by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
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It looks like I missed a big story last week. Two Metra trains collided during Friday evening's rush hour two weeks ago. Mark Anderson called this to my attention:
You missed the news about the derailment Friday afternoon. That sure was a major major hassle for everyone who had to go south or west on BNSF. The bottom line for me is that my express which is supposed to get to Union Station at 5:35pm was sitting on the tracks between Western and Halsted at 7:00 pm with at least one if not more inbound BNSF trains ahead of us. They were only letting one train in and out of that side of the station. I estimated our train wouldn't get in until at least 9:00 pm and possibly even later. They were letting trains behind us pass us up because they had more fuel. Metra had no emergency plans in place to deal with passengers stuck in trains.I never found out the fate of our train. The conductors graciously let us off the train to walk across the tracks and walk four blocks to Halsted. I caught a Halsted bus to the Blue Line and I was home. I never found out the fate of that train or the passengers who didn't want to risk it by leaving the train. I can imagine Union station must have been an absolute madhouse with all those people trying to get home. I bet beer sales were up that day. :-)
Metra originally reported that a Southwest line train had sideswiped a BNSF train at about 10mph. However, several passengers disputed Metra's characterization of the accident as minor and Metra was forced to admit it was worse than first reported. Apparently the locomotive of one of the trains actually penetrated a passenger car on the other, sending glass flying through the car. One passenger was hospitalized with minor injuries. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. [Source: Chicago Tribune 25 July 2000 ]
In another incident, Metra service was interrupted on the UP-West line Tuesday when a west side factory started releasing nitric acid into the atmosphere. Parts of the Green Line L were also shut down. Passengers were bussed around the area to an open Green Line station to complete their commute to downtown. Metra passengers were at least allowed to ride the L for free at this point. [ Source: Chicago Tribune 25 July 2000 ]
The CTA is considering a plan to begin dispensing fare cards at area ATM machines. It is also considering the elimination of change machines at its rail stations. The existing fare card vending machines do not provide change. [ Source: Chicago Sun-Times 26 July 2000 ]
The Weekly Breakdown is a small Internet journal devoted to the trials and tribulations of being a regular rider of the Chicago Transit Authority. I would be happy to hear about and include your experiences. Just send mail to breakdown@urbanophile.com. The views expressed by contributors are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.
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