Secrets of the Trade: CTA Motormen Tell Their Stories
From sex to drugs to attacks and close encounters, veteran operators from Amalgamated Transit Union local 308 tell their stories
By Phil Rogers ••
The first in a special series of stories. CTA motormen reveal the outrageous things they see every day as you ride trains over and under the city. NBC 5’s Phil Rogers reports.
They are the men and women who drive Chicago’s el and subway trains, covering thousands of miles in all conditions, every year.
But could you do what they do?
“We’re the first ones to deal with situations, because there’s no one else there,” says union chief Kenneth Franklin. “We see, we hear, anything and everything before police can get there, before the fire department can get there, we’re relied on for acting instantly because we have all these passengers in our hands."
Many motormen report being attacked by a passenger on a train - one even threatened with a screw driver. n"I reached to close the doors and he started coming closer. Eventually he pulled out what he had - a screwdriver - at me," Deborah Lane, who has been a motorman for 10 years, said. "His thing was, 'I'm going to find you, I'm going to kill you.' It took a mental toll on me and I had to take off work for like six months because I never had that done to me before." n"This kid came up and hit me on the side of the head, with his open hand and before I realized what happened, another kid came up behind him and hit me with a bar or something and hit me so hard on this side of my head, it turned this eye black and blue too," Thomas Moore, a 29-year veteran with the CTA, said.n"After she missed the train, she spit in my face, blaming me for her missing the Purple Line trains," Kenneth Franklin, who has been with the CTA for 15 years and been a motorman for 5 years, said. n"He came through the window, kicked me in the side, and just was standing over me, beating me ," said 11-year CTA veteran Marcene Anderson.
Not only do motormen report dealing with feces, urine and vomit - they report dealing with it frequently. n"And we have to operate them with that smell, all the way for 50 minutes," said Deborah Lane. nMore recently, many said they have encountered bed bugs.n"This is like out of a horror story, where we've had individuals, homeless, so infested with bed bugs, that you can see the bugs activity on that person," Kenneth Franklin said.
"On a daily basis I see a lot of homeless people who are covering up seats for people trying to sit, trying to cause confrontations," Thomas Moore said. "Once we get to Howard, I have to get the train in the yard, and one way or another, I have to get those homeless people off the train and most of the time there's confrontations with them."
Bed bugs, motormen say, have become a growing problem on CTA trains. n"When someone hits the intercom button, we have to go and assess that this person does have bugs on them, they have to let everyone off the train and on to another car, and we have to get that passenger off of the train and wait until they are escorted off the property. But at that point, that car is infested," Anthony Jones said. nInformed of the motormen’s complaints, a CTA spokesman told NBC 5 Investigates that the presence of bedbugs is “very rare, in the context of the hundreds of thousands of rail trips CTA provides each year.”
Of the six motormen interviewed by NBC 5, four said they've seen someone having sex on a train. In addition, others reported similar incidents on their trains. n"The woman was sitting on top of the man, and they had their coats around them and she was just riding him," Marcene Anderson said. "And people were pushing the button, and before I could respond, I look through the window and I see what's going on- they are actually having sexual intercourse."nn"Someone activated the button, then at the same time the control center called and said that a gentleman was exposing himself in one of the cars," said Anthony Jones. "And I walked back and he was sitting there with his hands in his jogging pants and said 'I didn't do anything.' I was like, 'Then why are your hands in your pants?' I'm like, 'You've got to get off the train.'"
Not only do many motormen report seeing people shooting heroin on trains, they also find leftover needles.n"I've seen them with the needle in the hand and once they came to the stop, they got off the train and left the needle in the crease," Marcene Anderson said. n"If they're in the back car shooting the needle up and we reverse and go to the head car, we as an operator need to look in the crevasse before we open the door, because we find hydraulic needles right in our work area," Deborah Lane said, noting they are also found in the rim of windows when they are being opened. n"We have to find a glove to remove that needle so we don't prick ourselves. So we can remove it and continue our operation," she added.
Every motorman NBC 5 spoke with reported having people on the tracks in front of them at one point. One motorman even reported finding a person on the tracks between tunnels and having to bring that person onto the train to give them a ride the rest of the way. "He identified himself and he wasn't an employee," said Elwood Flowers, who worked for the CTA for 37 years.
Motormen say they see people frequently walking the catwalk between stations, some even living in the tunnels.n"Some people are not patient enough to wait for the trains so sometimes they get agitated and walk the catwalk," Deborah Lane said. nLane said she once discovered someone not only living in the tunnel, but accessing the Chicago Transit Authority's electrical system to watch TV. n"There was an actual guy that lived in the elevated part of the tunnel, and I didn’t even know that there was even a top part of the tunnel," she said. "He had a TV, mattress and everything connected to CTA's electrical system."
Motormen can't see cameras in the cars of a train unless the train is stopped. n"When you push the emergency buttons in one of those cars, I can hear audible sound, but I can't see what's going on," Thomas Moore said. "They have programmed those cameras to not turn on until the trains have stopped."
Every motorman NBC 5 spoke to said they have had to put out a fire on a train. n"As the motorman, we're the fireman, we're the policeman, we're the counselor. We're everything. We have multiple jobs to do," Deborah Lane said.
To get an idea of what motormen deal with on a daily basis, NBC 5 Investigates assembled a group of veteran operators from Amalgamated Transit Union local 308. They spoke of the trials of moving tons of steel over and under Chicago’s streets, while dealing with very unpredictable challenges from passengers.
We’re not just talking about the occasional untalented musician or panhandler passing a hat. How about people in the darkened tunnels---between stations?
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
“There was an actual guy that lived in the elevated part of the tunnel,” motorman Deborah Lane told us. “He had a TV, mattress, and everything connected to the CTA’s electrical system.”
Retired motorman Elwood Flowers, who drove trains for four decades, said he was taught early in his career that a dead giveaway can be a light ahead in the tunnel which should be steady-but isn’t.
“If any of those signals blink at you---that’s a body that you can’t see,” he said.
Sex among passengers, they say is commonplace, as is drug use. And all manner of criminal activity.
“I’m all on my own, there’s nothing I can do personally,” said motorman Thomas Moore, who had a man shot on his train earlier this year.
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
“As soon as I stepped out of the motor cab, I saw the blood going all the way down the platform,” he said. “Apparently they were arguing over selling cigarettes, and one guy ended up shooting the other guy twice.”
Moore said he wished he was able to view cameras in the cars on his trains, but for safety reasons, he can only do so when the train comes to a complete stop.
“When you push the emergency buttons in one of those cars, I can hear audible sound, but I can’t see what’s going on.”
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
Many said they had been physically assaulted. Motorman Deborah Lane recalled one man coming at her with a screwdriver.
“His thing was, I’m going to find you, I’m going to kill you,” she said. “It took a mental toll on me.”
By the way, did they say sex? The operators laughed. Marcene Anderson recalled one couple vividly.
“The woman was just sitting on top of the man,” she said. “And they had their coats around them and she was just riding him."
There is also the occasional—ahem—passenger who can’t wait to disembark for a real rest room.
“We see human waste, we see urine,” Lane said. “And we have to operate that train.”
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
All said they had stopped a train to put out a fire. Most said they had seen passengers shooting heroin.
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
“I’ve seen them with the needle in their hand, and once they came to the stop, they got off the train and left the needle in the crease (of the window),” Anderson said.
There are also tragic moments---suicides. For the motormen, those happen up close.
“A passenger committed suicide in front of my train, then I had to evacuate the train,” said Anthony Jones, a motorman of 15 years. “I had to put my own personal issues on the back burner, and go into CTA mode, and direct passengers to other trains.”
By the way, there is one other issue, a creepy-crawly one, which could send shivers up the spine of even the most hardened traveler.
“Bed bugs from homeless people,” Moore said. “I have to go back there to that car and get everybody off of it, isolate the car, cut all the doors out, so they can call someone to exterminate.”
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
“This is like out of a horror story,” said Franklin, the union president. “We’ve had individuals so infested with bed bugs, that you can see the bugs activity on that person.”
Informed of the motormen’s complaints, a CTA spokesman told NBC5 Investigates that the presence of bedbugs is “very rare, in the context of the hundreds of thousands of rail trips CTA provides each year.”
If there is one issue which shows genuine friction between the motormen and CTA management, it’s the decision in the late nineties to eliminate conductors from the trains. The agency argued at the time, that in addition to cost savings, safety was actually increased, because the motormen became more engaged with full operation of the trains.
But the men and women who drive the trains note the elimination of the conductors led to an inescapable truth: on a train which can be longer than a football field, they are usually the only authority figure on board-one CTA employee for a thousand passengers.
“Somebody has got to step in there and say, hey, what about the safety of these people,” Flowers said. “The first guys to know that there’s no conductor on there is the wrongdoer."
CTA motormen share their experiences after years of working on Chicago trains.
Moore, a 29-year veteran, said in this era when terrorism is a fear around the world, he especially thinks about it when he drives a train under the Chicago River.
“Every time I go through there, I just kind of hold my breath,” he said. “You never know.”
Oh, and by the way, on top of everything else---they do have to drive the trains.
“As the motorman, we’re the fireman, we’re the policeman, we’re the counselor,” Lane said. “We’re everything."
