Quote:
Originally Posted by orulz
Speaking of the yellow line. Are there, or have there ever been, any plans to run it as a simple extension of the red line? I don't think I've read anything about it, but I've always kind of thought that's what the 3rd rail conversion was all about.
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Dempster (and eventually Oakton) both have short platforms (max 4-car platforms, though expandable to 8), commensurate with the relatively light loading along the Skokie branch. As pointed out, from an equipment utilization standpoint it wouldn't make a great deal of sense at this point.
The third rail conversion was mostly just to (1) eliminate the last catenary in the system, which is less reliable than third rail and susceptible to getting damaged in storms, (2) eliminate the requirement to maintain cars in the fleet with pantographs to run on that small portion. A minor benefit (3) was that a slow zone for the crossing point between third rail and overhead power could be removed (either 25->55 or 35->55, but really not a huge deal in the scheme of things).
Quote:
Originally Posted by pyropius
It would make more sense to run the red line to Linden.
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Purple Line platforms are only 6-cars in length, so it becomes logistically difficult for how you deal with the fleet. Running the Purple Express all day is probably more plausible operationally than extending Red to Linden.