36 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

A check of CTA's website today, June 8th, shows the Yellow Line is still suspended.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Sun-Times, 6/12:
 

Still no timeline for Yellow Line reopening

 

Almost four weeks after the CTA’s Yellow Line was shut down when an embankment eroded in Skokie, the transit agency still has no idea when service might resume.

 

Last week, on June 3, the agency had said it was waiting to receive a repair plan from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, but that the plan “could” be received by the end of last week.

 

Apparently, the CTA is still waiting.

 

Continue here.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, posted 6/16:
 

Yellow Line remains closed; no return date named

 

CTA officials this week said no date has yet been established for the return of service to Skokie's Yellow Line.

 

The CTA and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District are still working together to come up with a schedule, officials from both organizations said.

 

Service along the Yellow Line, which includes stops in Skokie on Dempster Street and downtown on Oakton Street, has been suspended since May 17.

 

Janelle Silva, of Skokie's Public Information Dvision, announced in a press release on Tuesday that the village and CTA have implemented a "payment holiday" for those parking in the Skokie CTA commuter lots. Parking will be free starting Tuesday, June 16, until train service is restored, the release said.

 

Continue here w/aerial photo.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune "Skokie Review," 6/19:
 

Water district: Yellow Line service won't be restored until October

 

Commuters who use the Yellow Line in Skokie will be without train service until October, according to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

 

The announcement was made a month after the Yellow Line was shut down when ground collapsed underneath tracks between Howard Street and Oakton Street across from McCormick Boulevard. The collapse occurred during a construction project undertaken by the district and performed by Walsh Construction. No one was hurt.

 

Continue here.

[KevinKorell]

Amazing.  Somebody really should be held legally responsible for this.    But glad they won't rush the line back into service until deemed totally safe.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, posted 6/22:

 

Yellow Line closure creates rail car repair headache for CTA

 

The expected five-month shutdown of the CTA Yellow Line due to an embankment collapse in mid-May is causing an additional hassle: Rail access has been cut off to the transit agency's largest and most important train maintenance facility, officials said Monday.

 

It means that all rail cars undergoing repairs at the CTA heavy-maintenance facility in Skokie must be shipped in and out on flatbed trucks.

 

SNIP

 

For example, after the newest rail cars in the CTA fleet are delivered by the manufacturer on trucks, as usual, to Skokie Shops for final inspection, the cars must be reloaded onto trucks and driven to the CTA's yard near Midway Airport, instead of being put directly on the rail system, officials said.

 

Continue here.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, posted 6/30:
 

Yellow Line repairs more complicated than thought, CTA says

 

More of the unstable rail embankment supporting the CTA Yellow Line needs to replaced than first thought, the Tribune was told Tuesday, as investigators and backhoe operators continued to dig for answers into the cause of the collapse.

 

Service on the entire Yellow Line will remain suspended until October as crews also repair wastewater treatment lines damaged when part of the wall of earth under the tracks broke loose six weeks ago.

 

Officials from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which operates the sewage treatment plant in Skokie where the accident occurred, said Tuesday during a Tribune visit to the accident site that the age of the original embankment is at issue, although the breach was triggered by construction.

 

Continue here.

[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, 8/20:

 

Internal emails shed light on Yellow Line embankment collapse

 

Weeks before an embankment collapse shut down the CTA's Yellow Line this spring, concerns were expressed over whether nearby construction at a sewage treatment plant in Skokie was causing too much movement in the tracks, emails obtained by the Tribune show.

 

Monitoring of the CTA rails and a steel bridge revealed that vibrations, settlement and movement of the track system often exceeded the limits initially laid down by transit agency officials to safeguard Yellow Line commuters riding across the 50-foot-high dirt embankment, according to the internal emails and other documents.

 

The situation was further complicated by changes in the design of waste disinfection facilities that pushed construction at the Terrence J. O'Brien treatment plant even closer to the Yellow Line viaduct, according to the documents released by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago in response to a Tribune public records request.

 

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[CNJRoss]

Chicago Sun-Times, 8/25:
 

 

Editorial: Where's the outrage over Yellow Line collapse?

 

More than 14 weeks after the ground fell away below the CTA’s Yellow Line in Skokie, creating a potential mass disaster, we have to ask: Where’s the outrage?

 

The public still has not been told who made the call to allow ground-shaking construction so close to the tracks — the proximate cause of the collapse — or whether the stability of the CTA embankment was properly tested beforehand, or whether the embankment had been kept up to code all these years.

 

SNIP

 

Before another train rolls along the Yellow Line, the CTA must learn — and the public must be told — exactly why this happened.

 

Or why should anybody get on board?

 

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[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, 8/31:

 

CTA rail cars use unconventional route to get to the shop

 

Collisions, workers changing lightbulbs on the side of the road or police vehicles with emergency lights ablaze are the typical reasons that rubbernecking motorists slow down to see what's happening.

 

Now, add CTA rail cars to the list of things that cause the familiar gaper's block, a behavior that in this particular case is often accompanied by horns honking, cameras clicking pictures and wild cheers through open windows.

 

It's not the daily routine of trains on the Red and Blue lines rumbling up and down the separated median of three Chicago expressways that evokes this response from motorists and their passengers.

 

No, these rail cars are hitting the road on the actual expressway lanes, as well as on busy city and suburban streets, chained to flatbed trailers that are hauled by truck between CTA rail facilities on the South Side and Skokie.

 

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