Free CTA 72nd Anniversary Celebration
When: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 late morning and early afternoon approximately 11AM-2PM
Where: The train will board at the south end of the Inner Loop platform at Washington/Wabash.
Participants will have the opportunity to take a ride around the Loop ‘L’ aboard our Heritage 6000-series railcars.
Tickets sold out – just show up and you may get on YMMV
The event will begin with several, limited ticketed trips for people with tickets (registration is closed). However, afterward, they also plan to run the train a few more times around the Loop for anyone to enjoy, on a first-come, first-served basis.
COTC tip: I did this two years ago without a ticket and I was able to get on. YMMV. I was able to ride around the loop several times on the Heritage Fleet 4000-series trains from 1923. They were also running some 2400-series rail cars from 1976.
The big event
We’ll start the day by offering rides to ticketed groups of people. Collect your tickets at the will-call table on the Washington side of Washington/Wabash and you’ll be directed where to wait for the train. Each group will get one ride around the Loop ‘L’.
No tickets
After several ticketed trips around the Loop are finished, we plan to run the train for all to enjoy on a “first-come, first-served” basis from the station, from approximately 12:30pm to 2pm. (Each trip takes about 15 minutes.)
2017 Customer Appreciation Day Heritage Fleet 4000-series trains from 1923
Car history
Retired from regular service at the end of 1992 and briefly retained for historical purposes cars 6711-6712 to The National Museum of Transportation in Kirkland, MO (near St. Louis).
The 6000-series represented a total departure in rapid transit car design for Chicago and the first new cars ordered by CTA after it took over the ‘L’. The older and heavier wood and steel designs of the 1890s-1920s gave way to lightweight cars with all-electric propulsion and braking, whose technology was first developed for PCC streetcars in the 1930s.
Dual-paneled folding “blinker” doors were placed along the sides of each unit instead of at the ends for more efficient movement in and out of the cars. The first 200 cars were the beginning of a modernization process intended to remove from service the remaining turn-of-the century wooden units still in use, but beginning with car 6201, the remaining 6000s—including 6711-6712—were built using motors, trucks, controls, and body components salvaged from PCC streetcars.
In 2017, these two cars were brought back from the museum and our Heritage Fleet volunteers have been lovingly and meticulously working to bring them to operating condition so we can share them with you.
Learn more about these cars and their unique history here.
More info
