"Lack of equipment"

So, my train was cancelled this morning. At 7:27, two minutes late already, a voice came over the loudspeaker at the train station to announce that the 7:25 train just wasn't going to operate today due to - I cannot make this up - a lack of equipment.

Seriously.

Apparently, the need to run this train snuck up on the fine folks at Metra. I'm not sure how, since it's printed on the schedule (has been since 2006, I might add) and it's scheduled to run five days a week, 52 weeks a year. But somehow, they didn't have enough cars and/or locomotives to actually meet their schedule. When I asked the guy I ended up sitting next to, he said this actually happens all the time and that I should never rely on the 7:25 if I have to be in the city by a certain time.

(Note: I usually take the 7:10, but a minor wardrobe malfunction put me a couple of minutes behind today.)

So Dad and I went to get a cup of coffee just up the street as I waited for the 7:49. That one did arrive, thankfully. After only a couple of stops, the train was almost full and the conductor came on the PA asking people to move out of the vestibules and into the cars themselves...which was an exercise in futility since people were already packed in like the Tokyo subway. It's not like the people who normally take the cancelled train were going to skip work because the train didn't come...they had to go somewhere! To see the crowds waiting on each platform as we pulled up you'd have thought they were evacuating the suburbs! Thankfully, I had some work with me that I could do on the train so the time wasn't a total loss.

It's also worth mentioning that in the last two weeks, I've run into delays due to "heavy passenger loading" (was this a surprise during rush hour?), track construction, freight train interference, and - I cannot make this up, either - a fire in the wheels of a butter car on a freight train. This is why we lovingly call them the "Unreliable Pacific" :)

I can hardly wait until it gets *really* cold and the track switches start freezing!