CTA Tattler

The Insider's thought on rude supervisor

The CTA Insider has some insights on the CTA supervisor who harassed a rider. Here are his thoughts:

This is what happens when we get new supervisors with little or no training. We are about to lose a lot of the good ones to retirement and these are some of the worst employees to have in a crisis, let alone a simple verbal altercation.

This supervisor should have been reported immediately. There is no reason he should have reacted that way and by no means should have called him a name or followed him to continue the conversation.

This supervisor like most idiots didn't realize how close he was to getting hurt by someone he had no idea what their mental state was.

Taking pictures on the property is allowed if it's one or two shots by a tourist or within reason, but employees are told to use their best judgment when dealing with any situation. And my best judgment is different from your best and so on.

There was a comment by someone about bus supervisors sitting in cars and chit-chatting. I've noticed over the years a lot of hostility from passengers about how much we make and how our jobs are to be done. The jealously is surprising.

Photo of rude supervisor, and CTA's response to complaint

CTA Tattler readers have demanded that Justin (aka Bluebummer) share with us the photo of the supervisor who verbally harassed him this past week. And here he is.

Also, here is the response from the CTA to the complaint Bluebummer made about this guy:

"Thank you for your complaint and we're sorry you had such a confrontation on the train. Based on the details you provided, we are assuming this occurred early Sunday morning; we urgently need you to correct this if it was actually early Saturday morning.

"We cannot encourage the taking of a photograph of anyone without the subject's permission --whether to be published or not -- but we also require our employees to speak professionally with all customers at all times. Your complaint is being forwarded to the supervisors of the Blue Line for the appropriate corrective action. In the meantime, we appreciate you telling us about the situation. And for future reference, the employee's badge number is all we need for a positive identification; a photo is not necessary.

--CTA Customer Service

Click on continuation below to read Bluebummer's complaint letter:

Train supervisor harasses bummed out passenger

Here's a bummer of a story from Bluebummer:

Sothe other  night I was a part of the very fun Blue Line art gallery car. After all was said and done that was great.

But getting home was more exciting. We all got off the Blue Line at Belmont and the rest of the group had to go back south while I needed to continue North. As everyone who gets the alerts knows by now the Blue Line is one track from Addison to Jefferson Park.

Well when we arrived at Addison we were told by the operator that we'd be sitting there waiting for a Southbound train to pass us, even though we had just passed one at Belmont. So we sit at Addison for 30 minutes as two (2) more southbound trains go by!

After the first one I go out by the operator and ask why we are waiting for another train because we just passed one also! The supervisor there must have thought I was a threat in my completely nonchalant way of pointing out the fact that I would like to get home at a reasonable hour.

So then right before we finally get to move the supervisor comes and stands in the car by me and asks me what my problem was in front of everyone else on the train. So I have my camera with me to document the night and I thought, "I am gonna take a picture of this Jerk so I can send it into ctahelp@transitchicago.com."

The fear of riding backwards

Help me here. What's up with the fear of riding backwards in a CTA train?

I have seen people sit down cautiously in a seat facing in the opposite direction of the train, or avodi that seat altogether. And then they hop up quickly and take another seat across the aisle facing forward as soon as it becomes available.

Plus, I've read comments here about people getting sick while riding backwards.

Why? How? I did find this link on motion sickness and kids, but how big a problem is it for adult riders?

More tales from the "Crazies" front

Dispatches during "Crazies Week" last week prompted readers to add their own sightings:

The old lady on the Sheridan 151: There is one woman on the 151 whom I've begun to see with some regularity. She's elderly and always wears the same outfit. Or at least I think she does. I'm always taken in by three things to really notice her clothes: her ratty flip-flop sandals that she wears in any weather, and an ill-fitting wig with half the hair missing that I swear she always wears backwards. Sometimes she sits relatively quietly, sometimes she has the most energetic conversations with someone the rest of us can't see.

Not really anything special about her as far as crazies go, but the thing that gets me are her habits. She always gets on at the same time around Water Tower and always exits up inner LSD somewhere between Division and North. She always has a collection of bags from high-end retailers, but they're always different bags. There's never any overwhelming odors coming from her and she otherwise appears to be in decent physical health.

Granted, she could get those bags from the trash and maybe the voices in her head just keep her on a tight schedule. But, I can't help but get the feeling that this woman is some Gold Coaster's crazy mom or aunt who gets let out of the house on some afternoons but has to be home by dinnertime.

Ranters come out when train goes express:  Why do the ranters always seem to get on the Purple Line just as it is going express?

This morning an older fellow, complete with old man hat, gets on at Belmont. About a minute into the ride, he began talking about socialism and democracy. He told us about how we're becoming robots. Then he talked about actual robots. Eventually, as expected, the rambling angles towards Jesus. And the Jews. Catholics having such and such icon in their church (he was kinda mumbly at this point) and the Jews doing something else.

He spent about five minutes repeating himself about fish and how they're preserved in the desert with salty water. Then back to Jesus. And the Jews. As far as I could tell, he didn't have any outright hostility to Judaism, but he was talking about Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion and the Jews. Somehow, the topic then flowed into radioactivity and isotopes. Before I had a chance to get up to thank him for his drifting address to the train car and suggest next time he stick to a script, he quietly exited the train at Davis just before the doors closed.

The Red Line flosser: This morning on the Red Line heading south between Bryn Mawr and Lawrence, there was a guy, clean cut, looking like he was going to work, standing between the doors on the right, holding a string of dental floss over a foot long. He looked around nervously to make sure no one was watching, and then proceeded to floss his teeth. He was getting the molars all the way in the back and working his way around the top row, alternating the flossing with flicking the harvested tooth gunk onto the floor.

Anatomy of a train derailment

There have been a couple train derailments in the news this year. That made me wonder: Just how does a train derail? So I asked the CTA Insider, and here's his response:

"There are a couple of ways a train could derail. There was a situation where a train was past a switch point (the train was not in service - there being passengers on board) and for whatever reason the motor man backed the train up (which is never supposed to be done - they are to walk to the other end of the train and move the train as if it where headed in that direction) and because the switch was already activated the train wheels went up past the rails.

  "This is considered a derailment but not in the dangerous sense. Any time the wheels come above the rails it is a derailment and if the shoe (the part that touches the third rail) comes off the power, the lights go out and the car loses power but it is mostly seen as a situation where the train leaves the tracks altogether.

"If a train where to hit something or roll over something there is the possibility of a derailment. That Brown/Purple collision awhile back is a perfect example -- the rear train does not stop but the front train has its brakes applied. The rear train pushes against the front and somewhere along the cars the knuckles buckle and the forward momentum pushes the car sideways enough for the wheels to clear the rails.

"The motor man is supposed to stop before they get to anything lying on the tracks because it could cause the train to raise up enough to push it off the rails. Even snow has been a problem some winters. Sometimes the motor man is moving too fast through a crossover or around a corner and the train will ride up the side of the rail and leave the track.

"It's always a rough ride through a derailment for the passengers and the motor man, who sometimes can be thrown around pretty harshly. The derailment that happened a couple of years ago on the O'Hare line was ruled as human error as there was track work going on at the time and this motor man didn't respond correctly and ran into the train sitting ahead while going at least 25 mph. That caused 3 or 4 cars to accordion across both sets of tracks. I had a friend on the rear train and he said people were flying around like rag dolls in a dryer. Speed is a factor in most situations but a lot of times it is inattention to duty.

"Normally there's not much damage done to the trains undercarriage or to the tracks but there is the possibility of the train knocking the third rail off the chairs it sits on which will cause a shut down of service along that section of track until track men get there to lift it back onto the chairs. The trains themselves are lifted by a crane and placed back on the tracks, and then pulled to the shop to be inspected and fixed if possible.

"With the derailment that happened in 1977 I'm not sure how it worked for that situation but I believe it was the same premise. I have a picture of that accident on my wall at home as a reminder of how bad it could be if people don't pay attention. There's also some ghost stories of that particular four car train that went around for years after it was put back in service, how the train would make screeching sounds and ghostly passengers would be seen by car cleaners passing through the cars at night during their shifts."

Photo by Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune, via chicago-el.org

Polite motorman makes for pleasant CTA ride

A pleasant motorman on Red Line run 816 last week made the ride to work a little more bearable.

He reminded people to give up seats to the "handicapped and pregnant woman, and any man who looks real tired. We're all family here people, so let's treat each other right."

A minute later he said: "This is your train, I'm just the chauffeur."

He was chatty throughout the ride, but not in an obnoxious way. As we got toward the Loop, he reminded people by the doors to step off the train to let passengers exit more easily.

And they did!

It was actually a pleasant CTA riding experience.

Aisle-facing seat: More room means more scrunched?

Aisle-facing seats on trains are now a $577-million fait accompli for 2009.

The CTA says after the purchase of 406 new rail cars, riders will get at least 6 more inches of aisle space to allow "more room for customers carrying backpacks, packages, luggage, strollers and bikes. In addition, it allows more space for standing customers with more support poles and straps in the center of the car and accommodates 40 seats so no seats are lost as a result of the new reconfiguration. Aisle-facing seating also provides space for an additional wheelchair position, increasing the total to two per car."

Two years ago I rode one of these cars during a CTA test run. The one thing I didn't like about it was the prospect of being squeezed in and scrunched on two sides. I think the CTA should consider some sort of divider between seats or an elbow rest to protect personal space.

What do you think? of the aisle-facings train cars. Take my click poll below. And here's a Tribune graphic showing the new configuration:

What's your opinion on aisle-facing seats?

Take this poll on the aisle-facing seats coming in 2009. I'll shares the results with the powers-that-be at the CTA.

Nonsenical blathering, like clockwork

Filling out Crazies Week at CTA Tattler, let me highlight this reader contribution. (Share yours here):

"I get off the Blue Line at Clark & Lake every day at about 8:45, sometimes 8:50 in the morning. There is a guy that sits about an aisle deep, in the window, on the right side of the first car, every day, and begins his nonsensical blathering about everything that he hates around the halfway point between the Chicago and Grand stops, every day, which is usually the same thing.

"I've been known to get on at the Cumberland stop on occasion so I know he is on the train for a while. He is a black guy in his mid-50s with an almost George Clinton style of dress. He has what appears to be a modified top hat and begins his same spiel, same time, same place, every GD day."

There's nothing like the regulars on the CTA.