Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
We've admittedly been hesitant to cover the story of the alleged "Miracle At Morse" in which a stroller with a baby was reportedly stuck in the doors of the train, dragged along the platform, and then the baby knocked out onto the tracks but wound up miraculously unharmed. The whole thing sounded so improbable and given a similar recent incident in Australia that garnered world-wide attention, we had several questions: Did the operator completely not see the stroller before pulling out? How did the train start moving with doors still wedged open? - and we wondered if the whole thing was real. Turns out we're not the only ones. Amalgamated Transit Union President Robert Kelly is having problems wrapping his head around this, too. With the stroller in question in officials' hands and in relatively good condition, questions are beginning to arise. As reported by CBS 2:
So if it is the stroller -- and at this point Kelly said that no other stroller has been recovered -- the question is: how could it have been dragged by a train and smashed into metal bars, yet be in remarkably good condition?Then there's the question of the baby girl.
"The baby wasn't crying," Kelly said. "I don't buy that."
So could the baby's mother have fabricated the story and led the entire city on a wild goose chase? "I hope not. I really hope not," Kelly said. "But, there's something not adding up here and my personal opinion is, I'm going to tell you on the record, I don't believe this whole thing."
Now we're not saying this whole thing is fake. If it really happened as described, we're thankful that the child is okay and not severely harmed. But we agree with our pal Eric Zorn who thinks there are some major details left to uncover.
Update: CTA Tattler has a poll up and as of 1:15 this afternoon, out of 157 votes, 0% of readers believe the mother's story.
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I don't ride the trains every day, but I take them quite often and only once have I ever seen a conductor who actually leans his body out of the window to make sure that everyone is safe. I remember thinking that this is one super duper conscientious employee.
I've always had the opposite experience. Interesting. And when I get off at my stop, the driver is always, without fail, looking out the window.
Maybe I just noticed this guy because he actually leaned his body out of the window to look. I'm sure most of them do check, but he seemed to go out of the boundaries of comfort to make sure.
Green Line drivers do it more times than not, in my experience.
I do ride the El everyday (Blue Line). Last year, I saw the train doors open on a very crowded train, while it was moving full speed about 1/2 way between Western and Damen. Anyone leaning on those doors would have fallen onto tracks at a high rate of speed. Amazingly, when the train got to Damen stop, the doors remained open (opposite side of platform) and the train began to pull away again. I jumped up and shouted to some one to hit the button to alert the operator (I was packed in the middle of the aisle). Most people seemed quite content to let the train continue with doors wide open.
I also notice many times that the "Doors closing" announcement is turned off. I have also gotten stuck in a door and it did not automatically reopen -- I had to forcefully push doors apart. I am sure many regular riders have seen similar things, so we are not sure about reliability of the CTA on doors working and other matters.
That said, this does seem a bit fishy.
I don't look every time I get on the train, but I can say that far more often than not, I see drivers looking out the window as they operate the doors. I've had many see me top the stairs at my stop just after they closed the doors and open the doors to let me on. I've always assumed it was standard procedure to look.
This incident, therefore, requires the failure of two systems, the procedural that involves the train operator watching out the window, and the mechanical that keeps the train from moving with the doors open. I also can't work out the physics of just how the stroller would be positioned so that the baby could fall out while the stroller keeps moving with the train. That would almost mean the stroller would have to be facing out, which is unreasonable if the mother was trying to get on.
Also, there seem to be no actual witnesses that I've heard. (I didn't read any of the above links). The whole thing just doesn't make sense. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying it's weird.
I was on the blue line and the doors wouldn't close. The train left the station anyways - with the doors open. People didn't seem concerned until we went above ground to the Damen stop and there was a possibility of someone falling out of the train.
Obviously a different situation, but silly shiz happens on the CTA.
To the credit of the drivers, I always see them checking out the window on the blue line. I ride every day from Irving Park to Clinton and I cannot remember not seeing this happen.
I also assume that I am on camera anywhere near CTA property. Is there no footage in this case?
While the story does seem a bit hinky, I find the idea of the conductor not paying attention completely believable. Once, on the Brown Line, the train overshot the platform, so the first doors on the first car opened, with no platform there, and at least a 30 foot drop to the alley below. If not for a passenger standing right at the door who noticed, a woman would have walked right off and fallen.
I was also once on a Brown Line that overshot the Paulina station by about ten feet as it arrived -- when the train finally stopped, the front doors of the first car opened up over the street. And Paulina's higher up because it crosses over the Metra. Luckily no one fell to their doom. This was before rampant ipods and cell phones. What's funny is that the driver said nothing and the passengers at the front of the car who needed to exit and saw what happened nonchalantly filed toward the back of the car to exit. Most people in the car probably didn't even notice it.
hey .... there's a good point ... "rampant ipods and cell phones." where were all the tweets and pictures of this? i can't believe there was no one on this train to report this back somehow, somewhere. no citizen journalism to post this craziness back to facebook, twitter, or whatnot. sending a video up to youtube. ??? even the slightest bit of hoopla seems to get to the web before anyone can blink these days.
did anyone hear of anything like that that day?