[2005.07.18] Red Line bomb scare (?)

I have no clue what just happened. I got on the Blue Line at UIC and the conductor was telling us that there would be no transfers until Clark/Lake. Fine with me, since that's where I transfer to the Brown Line (or Purple Line, if I'm feeling saucy). We get to Clark/Lake, and the subway is a giant wall of people, dogs, and cops, the cops yelling at everyone to get above ground; there would be no subway transfers; anyone who needed to pick up the Red Line could do it on the elevated tracks. Weird -- I've never heard of them running the Red Line above ground through the Loop.

I go up to the platform and it's just a goddamned wall of people. Three or four Brown Lines come and go, and I can't squeeze onto them because the platform is 15-people deep and the cars are all packed anyway. I decide to take my chances and hop onto one of the Red Line trains that had been diverted above ground. The conductor announced that the train was going to run straight to Fullerton. Oh hay, cool, that's my stop, so this should be like an express run. Toot toot.

Nope. With all the trains being pulled above ground, there was mass congestion, and I spent 40 minutes on the Red Line, most of it stopped between stations while people signed and rolled their eyes.

I took this picture around North Ave.

Turns out all of this was due to a package someone had accidentally left behind at a station. Some paranoid yuppie called the police about it.