It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region and investigate.

Report.

Explore.

From WB.E.Z.

Hey, I'm radio producer John Fasiel.

Every day, the Chicago Transit Authority, or CTA, moves about 1.5 million people.

That's the size of the population of Philadelphia.

Many of us choose to ride the CTA's trains.

There are almost 1,500 cars that run on over 224 miles of track.

As you're boarding, you might notice the CTA employee operating the train poke their head

out of the side window to make sure everybody gets on.

Then the door's closing announcement plays, the operator shoots back inside like a human

prairie dog, and you're off.

That's probably the last you'll see of that CTA worker the whole ride.

Yet, these are the people that we depend on every day, sometimes even multiple times a day,

to take us to work and to school and to visit our friends.

Here at Curious City, we've gotten several questions all along the same lines.

What does it like to be a CTA rail operator?

And how do you operate a CTA train?

The CTA wouldn't let us talk to any current rail operators for this story, but we did talk to some former rail operators who are ready to answer our questions.

Okay, what do you just go ahead and ask?

I'm not holding nothing back.

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