally, the first Loop stop for Brown is Washington/Wells, but for these six southbound "brownage" runs, the first stop in the Loop is Clark/Lake, much to the chagrin of the folks planning to get off along Wells or Van Buren.

I would imagine these trains have run numbers in the 700 series since they're originating from Midway.

2. It's my understanding that this was done to add capacity for southbound Brown service to the loop during the peak of the AM rush. The extra sets come from Midway because there's no room at Kimball, it's maxed out.

3. Not really, because they're already doing their part in serving the peak demand zone by supplementing current Brown service as a local between Belmont and the Loop. Should there be a time when Orange ridership blows up as Brown did, then that might be considered...
 #1528799  by Tadman
 
When I lived in Ravenswood and flew out of Midway, the Brownage trains were my favorite. Get on, sit down, fall asleep, and 90 minutes later arrive at the airport. What a great deal. Now I live in NOLA and the streetcar goes nowhere near the airport. For a city focused on tourism you think they'd have a streetcar to the darn airport...