Quote:
Originally Posted by chicagopcclcar1
There's just almost too much here to contradict. First off, why should there be something different? The design of Chicago 'L' cars is based on proven configurations: place the entrance/exit doors at the quarter point, length and width is governed by operational capabilities, married pairs and no articulation are most advantageous.
A wider trainset??? Back in the 1930's Chicago's initial subways were designed for a 9 ft 6 in wide car. That never came to be. Chicago has three basic routes: one running through the State St. subway, one running through the Milwaukee/Dearborn subway, and the ones running over the LOOP 'L'. You cannot get from one route to another without running over the Loop 'L' so give up thoughts of a wider train set.
Doors on the outside??/ Why? Perhaps there is a good reason why our doors operate protected in a pocket....it's called WINTER.
There is no advantage for articulation and most integrated trainsets like Toronto's Rockets aren't articulated....there are trucks at both ends of the cars.
Face reality....Chicago's transit designers have succeeded in evolving a design that fits the operating liabilities of our system quite well. Now about those $#@!&%$# center facing seats.
David Harrison
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Hey David,
Current CTA cars are basically still just a modestly upgraded 70 year-old PCC rapid transit design. It hasn't evolved nearly as much as rolling stock on other systems in the same timeframe.
First of all, winter has nothing to do with doors that slide out. If you had traveled at all, you'd know there are many, many examples of doors in cities that have winters comparable to Chicago that slide outward, including such sunny spots as Prague and Oslo. There are a lot more wintery examples, but I'm not going to re-do my homework when you've done none.
Second of all, "articulated" may have been the wrong word, but I think most people understood that to mean integrated, continuously open throughout the trainset, which does have an advantage both for additional standing room and for evening out the distribution of passengers across a certain area.
Finally, you really need to improve your reading comprehension skills. I explicitly stated that "It would mean the Red Line couldn't share with other lines anymore" as well as laid out an operating pattern that would enable such a change. It wouldn't be the sort of thing you could do overnight, but it certainly wouldn't be as difficult as building an entirely new system, and you'd end up with much higher capacity. Many other cities run different equipment, and while I'm sure it does simplify some of Chicago's operations, given their overall cost structure I'd be surprised if it really saved Chicago much to run the same cars on all lines. Given that the current Red Line is (by a wide margin) the busiest line and has access to yards at both ends (and with the build-out of the south extension a potentially much larger yard there), it's the best candidate to potentially move into dedicated trainsets running a different standard for carriages. It does depend on a Clinton Street subway, but that's something that would be very useful to current job and residential growth patterns and has been talked about for quite a while now.
Certainly there are problems created by doing that. But to claim there are not problems solved by doing it is to ignore a number of facts. All changes have pluses and minuses, and improving capacity for the system's biggest line (and one that is still gaining ridership) while also improving passenger comfort - for a fraction of the cost of an entirely new line - isn't something to be dismissed out of hand based only on "it's not the way we've always done it".
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