THREE LITTLE HORROR STORIES. THREE DIFFERENT DATES

THIS IS A BLOG ENTRY CONTAINING SEVERAL THINGS WHICH HAPPENED ON PUBLIC TRANSIT BETWEEN FALL 2007 AND WINTER 2009. ALL WERE NOT SCARY AT ALL TO ME, EXCEPT FOR ONE. YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT AND THE OTHERS IN THIS ENTRY. ENJOY, AND KEEP THE LIGHTS ON PLEASE.

SEPTEMBER 2007: I am on a WB #67 bus at the 69th Red Line stop en route to my apartment near 69th & Ashland. The bus pulls off and makes a right turn onto Lafayette on its way to 69th Street, but as soon as it turns onto Lafayette, it completely shuts down, right in the middle of the street, and its lights cut off. A couple of long, frantic, high-pitched screams are heard from the back of the bus. The screams last for six seconds. Soon afterward, the driver pushes a button or something and that restarts the bus, and it runs smoothly throughout the remainder of my trip to Paulina 1/8 mile west of Ashland, re-assuring the screamers in the back.

DECEMBER 2007: Extreme cold has strickened the area, but that does not stop me from taking the perilous journey out to west suburban Maywood to spend time with relatives who reside there. I board an Ashland bus and take it to the Blue Line getting on a WB train at Illinois Medical District station. It didn't take it long to arrive, about one minute, but it sure in the hell took it a long time to get from that point to the Forest Park terminal. Why? The cold really messed with it, causing it to move about, I would say, 15 m.p.h. the entire trip. Every little move it made along the 600V DC third rail caused white and bluish-white sparks to shoot forth without a break! I was the only one in that rail car, a 2200 series car, so no complaining was heard from other people, neither was there any from me. However, I was slightly panic-stricken, worrying that, if the train stopped completely and shut down, how long would it take for assistance to arrive and what should I do thereafter? Fortunately, it pulled into the Forest Park Terminal without any other problems and the few passengers on board (about a dozen excluding me) exited the train unharmed.

FEBRUARY 2009: It is a cold Friday night, less than 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I am riding on a SB #9 Ashland bus to go home from doing a little grocery shopping at the Dominicks store at Ashland/Archer. The local #9 continues on the street level part of Ashland between 37th and 40th or something like that, while the #X9 Ashland Express bus continues up the Ashland bridge between 37th and 40th Streets, making no stops. I am on a regular #9 bus, and when the bus comes tothe stop light at 39th Street (a.k.a. Pershing), it shuts off completely and the lights go off!
All I can see thanks to the dim streetlights are the legs of passengers across from me, and all that I can hear are long, high-pitched screams, two of them, a virtual repeat of the #67 bus shutting off in 2007! Driver does the same little troubleshooting technique to bring the bus back to life. A woman near me suddenly blurts out,

"This is a really bad spot to be stopped at."

I do agree, because the area is heavily industrial and therefore, dark, dead, and desolate at night.