"CTA inspectors said that some foremen ignored verbal warnings and paperwork about unsafe track, prompting some rail inspectors to write their findings on subway walls in chalk as evidence that the weak links on the line had not been simply overlooked.Some of the dates scribbled on the walls went back as far as 1996, track inspector Brian Hill said Thursday in an interview with the Tribune."Because they never would come [fix] the problem, to cover ourselves [we'd write on the walls,]" said Hill, who was among five employees fired after the Blue Line derailment. "You know what CTA means, right? Cover Thine You-Know-What."During the investigation, thousands of documents detailing the condition of the tracks could not be found, raising questions about whether the inspections were completed and whether managers were alerted to the growing problems and took action.More than 80 percent of the records for Blue Line inspections done between May 2006 and the accident the following July were never found, investigators said.Those records, which were stored in boxes in rail yard trailers and not reviewed by higher-level managers, should have detailed thousands of rotting wooden railroad ties, rusted bolts and worn rail."
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Unfortunately, as with the bridge in Minneapolis, it just may take a horrific "accident" with loss of many lives (one is too many) to get corrective action. But this is probably typical of many of our older cities. Our infrastructure, including rail bridges, viaducts, etc, is in terrible shape and allocating adequate taxpayer or RR corporate money to repair, fix or whatever will be extremely slow in coming.
As much as I love riding trains, subways and streetcars/trolleys, I'm always aware that THE big accident may happen TODAY!.
On Page 56 of the Fall 2007 Classic Trains is a photo of the 21st street bridge over the Mill Creek Yards in St. Louis. This bridge was built in 1880 of whatever steel was available, and had a concrete deck. Heavy traffic, including trucks and streetcars, used it for almost 100 years.
In 1975, the City Street Department condemned the bridge and closed it. Three months later, an entire section of the concrete deck fell out, onto the street below. Fortunately, it was over a street, not the tracks, and it was during the night and no one was around. Such is the infrastructure in old cities.
BTW, I can show you bridges of a similar age and construction which are still being used.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Makes me think twice about the CTA. I used to take the Blue Line at least once a week and never did it with a second thought to the safety of the line, after all this was the mighty CTA! Second only to NYC's MTA, and if a mass-transit system could at all be called glamourous then the CTA would fall into that category. Sounds like touch of Penn Central Syndrome here. Well hopefully now we all know better and Chicago will work to fix this and live up to the hype...
...right?
Cheers!
~METRO
For true Els Chicago is it as far as I know in America. NYC has some elevated trackage for their subway system but not a fully elevated system like Chicago. Monorails have hit it fairly big with systems in Seattle, Las Vegas and others but the El is becoming extinct rather fast.
METRO wrote:For true Els Chicago is it as far as I know in America. NYC has some elevated trackage for their subway system but not a fully elevated system like Chicago. Monorails have hit it fairly big with systems in Seattle, Las Vegas and others but the El is becoming extinct rather fast.Cheers!~METRO
Philadelphia's Market Frankford Line is elevated outside of center city. SEPTA is currently replacing the western portion of the line.
METRO wrote: Makes me think twice about the CTA. I used to take the Blue Line at least once a week and never did it with a second thought to the safety of the line, after all this was the mighty CTA! Second only to NYC's MTA, and if a mass-transit system could at all be called glamourous then the CTA would fall into that category. Sounds like touch of Penn Central Syndrome here. Well hopefully now we all know better and Chicago will work to fix this and live up to the hype......right?Cheers!~METRO
I can say a lot of things about the CTA, as a frequent user, but I am not as optimistic as I used to be. The former head of CTA, Robt. Kruesi, did indeed pull a "Stuart Saunders" when he was here for the past four - five years. He ignored all the RT lines -- basically deferred maintenance -- except for the Ravenswood (Brown) line, a modest line but with untapped potential. So while crews were tearing down and expanding Ravenswood L stations so that eight-car trains could run on the line, maintenance people under orders were precisely documenting how to blow off much-needed maintenance in the blue line's subway portion. Now even Mayor Daley's precious Orange Line (to Midway airpt.) is having some mechanical troubles.
In fact, the CTA's "racetrack" (for lack of a better word, the approx. 1.25 miles starting at the North where the Brown line leads into the Red and continuing four-tracked to the south, where Brown and Evanston lines wind around the Loop and the Red goes into the subway) is painfully undergoing major hassles in track and support reconstruction; stuff that had ben overlooked for too many years whose construction is adding 10 - 15 minutes a day for each Red Line rider who wants to do downtown. So, yeah, he let it deteriorate good and thorough the way Saunders stopped taking care of the Pennsy, and even worse when it became the Penn Central a couple of years later. I'm sure a lot of people headed to Cubs game this now-ending season got a shock when their trip from the N. Michigan Avenue area, which used to take 15 minutes, stood at half an hour or more.
BTW there's a discussion going on in TRANSIT section about the CTA. Should we perhaps move there? Seems that that post is getting the memories and some wishful thinking and this one is getting the hard-bitten reality. - a.s.
railfan619 wrote:I was in chicago a month back and the bridges i went under were in most cases not in the best shape. A few of them looked like a lot of them needed repair. Also most of the cars on the trains were looking really old and. I'm surprised that most of them were still in service. I do remember about hearing something that the New york city subway system. Dumped all of their red line cars into the ocean. because they were to old to keep repairing and maintain the cars so. They sent them off of a dock into the ocean.
Yes, they dumped the "redbirds" at sea in hopes of creating an artificial reef.
The redbirds had been in service a long time, from the Sixties I think. - a. s.
A recent TV report on the subway said not only were rails out of gauge in many places, but on long underground runs the tieplates and fasteners had not been replaced in over fifty years, let alone the rails. It also said the CTA has one or two Geometry cars, but they've been parked and stored for years, unused. It also has been years since the rails were ground.
I used to feel safe careening through the tunnels in the Loop, often at speeds up to 45mph or so, assuming the CTA was caring for its infrastructure.
Not anymore.
METRO wrote: For true Els Chicago is it as far as I know in America. NYC has some elevated trackage for their subway system but not a fully elevated system like Chicago. Monorails have hit it fairly big with systems in Seattle, Las Vegas and others but the El is becoming extinct rather fast.Cheers!~METRO
The Las Vegas Monorail wouldn't be a pimple in the pants of a serious rapid transit system. It runs for a couple of miles more or less parallel to the strip and doesn't offer direct service to anything or anyplace significant.
There is a bit of buzz that it might be extended to serve McCarran (Las Vegas International.) That might help a few tourists who are willing to hump their suitcases the last few hundred yards to their hotels...
Having lived in New York and Tokyo, I know what rapid transit can be and should be. The Sin City Special ain't it.
Absolute proof of statement. This passionate lover of all things railroad has yet to ride the thing.
Chuck (Las Vegas Valley resident)
Actually the CTA is not 100% elevated as it has significant stretches of street level trackage as well as segments of subway which I have personally traveled on.
tomikawa TT wrote:
*********************
Chuck, I couldn't agree with you more. That tortuous mediocrity called the Las Vegas Monorail stands out in my mind from visits in three ways: (1) it is a singularly pedestrian public work in a city that produces the fantastic and world-class in practically everything else it does; (2) with the exceptions of the Convention Center and (maybe) the Sahara, it does a great job of running from nowhere to nowhere unless you can wend your way through about two-and-a-half casinos first; (3) the ride is based on -- catch this -- rubber tires coming into contact with concrete, except that the tires spin transversely instead of direction-of-travel as they would with a bus.
I must admit, though, that Monorail Water from the vending machines was good, cold and cheap. Not exactly faint praise in 110-degree heat. But my explication of monorails doesn't really belong on this thread, so I've started my own rant--excuse me, learned dissertation--elsewhere in TRANSIT. See "Mono-rail, Schmono-rail..." - a.s.
al-in-chgo wrote: (3) the ride is based on -- catch this -- rubber tires coming into contact with concrete, except that the tires spin transversely instead of direction-of-travel as they would with a bus.
(3) the ride is based on -- catch this -- rubber tires coming into contact with concrete, except that the tires spin transversely instead of direction-of-travel as they would with a bus.
????
Please explain. The tires don't roll the same direction as the car is headed? On the videos I could find you can't see any tires.
Poppa_Zit wrote: al-in-chgo wrote: (3) the ride is based on -- catch this -- rubber tires coming into contact with concrete, except that the tires spin transversely instead of direction-of-travel as they would with a bus. ????Please explain. The tires don't roll the same direction as the car is headed? On the videos I could find you can see any tires.
Please explain. The tires don't roll the same direction as the car is headed? On the videos I could find you can see any tires.
al-in-chgo wrote: Poppa_Zit wrote: al-in-chgo wrote: (3) the ride is based on -- catch this -- rubber tires coming into contact with concrete, except that the tires spin transversely instead of direction-of-travel as they would with a bus. ????Please explain. The tires don't roll the same direction as the car is headed? On the videos I could find you can see any tires.
Okay, Poppa, you are right to ask for clarification; but please understand I am not an engineer of any kind. I was trying to housebreak what I saw or thought I saw in terms of comparison or metaphor. Much like the elevated portions of Chicago's L, we were up on raised platforms and there were signs posted stating strictly that we were not to go down the ladders to track level, which would have made observing the "business end" easier. (The warning signs were even more explicit than in Chicago, in fact.) I could barely see down there, but what I saw looked like, let's not say "tires," but large, in-line skates, at least one (sidewise) row attached underneath, at least one on either side of the carriage -- the "skate wheels" were affixed to the vehicle, were permanent, and stood at a ninety-degree angle to normal in-line skate wheels (i.e., turned sideways, and therefore perpendicular to the forward line of the monorail's rail). We observed trains coming and going for a time, which is how I became such an expert on Monorail Water.
Anyway, we recognized the singing hum of electric power that begin when the trains started moving. We also heard what I thought sounded like the whoosh of rubber tires reminiscent of the rubber tires that carry the subways of Montreal, Mexico City and the newer lines of Paris. It seemed to me, though, that it wasn't a matter of tire-on-guide-rail or wheel-on-flanged rail, but of spinning ruberoid something-or-other impacting the concrete (mono)rail. In fact, I'm not even sure how the electrification powers the motors, but my traveling companion and I did see something metallic-looking running like a stripe along the rail (both sides? I don't remember.) I do remember that the rail was mostly made of concrete, and that apparently concrete can't be cast in such form for a very long stretch of track, because we were picking up constant small trembles or mini-"crashes," much like the old RR clickety-clack pre-ribbon rail. That in addition to the general condition of the mono-track, which seemed to be slightly disjointed at times and perhaps not completely "smooth" on top as I would have thought. The effect at speed (around the Wynn's golf course at about 35 mph) offered us passengers crashing sounds and motions, much like a bus traveling upon broken or tar-striped concrete. The straphangers would not have found this a much pleasanter experience than a Chicago L train at speed of perhaps 55 - 60 mph. The warbly condition of the concrete mono-rail seemed strange to me, being in a never-freeze desert city like Vegas, but apparently no smoother technology exists, or had evaded the people who built the thing.
Perhaps an analogy to capstan-drive on a tape recorder would work better? The main difference being that the capstan didn't drive the tape -- make the tape stable and permanent like a monorail's rail and make the capstan assemblage what could be moved -- that would be the monorail carriage(s).
I do know I said some awfully mean (albeit true) things about monorails in a new post I created in the TRANSIT section (see: "Monorail, Schmonorail . . . "). Perhaps those maurauding monorail mavens will pick that up and challenge my knowledge. I'm prepared to be patient, though, because how many monorail-mavents could there be? If you read the post (which again, is full of metaphor) you'll see that I know only of one type of monorail design that has distinct advantages over other railed or rail-like transportation -- and it is of a completely different design. If you watch "The Simpsons," you know what the monorail did to East Haberbrook. And then to Springfield itself. All in all, I'd say the monorail has a terrific future behind it. - a.s.
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