CTA's 77th St Garage

Welcome to the CTA's 77th St Garage! What I consider one of their most interesting facilities for transit nerds like myself. We'll start off with the most architecturally interesting portion- the Chicago City Railway Shops (1902)

This two-story brick building facing Vincennes Ave is the most architecturally interesting piece of the whole facility, which otherwise consists of rather plain mid century brick warehouses. The CCRy was one of the city's first streetcar operations, beginning with horsecars, then cable cars, and finally by the early 1900s, traditional electric streetcars. Those would have been this shop's stock and trade when it was built in 1902, though there were still some traditional cable cars in service until 1906.

Alas, by the post-war period Chicago's streetcar system, then operated as the Chicago Surface Lines, was bankrupt, and when the mess was handed over to a nascent Chicago Transit Authority, they quickly began winding down streetcar routes to replace them with a mix of traditional and trolley buses^[1], which makes this facility's transition to a bus depot a natural fit. Based on their general style I assume this period in the early 1950s was when the sprawling brick garages were built, but I don't have definite dates.

Regardless of ownership changes, the CCRY name remains permanently emblazoned along the building's roofline, a remnant of an increasingly forgotten part of Chicago's transit past.

Now, I wouldn't have trekked all the way down to 79th St^[2] for a single neat building. What really drew me to the South Side was the buses themselves. 77th St (or "South Shops" as it's also known) contains the CTA's 'boneyard', an almost bafflingly large collection of the CTA's old equipment, some kept on hand to maintain the rest of the CTA's buses- primarily their aging fleet of New Flyer D40LFs- and others for reasons unclear.

Pictured above are various New Flyer D40LFs, stickered with a yellow placard that indicates they are on "Long Term Hold", bureacratic city speak for "permanent retirement". These photos were taken along 79th St, which is by far the "main side" of the facility, despite it's name. 

One unique resident of 77th St is the CTA's lone pair of New Flyer XE40s, relatively early battery electric variants of their "Xcelsior" line (these two being 2014 models, specifically). The CTA quietly retired them in 2021, and they've sat here ever since. Why weren't they scrapped, you ask? Well, in this particular case, these units were purchased with federal grant money, and there's likely a stipulation that they'd have to return that money if they're cut up early. But this makes them rare among 77th St residents, because this yard contains numerous random, ancient buses that the CTA hasn't operated for a decade or more.

Sadly for nerds like myself, most of the oddities- such as a 1990s Flxible, RTS-08s, early hybrid New Flyers, and short lived Optimas- are located deeper into the facility, shielded behind fences and rows of D40LFs and LFSes, only visible with inside access or a drone. If you're so inclined, I'd recommend scanning over the photos of Chicago Transit Forum user YoungBusLover, which show all the above mentioned. I was however still able to see two rarities, both from along 77th St. First, a 1960s Flxible later converted to a paratransit bus, and then it's current sorry state, a work bus. For a time, CTA did maintenance work along their bus routes with some of their ancient buses like this (some of the famous GMC "Fishbowls" also suffered the same fate), welded up in a similar way to railroad maintenance of way cars. This work was eventually contracted out as the recycled buses proved unreliable, and several of the work buses were dragged here, shacked up alongside more confusing hulks like CTA 131, which despite once being maintained in great condition, was uncermoniously dumped here to rot after about 2005. 

The second bus is more modern, but still notable, being an older "2nd generation" Nova LFS, which were built from 2000-2002 and rapidly retired following a fire on another unit in 2021. While not impossible to spot elsewhere- the CTA's "Community Connection" bus that they trot out for local events is the same model- this one is unique in that it retains the CTA's "Speedlines" logo, which was retired beginning in the 2000s, replaced by the current roundel. This bus, likely #6730, is one of if not the last bus still carrying the logo^[3], and it really made the trip for me.

Sadly, the western edge of the property along Perry Ave is heavily overgrown, and there was some guy loitering there on top of it, so I couldn't poke through any holes in the fence on that side. I still considered the trip a great success overall, especially when you include my visit to the beautiful Auburn Park nearby, which I'll write about in future. While the area (Chatham/Grand Crossing) is often considered one of the worst parts of the city, I was surprised by my visit, though of course my one daytime visit can't say much to what it's like to live there. 

Until next time! I'm going to try and write more consistent, smaller posts for this website. I hate to abandon it and I enjoy writing. The rest of my bus pictures from this visit will eventually hit my Flickr, if you're desperate for more transit buses seen through chainlink fence. 

[1] The trolleybus system would later be decommissioned by 1973
[2] While called the "77th St" Garage, the main entrance is along 79th, and that's the street with a rail connection, so it's how I approached it.
[3] The other decomissioned buses at 77th were either retired with the roundel, or repainted into departmental paint schemes before being parked.