As recently as four years ago, the Chicago Transit Authority had only two cars on the PNAERC list: their two 1920s-era 4000s, 4271 and 4272. That's changed now, though, with a new emphasis on historic preservation, and CTA currently rosters no fewer than 14 cars on the PNAERC list of three different types. Of those, eight are recently-retired 2400-series cars from the 1970s while four are 1950s-era 6000-series cars that were purchased back from museums that had originally acquired them from the CTA in the 1990s.
After a fair amount of work by CTA employees, largely volunteering their time, the first of the two pairs of 6000s has been made operational. Cars
6711 and
6712, shown above in a
Lou Gerard photo taken September 1st, have been returned to operational condition and were actually run for the public during the CTA's annual "Roadeo" this past weekend. Their status has been updated on the roster. These cars were owned by the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis for many years, until CTA bought them back in November 2017, and for virtually the entire time they were in St. Louis they were stored indoors. That seems to have kept them in excellent condition and limited somewhat the work required of the CTA employees.
The other pair of 6000s owned by the CTA,
6101 and
6102, were bought by the CTA from the Fox River Trolley Museum earlier in 2017 and will need significantly more work before they run again. These cars sat outside for the 23 years they were at FRTM and suffered accordingly. But before they went to Fox River they were restored to their original color scheme and briefly functioned as historic cars for the CTA, so there is definitely interest in doing the work to fix them up.
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