The last few days the Red Line has been a mess. Trains delayed for so long the platform fills up to bursting, move really slow even when you know there is no one ahead of them for miles, lack of AC running not unusual and even getting to be common.
Driving me batty but I have seen no reports of why the delays occur (they rarely even come over the loudspeakers to tell you anything and if they do it is unintelligible).
Mind you these delays have now happened to me three days in a row. I know they happen on occasion but this is unusual even for them.
I don’t use the Red Line often – usually, only when the weather’s bad. I take the Blue Line in from the Forest Park station to downtown, and will then transfer to the Red Line to ride up to Grand/State if the weather’s bad – on most days, I’ll get off of the Blue Line at Washington (Daley Plaza), and walk up to my office in River North.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was a “Red Line day”, due to the rain. When I got up to the Red Line station at Jackson, I noticed that there were already quite a few people waiting, and I saw no sign of any train coming north in the tunnel.
When a train finally arrived, about 10 minutes later, it was packed (this would have been just before 9am). Clearly, something had led to a delay. But, there were two trains directly behind it. I passed on that packed train, and instead got on the next one, which was only half-full.