(The following report appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on February 24.)
CHICAGO — The CTA Green Line on Chicago’s South Side was shut down for about 90 minutes this morning after fire broke out aboard a train, authorities reported.
The fire started around 9:30 a.m. The train operator spotted smoke while pulling out of the 43rd Street station and made an emergency stop, but only the last three cars of the six-car train were still in the station where the passengers could get out, CTA spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said.
Ziegler said the train couldn’t back up into the station with a car on fire, so the passengers in the front cars had to stay aboard while the train and its burning cars, on elevated tracks, headed for the next station at 40th Street. She didn’t know how many people were on the train at the time but said everyone was evacuated.
The train then was moved to an open area at 37th Street near State Street. By the time firefighters arrived, the fourth car in a six-car train was engulfed in flames. The fire quickly was extinguished, but by that time the car was gutted. The blaze also damaged an adjoining car.
Eight to 10 people were in the car where the fire broke out, said CTA spokeswoman Anne McCarthy. She did not know how many people were still aboard the train when it reached the second station.
No injuries were reported, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told CLTV.
“Flames just busted the windows, flames were coming out of the windows. It was just a really amazing thing to see, because I thought people were on the train,” a witness, Yishmael Sullivan, told WGN-Ch. 9.
Officials lauded the engineer, a five-year CTA veteran, for quick thinking.
“He had enough diligence to drop the passengers off and then move the train to a safe location so we could extinguish the fire,” Deputy Fire Chief Ernie Pinkston said.
“The operator acted in a manner that he took the train out of the station, out of harm’s way, into an area that was safe to deal with it,” Ziegler said.
Power was shut off to the tracks, and no Green Line trains operated south of Roosevelt Road while firefighters remained at the scene. Riders were urged to instead use the parallel Red Line or shuttle buses.
Service was restored about 11 a.m., CTA officials said. The cause of the fire was under investigation.
(Tribune staff reporter Brendan McCarthy and the Associated Press contributed to this story.)