....Here's a video to annoy whoever it is that seems to hate my night shots! :P Anyway, this past Friday evening (for reasons as-yet unknown to me) the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line was rerouted out of the State Street Subway and onto the elevated, via the route normally taken by the Brown Line, the Lake and Wabash sides of the Loop, the South Side Main Line as far as 17th St Tower, and the 18th St Viaduct to Cermak-Chinatown station via the non-revenue ramp at Federal Junction. On the North Side, the switch from the inner tracks to the outer tracks was done at either Clark Junction or Armitage Interlocking- trains seemed to go either way as traffic levels warranted through the night. I started off at the Chicago (Avenue) station on the Brown/Purple Lines. I ended up here after attempting to board a Red Line at the subway Chicago Ave station, only to find it temporarily closed to passengers because of the reroute. In addition to the detouring Red Line trains seen here, are the usual Brown Line and Purple Line (Evanston) Express trains. Later at Armitage, a Red Line train operating on the outer tracks normally used by the Brown and Purple Lines, slows until it gets a better signal to proceed. With the North Side Main Line taking on half again the number of trains it usually does, things got rather congested. A train immediately following this one meant this train skipped Armitage. At Fullerton, a Brown Line train on the outer (northbound) track waits for quite some time to allow Red Line trains ahead of it to cross over. It finally gets moving, and an inbound Brown Line train arrives, with the motorman making an announcement about the reroute. Finally, a southbound Red Line train arrives on the outer track, and stops at Armitage. It later crosses the Chicago River and takes the Purple Line Express routing at Tower 18, stopping at Clark/Lake. At Randolph/Wabash, a southbound Red Line train makes a stop, and its driver barks at me not to film. I ignored her- I'm tired of this crap, seriously. I boarded the above train and rode it to Cermak-Chinatown. After taking the Orange Line routing at 17th Street Tower, it stops on the 18th Street Viaduct at Federal Junction while the operator uses the wayside manual route selector connected to junction's signals, to align the switches for the otherwise non-revenue ramp down to the Dan Ryan Line and Cermak-Chinatown. At Cermak-Chinatown as snow begins falling, the first train of the night to use the subway again, a non-revenue run to ensure things were all-clear, whistles by the platform on its way south to 95th. Later, what is probably the last run of the night to be detoured, comes down the ramp from the 18th St Viaduct and makes its stop at Chinatown. Finally, the first northbound Red Line train to use the subway again stops at Chinatown. Its destination signs are set in error to "Midway". ~Thanks for watching!~

• published: 03 Mar 2012
• views: 16847