Commuters reported significant delays after the the CTA halted service for many train lines Thursday evening, in response to a Yellow Line train derailing near Howard Station, the second such incident in less than three years.
The train cars derailed around 5:40 p.m., suspending two lines as well as the Red Line between Howard and Thorndale, according to a CTA representative, who said no injuries were reported. Riders experienced delays on the Red, Yellow and Purple lines, with some commutes taking multiple hours longer than expected.
Grace McGarel, who was on the Purple Line train behind the derailed Yellow train, said she waited an hour-and-a-half before pulling into the Howard station. Once in the station, McGarel saw the derailed train.
“That was pretty scary to see as a commuter, just the train coming off the tracks,” McGarel said. “Basically the two cars which should be parallel to the tracks had come off the tracks where the two cars connect.”
The CTA, which has yet to give an explanation for the derailment, did not respond to a request for comment.
Jac Dellaria, 29, takes the CTA to commute to and from his job in Evanston and his home near Loyola. When Dellaria reached the Davis station on the Purple Line, officials told him the platform was closed because of a power outage and said Red Line shuttle buses could take passengers to the Howard station.
When Dellaria reached the shuttle area, he realized his commute home would not be that simple.
“I went out to the bus station with a bunch of other people, and there was no shuttle buses for an hour,” Dellaria said. “The guys at the CTA station said one thing, and then they had to come out and tell us that shuttle buses kind of weren’t coming.”
After taking two hours to get home yesterday, Dellaria said the CTA feels like an “iffy” form of transportation.
Some commuters chose to wait out the long delays. Others, like Diana Webb, 34, decided calling a car from a rideshare app would be easier than the chaos of trying to find the CTA shuttles.
“I was just waiting and waiting and waiting, and I noticed no [train] cars were coming,” Webb said. “There wasn’t much direction on where to go to find this shuttle, so I just ended up calling a Lyft.”
This is not the first time the Yellow Line, known as the Skokie Swift, has experienced a major incident near the Howard station.
In November of 2023, A Yellow Line train crashed into a slow-moving snowplow, injuring at least 38 people, three of them critically. Four children were injured, the youngest being 2 years old.
The National Transportation Safety Board cited slippery tracks, aggressive braking and the CTA’s decision to disable an automatic braking system as the likely causes of that crash.
An attorney who represented many of those who sued the CTA in 2023 called on the transit organization to be open about what caused Thursday’s derailment on the Yellow Line.
“Riders should not have to speculate about their own safety,” said Joseph Murphy, a partner at Clifford Law Offices. “Having represented victims of the 2023 Yellow Line crash, I’ve seen how important transparency is, not just for accountability, but for restoring public trust. If there were failures, the public deserves to know what they were and what is being done to ensure this does not happen again.”