Area Soldier Killed In Fort Hood Rampage
Stroger Makes Hollywood Play
Put Down Your Nanowrimo And Leave The House
Sox Shuffle Continues
The CTA approved a plan today to buy 406 new El cars for $603.6 million to replace some current cars that are 30 years old. And these new bad boys won't be any old rail cars--no, no. They're the rail cars oooof theeeee fuuuuuuuture! (That's in our "Pigs in Space" announcer voice.)
The new cars will be equipped with digital diagnostic equipment to expedite repair work and cameras on each car so "[t]rain operators will be able to view live video from any railcar when the passenger intercom unit is activated." The CTA is also adding "cellular modems" to the new cars so the control center can directly communicate with passengers (via "visual displays" in each car) and upgrading the seat fabric. According to the CTA, we should have 10 prototypes of the El cars on tracks in 2009 with the full fleet in use by 2012.
We're buying these new cars from Bombardier Transit Corporation, who has designed and made rail cars for New York, Shanghai, Stockholm, Berlin, Bucharest, Helsinki, Lisbon, Mexico City, and a whole ton of other places. They also build monorails, but it looks like the CTA is sticking with the unimaginative regular rails. Sigh. [CTA]
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
They look exactly like the ravenswood cars only with a different seating configuration LED Maps and and AC electricity (instead of DC). They kind of suck imo. at least they'll replace the dated ass blue line inward door trains. man those are broke ass trains!
So soon after the disaster was averted?
they don't suck. they're cool.
biscuitcleaver: Yes. They've been waiting to pull the trigger on this deal for quite some time. A good portion of the funds aren't a product of the 'doomsday' debacle but rather FTA funds that have been reserved for capital improvements.
Any guesses as to how long it will take for some of these lovelies to land on the south side rail lines?
South Side? Not sure. West Side? Immediately.
Actually, the CTA already ordered the cars nearly two years ago. They just made some changes today like the live security cameras. Check out today's President's Report for some renderings of possible design changes.
Hey, it worked for Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook.
OK, seriously, I realize I need to cut down on the Simpsons, but I was sooo set up with the monorail reference.
Anyway, looking over that .pdf Kevin linked to, Munich's layout is pretty damn cool. And Beijing's looks like their trains have separate "business class" cars.
"but it looks like the CTA is sticking with the unimaginative regular rails. Sigh" -At the risk of sounding like a trident commercial, Studies have shown that the most cost effective way to rapidly move mass quantities of people is through a rail system such as the CTA's. Monorail and other technologies may wow the masses but they aren't as efficient as the heavy rail cars of the CTA. Furthermore, to retrofit the entire system with new cars, tracks, platforms, switches etc. would cost in excess of $50 billion (yes BILLION). So the smart and correct choice is to stick with the current technology which, by the way, is the preferred mode for most major urban rail systems.
And to second pskosey, I had a chance to observe Seattle's monorail upfront, and it's a piece of crap. And Las Vegas' isn't much better.
And they're both crazy expensive for the ride you get, which is slightly easier than walking.
ok after further review they don't suck. But don't expect the space age super galactic trains that we were promised with the new millenium.
Seat Fabric...
Is anyone else disappointed that new, modern subway cars feature seat fabric? Fabric has got to be the #1 component involved in the stench and filth on the El simply because they rarely get clean and are difficult to clean.
I'd be perfectly happy with comfortable, somewhat ergonomically correct seats made of plastic than more fabric seats that are just going to become disgusting after a week.
Look at the new buses in circulation. Those fabric seats are already filthy.