Jun
8
I was working late, feeling exhausted. Dragged my feet up the stairs to the el platform. And waited.
I was half asleep when the train pulled up. I shuffled on with some other weird-looking people.
The car was half empty, and I slumped down into a seat. Just as the doors closed, I realized I was on the first car.
No!
My mental “To-Do” list fired up. You were supposed to NOT choose the first car. Images of the derailed first car of the green line blazed in my heard. Ya don’t want to be in the first car when riding on the CTA.
My eyes flashed front. Who knows what that conductor’s state of mind is. How do you know he’s not asleep, or drunk, or suicidal?
That, at least, was the lesson I took away from May 28’s train derailment after the operator went through a red light and continued to accelerate even after emergency brakes outside the operator’s control were applied.
For a play-back of CBS coverage of the event, click here. Fourteen riders were hospitalized. And if the el car had jumped the track the other way, instead of coming to rest on the elevated platform, it could have taken a nose dive into the street below, killing everybody.
And that was the second event invoking panic into el riders in the past six weeks. On April 15, blue line riders were forced to wait underground for more than an hour as the CTA personnel figured out a way to get the train out from below the Chicago River. If you missed that excitement, the Chicago Tribune has the story here.
But no need to be alarmed.
What are you, soft?
I told you taking Chicago public transit is an adventure.
But really. Lightening doesn’t strike twice–
–I mean three times.
Right?