Death By Train: Chicago Transit Authority By Leon Fields

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Death by train is something which not many people expect to be a common occurrence. Suicides, electrocutions, and body searches, are among the Chicago Transit Authority’s forbidden byproducts. After having invested decades working for the CTA, Leon Fields, retired general manager, had begrudgingly agreed to disclose some of the exclusive information regarding the tragedies of the CTA, as he, as a consequence of being an integral part of the history, had front row seats to the suicides, electrocutions, and body searches which spontaneously occurred throughout the years. “You’ve got the union watching and waiting for every opportunity to discredit the operation (Referring to innovations on the train lines which resulted in the loss of jobs),” …show more content…

It was stated that, to counteract the union’s incessant claims of greater danger due to the absence of a second conductor, Fields and his crew decided to ensure that the trains were stopping at every stop, regardless of schedule, to minimize the accidents. This issue, however, was not the least of his worries, as another issue involving the frequent occurrence of unruly graffiti artists arose. Fields claimed these artists—taggers as he called them— had become a bigger issue than the union, and after a while they had to work with the Chicago police to help lessen these occurrences. Fields went on to mention that the vandalism itself wasn’t the only source of their distress in relation to the taggers, but also the threat of electrocution from stepping on high voltage rails that the graffiti artists seemed to ignore. “Taggers died because they went out to graffiti on high voltage tracks,” Fields said, assuming his grave expression as he leaned forward. “To see an electrocuted body lying on the tracks when you get to work in the morning is not a nice sight at all—but the worst part was the smell. You can anticipate it from

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