Is it a Brown or Purple?
The growing crowd at Belmont anxiously peers south down the tracks for sight of a northbound Purple Line, per usual.
Four or five Browns had already come and gone when a sixth Brown Line train slithers around the sharp curve at the station entry point.
Or is it Purple Line train? The front sign on the train car says Brown. But then the Red Line motorman announces: "A Purple Line train is on the outside track." We passengers at the far south end of Belmont look up and spy a Purple train placard on the car in front of us. We start to board, but some already on board say it's a Brown. We exit like lemmings to the sea. Some on the platform ask: "Is it now a Brown?"
Well it always was a Brown, except for when the motorman said it was a Purple, and when the last car's placard said it was a Purple, and then. ...
Awww fuhgeddaboudit.
I find this very hard to believe. The CTA is a model of predictability, reliability, and good communication. *snark*
Posted by: Charlotte | October 12, 2006 at 08:27 AM
Seems like having the placards correct and making correct announcements would be basic items in the manual of How to Do Your CTA Job.
Posted by: Scott | October 12, 2006 at 08:55 AM
Always check the lights on the front of the train. The 2 sets of 4 lights above the front windows tell you what train it is. I don't know them all, but:
Brown: red & green
Purple: both gold
Red: both white
Someone should write up a guide to those. It's great that you can look at the front of a train and tell, especially at night.
Posted by: Flynn | October 12, 2006 at 10:36 AM
how about we actually make the train cars brown, green, purple, red...this could be good advertising for Crayon on Sharpie along with some revenue for the CTA :)
Posted by: cmama | October 12, 2006 at 10:38 AM
"Seems like having the placards correct and making correct announcements would be basic items in the manual of How to Do Your CTA Job."
Riiiight. My current peeve with the CTA is what's going on with the 146. In theory, I can take a NB 146 to connect with the westbound bus that drops me a block from home. However, 4 times out of 7 I'll get on a 146, and around Brompton the annoucement will be played that this bus's last stop is Grace. So I have to get off and wait for another bus (generally a 135) to take me up to where I can get my WB bus. If they'd put that on the front of the bus, or make the announcement before it hits the drive, then I'd know to wait for another bus.
Posted by: Cheryl | October 12, 2006 at 12:29 PM
basically unrelated story, (this may be a very common occurrence, but anyways) this past weekend my brown line train to the loop either had a crazy motorman (if they control the announcements?) or the announcements system was messed up. get on the SB brown line at wellington, upon boarding I here "this is Belmont, this is Western, this is Armitage, this is Wellington" ... so yeah that was odd.
yet another unrelated, either CTA employees are nicer than i have been told/i have read, or i just happen to get the nice ones...
it has happened to me twice, and i know i'm a dumbass and should be prepared, but twice at the quincy stop i have had crumpled up terrible dollar bills. one time, a couple months ago, the CTA employee actually changed out money with me so i could get on the damn train.
second occurrence, this past weekend. yet another crumpled money situation... i had two 1's and one 5, nothing would work. tried both machines, tried straightening as much as possible. unbelievably the lady just had me go through one of the gates on the side of the turnstiles. of course, being my luck, a train just pulled away from the station, but hey, i got free fare at least.
Posted by: adam | October 12, 2006 at 12:41 PM
A couple of weeks ago I was transferring from the blue to the red downtown at Jackson. The next train on the northbound red line tracks displayed an orange line to midway sign on the front and side cars. For a moment I almost didn't board until I realized there was no way for it to actually be an orange line train. I guess I was just lucky.
Posted by: karl | October 12, 2006 at 01:48 PM
The El division needs to talk to the good people in the Bus division on Foster Avenue. Some paper, some tape, a marker - voila! - you have a sign with the correct bus number. I like the crayon idea for the El - you could have someone write the color of the train IN THE COLOR OF THE TRAIN! How cool would that be?
CTA - where 19th century technology meets 21st century incompetence.
Posted by: Warmonger | October 12, 2006 at 02:21 PM
Love that last comment, Warmonger!!!!!
It's not enough to take a marker and paper to write the bus #, but actually take down other papers. Yesterday I saw a bus with 4 different #'s....One displayed on top, and three written on a paper taped to the front window. Talk about confusion....
Posted by: cmama | October 12, 2006 at 02:46 PM
This drives me NUTS. In most other cities, they paint the train cars the color of the line they're on for exactly this reason, but here they decided that making them silver with ridges prevents graffiti better, plus they could use any car on any line. Since it's the ridges and not the color that's the deterrent, I would be a huge supporter of having the cars painted to match their line.
I do wonder how much flexibility the CTA would lose, though. If they ever had to pull a pair off of one line to get another through a busy period, it either wouldn't match the train (creating confusion) or the entire train would not match its line, creating much more confusion. Plus, the trains would still need placards for color-blind people. Still, Boston and many other cities worldwide seem to get along fine with color-matched cars, and I'd love to see that take effect here.
Posted by: Thor | October 12, 2006 at 03:13 PM
Well, yes Thor, it would still need placards both for color blind people, and, I just think it should keep them regardless. Another idea would be instead of painting the ENTIRE train the one color, since they are so hell-bent on the silver thing, they could just have a colored stripe. One large enough to see easily, but small enough that if it had to painted over, it could be quickly/easily.
In terms of using a car on another line (i.e. red car used on brown line) I don't know what to tell you. I do think though, that their MAGNIFICENT (sarcasm) idea of a Circle line should have rainbow cars. That would alleviate the backup of different colored cars.
Posted by: adam | October 12, 2006 at 04:25 PM
Flynn: Slight correction - Purple Line trains have white lights above the front windows. Red Line trains have gold lights. See the bottom of http://chicago-l.org/operations/signals/markers.html#routes for more light combos.
Posted by: Eric B. | October 12, 2006 at 06:36 PM
it's not a good idea to paint the cars the color of the lines because it gives the CTA the flexibility in switching cars between different lines at any given time. (the pink cars are an anomoly.)
identifying a train is much less frustrating than trying to see a burnt out bus display on a street flooded with car and lamp halogens.
the cta definitely needs to step up fixing useless destination signs on buses.
there's usually less visual pollution on el train tracks than city streets.
Posted by: deepkid | October 13, 2006 at 01:45 AM
deepkid, in regard to painting the cars... i think we were all being smartasses in the first place haha
in regards to the buses, i have hardly ever needed to take a bus, but i'm sure from what you said, and what i've heard other says, the buses are a lot worse than the el... haha
Posted by: adam | October 13, 2006 at 01:32 PM
You can blame the Pink Line for the back-ups and unpredictability of Brown and Purple Line service. You combine the extra 6 hourly trains into the Loop with the new Pink service with the slow zones and Brown Line construstion and you got a recipe for disaster. Check out this other blog post:
http://wrigleyvillerants.blogspot.com/
Posted by: John | October 13, 2006 at 04:08 PM