Chicago Metro

By the end of the 19th century, the American city of Chicago turned into the world's largest transport hub - more than 20 railway lines converged in it, and a large port with numerous marinas uninterruptedly worked on Lake Michigan.

Therefore, when it was no longer possible to transport goods between different points using scrap metal, the initiative to solve the transport problem was taken, oddly enough, by the owners of wine warehouses. They created a joint-stock company and, having studied the world experience in building at that time a few more subways, began to equip the Chicago subway. Having announced to the landlords who opposed this undertaking that for their own benefit it is necessary to lay galleries for telephone and telegraph communications, the Company conducted more than 70 km of underground lines. The tracks, laid to a depth of 8 m, had three rails, a track width of 60 cm. The road was serviced by electric locomotives with a capacity of 75 horsepower and combination car wagons with composite sides.

In 1892, a passenger subway was built in Chicago, built in an open way on steel overpasses. But since traffic jams formed in flyover overpasses due to rapidly developing road transport, and the loud noise created by trains led to lower apartment prices in nearby houses, in 1904 a decision was made to lay underground passenger lines, like the first freight subway. However, the first underground lines were opened only in 1943 and 1951.

• Chicago Metro consists of 8 lines with a total length of 170.8 km, with 91.9 km of lines passing above the ground (overpasses), 59.4 km through the ground, and only 19.5 km underground.
• L ^[3] is one of several subways in North America operating 24 hours a day on the two busiest lines.
• On the head cars of trains of the Chicago Metro, signs are installed that have a color corresponding to the color of the line that a particular train serves. Also on these plates are written the names of the end stations .

Since 1993, the Chicago Metro lines have been given color designations, however, the old line names have been preserved and are used in the publications of the carrier company CTA.

Red line

█ The Red Line is the busiest line on the Chicago Metro and serves an average of 230,434 people every weekday. The line is 37.7 km long and has 33 stations. The line originates at the Howard terminus on the northern border with the city of Evanston, passes through the center of Chicago and goes south to 95 / Dan-Ryan station. The Red Line is one of two metro lines operating around the clock.

Blue line

█ The blue line extends from O'Hara International Airport through a “loop” in downtown Chicago, then through the Milwaukee-Dearborn-Congress tunnel to the western part of the city and the suburb of Forest Park, crossing Highway No. 290. Route length from O 'Hara' to Forest Park is 43 km away. The total number of stations is 44. The Blue Line is the second busiest on the Chicago Metro. On weekdays, it serves 128,343 passengers and, like the red line, operates around the clock, 7 days a week.

Brown line

█ The brown line extends 18 km from Kimball Station in Albany Park to the ring in downtown Chicago . There are 19 stations on the line. The line serves an average of 66,000 people on weekdays.

Green line

█ The green line is 30 km long and is completely above the surface of the earth (on overpasses). It has 29 stations. The line runs from Harlem station in the suburb of Oak Park and runs along Lake Street east to the business center of the city, where it travels clockwise along the northern and eastern sections of the loop. Then it travels south to Garfield, where it splits into two branches - Ashland runs southwest to 63 / Ashland, and East-63 goes east to Cottage Grove. Trains on the line carry an average of 39,685 people daily.

Orange line

█ An 21-kilometer orange line was built in the early 1990s on existing railway embankments, new concrete and steel racks. It extends from Midway Airport to the ring in the downtown area. There are 17 stations on the line. The passenger flow on weekdays is an average of 30 111 people.

Pink line

█ The pink line (or Douglas Line) is 18 km long and is a test line that repeats the route of the old blue line Douglas Park. The passenger flow on weekdays averages 13,461 people.

Violet line

█ The Purple Line is a six-kilometer branch line serving the suburban city of Evanston and the village of Wilmett , and also provides express service between these cities and downtown Chicago during peak hours. The line originates in the village of Wilmett from the Linden Avenue station, then passes through Evanston to the Howard station, where there are transfers to the red and yellow lines. At peak hours, trains move to the “loop” in downtown Chicago: from the Howard station, trains follow non-stop along the side tracks of the red line to Belmont station, are redirected to the brown line and travel along it with all the stops. On average, the line serves 9956 passengers (excluding passengers boarding at Belmont station, which are taken into account in the statistical indicators of the red and brown lines). Stops between Belmont and Chicago Avenue were introduced in the 1990s to offload the red and brown lines.

Yellow line

█ The yellow line is an unstoppable line running between Howard and Dempers Street stations in the suburbs of Skokie, 8 km long and the only one on the Chicago Metro that does not provide direct communication with the loop in the business center of Chicago. Until the 1960s, the line was part of the Skokie Valley Line of the North Shore Line. The passenger flow of this line on weekdays is 2651 people.

In recent years (after catastrophic losses in the late 1980s - early 1990s), the volume of passenger traffic “L” is constantly growing. However, subsequently this volume sharply decreased, reaching in 1992 an indicator of 418,000 passengers. The reason was the flooding and flooding of the State and Dearborn tunnels, due to which the CTA was forced to suspend work on the busiest lines for several weeks. After eliminating the consequences of the flood and resuming work, the metro faced another problem - passenger flows were distributed unevenly along the lines. The northern parts of the lines were much busier than the western and southern parts. For example, passenger traffic on the brown line increased by 83% compared with 1979 and continues to increase. Currently, reconstruction projects of stations are in full swing, which will allow to accept trains longer than the previous ones. The annual volume of transport traffic on the Howard branch of the red line, which reached 35 million passengers in 2005, is approaching the pre-war peak that occurred in 1927 and amounted to 38.5 million passengers. On the blue line between the Ring and Logan Square, serving poor neighborhoods such as Wicker Park, Bucktown and Palmer Square, passenger traffic on working days increased by 54% (compared with 1992). On the other hand, passenger traffic on the southern part of the green line, which was closed for two years for reconstruction (1994-1996), decreased from 50,400 passengers in 1978 to 13,000 passengers in 2006. In 1976, three northern branches , which later became known as “Howard,” “Milwaukee,” and “Ravenswood,” were 42% loaded, and today 58%.

The Chicago Transit Authority carrier company owns 1,190 wagons, which are combined into 595 trains. The trains are assigned to different lines, and each line, for the most part, is served by three different series of trains. The oldest 2200 series were built in 1969, and the latest 3200 series were built in 1992. The latest generation of 5000 series trains is scheduled to be commissioned in 2010. All trains in the Chicago Metro "feed" from a voltage of 600 V DC network transmitted through a contact rail , however, it is planned to transfer the energy supply system to alternating current with a much higher voltage to reduce losses.

Some of the oldest sections of the Chicago metro require complete reconstruction and huge costs. In 1994, CTA closed the green line as part of a two-year reconstruction project, which cost the company $ 406 million.

Trains continued to operate on the blue line during the forty-day reconstruction project for the Douglas branch (now the pink line), which cost the carrier $ 482 million and ended in 2005. Today, passenger traffic remains low: at 6 out of 11 stations, passenger traffic on weekdays is slightly more than 1000 people.

Many difficulties and problems remain to be overcome in the future. As of August 2006, 18% of the Chicago metro tracks are located in the so-called “slow zones”, where trains must move at a low speed so as not to damage the subway tracks, structures and facilities. The red, the busiest metro line, is in the worst condition - 36% of the route of this line, including about half the length of the State Street tunnel, is in “slow zones”. Trains on the blue line, the second busiest, should move at low speed for 25% of the route. Work on the repair and reconstruction of the blue line paths began in July 2007 and it is expected that they will be completed by December 2008.

Reconstruction of the Red and Brown Lines

Currently, two of the most important and expensive projects are underway - the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan branch of the red line worth $ 283 million, including the reconstruction of stations, track work and modernization of various systems; and a $ 530 million program aimed at increasing the throughput of the brown line, unaffected since the first decade of the 20th century. The plan developed for the brown line includes work to increase the length of the station platforms to make it possible to use eight-car trains; as well as work to ensure the possibility of using all stations of this line for people with disabilities. Work on the brown line reconstruction project began on February 20, 2006 and is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

Pink line

CTA opened a new line without building a single new kilometer of track and not a single new station. The pink line began its work on June 25, 2006. The line runs from the 54 / Cermak station in the town of Cicero → runs through the Douglas line to the Polk-Medical Center station → further, bypassing the Blue line Congress line, trains go to the Lake line via the Paulina Street CER Street ”green line and move clockwise along the“ ring ”. Tracing is not new, since the Douglas branch trains followed the same route from April 4, 1954 to June 22, 1958. The reason for this was the dismantling of the old western line, with which the Douglas branch was connected to free up space for Highway 290 ^[4] . The new route serves 22 stations and provides shorter train intervals on both branches - Douglas and Congress. Not so long ago, trains from O'Hare International Airport were evenly distributed between the Forest Park and 54 / Cermak terminal stations, now all trains moving from O'Hare are completing their route at Forest Park station at that time as the trains on the pink line move independently - now the interval is 7.5 minutes, and earlier - 10-15 minutes.

Circle line (assumed)

The most ambitious proposed development project - the ring line - is the new Chicago Metro route that forms a large ring around the existing ring in the center and connects the metro lines to Metra's railway lines, which is impossible in the city center.

A draft ring line is currently under consideration.

Other projects

• New express service between State Street End Station and O'Hare and Midway Airports. Trains will provide high-speed non-stop communication. This project was regarded as an unjustified waste of money and time.

• Extending the Yellow Line to Westfield Shoppingtown Old Orchard, possibly with intermediate stations.

• Extension of the Orange line to the terminal station “Ford City Shopping Center”. The maps stuck on the Orange Line trains already show this stop as a possible stop.

• Extension of the Red Line from 95th Den Ryan Station to 130th Street in the Altgarden Gardens area along the Union Pacific freight railway. The project is currently undergoing additional research.

• List of Chicago Metro Stations

• Cudahy, Brian J. Destination Loop: The Story of Rapid Transit Railroading in and around Chicago. - Brattleboro, VT: S. Greene Press, 1982. - ISBN 978-0-8289-0480-3 .
• Borzo, Greg. The Chicago "L". - Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2007 .-- ISBN 978-0-7385-5100-5 .

• Information on the Chicago metro on urbanrail.net