Editors note: all names and whatnot have been…….um……changed…to protect my valuable sources.
I was thinking with a friend of mine last nite about all the differing ways he used to……….get out of paying fares on the C.T.A. This guy, Winky, started out early. His dad worked for the C.T.A., and this 8-9 yo was taught to play along when his dad claimed him to be 7 yo- just young enough to ride the buses for free back then.
Early student days were different. There were two great methods back then: the Backdoor Sneak, and the Rush*. The backdoor sneak was simply to get on the backdoor of the bus when the driver was distracted. It worked when a tonne of people wee getting on, but it wasn’t foolproof. The Rush was a lot different. Ten of the gang would get on all @ once, making up a minor disturbance and being loud to create a small problem for the driver. They threw all sorts of small change into the fare box, and all demanded transfers. The driver, just wanting to shut them all up, would just let them pass. They did both countless times when they were young.
University added another facet of intrigue. Winky went to a North Side university which forced him to take the el from the South Side. For the first three years, however, he was able to claim to be a hs student and thus was eligible to ride for ½ price. This was accomplished by creating false documents (this was a gang that grew up on Hogan’s Heroes and the Great Escape, so faked documents was just a matter of course.). Needed documents were a CTA card and a ’valid’ hs id. Both were gotten from contacts inside a South Side hs. One of Winky’s frenz was on this schools football team--this being a typical Catholic school where football was god, he was able to get away with certain things. One was that he was put in charge of taking I.D. pictures. He gave Winky an empty id from this hs --an easy photo booth visit for a black and white head snap followed. Then put the ID and picture in a towel, ironed it so that it ‘melted’ to-gether, and for his first three years in university, Winky was also able to claim being a HS student. The most difficult time for this trick --otherwise it was 100% foolproof-- was when winky grew a major grizzly beard over xmas in his 2d year. Solution? It was winter, so a large scarf was carried every day to and from school and put on for 45s a day. His senior year was h.s.I.d.less= his hs contact had finally joined the college ranks. The funnest part of the whole deal was being able to create new names for himself-he remembers one being from a war movie and another from a 60’s English secret agent tv show.
There were two methods apres university. One was the Drunken Clamber up the side of the Albion stop concrete wall- Winky was one of the two top climbers in the neighbourhood growing up- after a fite with his girlfriend decided that a 2am trip on the el home was better than being with her that nite.
The other apres university method was the Pfenning Challenge. Word got out that the German ½ cent (called the pfenning) was a perfect fit in the old token slots in the el turnstiles. Put in a pfenning and a quarter and you get both a ride and a tansfer. Strange!! Frenz of Winky who had been to Europe supplied him with -well, lets just say a real lot of pfennings- that enabled him to more or less ride the el for free for about two years. These pfennings only worked in el turnstyles- if you needed to get on the bus, you needed to @ least stop @ an el stop, get a transfer, then get on the bus. Eventually CTA started to update their turnstiles, but several key stops still allowed pfennings: Loyola, Wilson, Belmont, and some subways in the Loop. Since Winky is a cheap bastard and a huge bit of a walker, he though nothing of walking a mile or two just to save the $1.50 ride. Pfennings no longer work in any turnstile.
The last maneuver worked only a few times in certain circumstances. Winky had found an el key, which allowed him to sit in the conductors compartment during rides**. For a brief period there, C.T.A. didn’t have people working in the ticket booths very late @ nite. So Winky would get on the train and sit in the back conductors compartment. When the ride started and the conductor came around to claim fares (think Metra), Winky would just smile and wave through the closed compartment door @ them -C.T.A. people rode for free of course, and only employees should be in that compartment. They never asked.
*=they were not known as such back in the day.
**=yeahyeahyeah, I’ll document that stuff one of these days as well.
I was thinking with a friend of mine last nite about all the differing ways he used to……….get out of paying fares on the C.T.A. This guy, Winky, started out early. His dad worked for the C.T.A., and this 8-9 yo was taught to play along when his dad claimed him to be 7 yo- just young enough to ride the buses for free back then.
Early student days were different. There were two great methods back then: the Backdoor Sneak, and the Rush*. The backdoor sneak was simply to get on the backdoor of the bus when the driver was distracted. It worked when a tonne of people wee getting on, but it wasn’t foolproof. The Rush was a lot different. Ten of the gang would get on all @ once, making up a minor disturbance and being loud to create a small problem for the driver. They threw all sorts of small change into the fare box, and all demanded transfers. The driver, just wanting to shut them all up, would just let them pass. They did both countless times when they were young.
University added another facet of intrigue. Winky went to a North Side university which forced him to take the el from the South Side. For the first three years, however, he was able to claim to be a hs student and thus was eligible to ride for ½ price. This was accomplished by creating false documents (this was a gang that grew up on Hogan’s Heroes and the Great Escape, so faked documents was just a matter of course.). Needed documents were a CTA card and a ’valid’ hs id. Both were gotten from contacts inside a South Side hs. One of Winky’s frenz was on this schools football team--this being a typical Catholic school where football was god, he was able to get away with certain things. One was that he was put in charge of taking I.D. pictures. He gave Winky an empty id from this hs --an easy photo booth visit for a black and white head snap followed. Then put the ID and picture in a towel, ironed it so that it ‘melted’ to-gether, and for his first three years in university, Winky was also able to claim being a HS student. The most difficult time for this trick --otherwise it was 100% foolproof-- was when winky grew a major grizzly beard over xmas in his 2d year. Solution? It was winter, so a large scarf was carried every day to and from school and put on for 45s a day. His senior year was h.s.I.d.less= his hs contact had finally joined the college ranks. The funnest part of the whole deal was being able to create new names for himself-he remembers one being from a war movie and another from a 60’s English secret agent tv show.
There were two methods apres university. One was the Drunken Clamber up the side of the Albion stop concrete wall- Winky was one of the two top climbers in the neighbourhood growing up- after a fite with his girlfriend decided that a 2am trip on the el home was better than being with her that nite.
The other apres university method was the Pfenning Challenge. Word got out that the German ½ cent (called the pfenning) was a perfect fit in the old token slots in the el turnstiles. Put in a pfenning and a quarter and you get both a ride and a tansfer. Strange!! Frenz of Winky who had been to Europe supplied him with -well, lets just say a real lot of pfennings- that enabled him to more or less ride the el for free for about two years. These pfennings only worked in el turnstyles- if you needed to get on the bus, you needed to @ least stop @ an el stop, get a transfer, then get on the bus. Eventually CTA started to update their turnstiles, but several key stops still allowed pfennings: Loyola, Wilson, Belmont, and some subways in the Loop. Since Winky is a cheap bastard and a huge bit of a walker, he though nothing of walking a mile or two just to save the $1.50 ride. Pfennings no longer work in any turnstile.
The last maneuver worked only a few times in certain circumstances. Winky had found an el key, which allowed him to sit in the conductors compartment during rides**. For a brief period there, C.T.A. didn’t have people working in the ticket booths very late @ nite. So Winky would get on the train and sit in the back conductors compartment. When the ride started and the conductor came around to claim fares (think Metra), Winky would just smile and wave through the closed compartment door @ them -C.T.A. people rode for free of course, and only employees should be in that compartment. They never asked.
*=they were not known as such back in the day.
**=yeahyeahyeah, I’ll document that stuff one of these days as well.
3 comments:
I wanna hear about the time winky had sex in the el compartment.
That's coming-I have so many sex stories of mine or others-w/ their permission and heavily coded-that I'd like to get out, but am very wary of creating an XXX site. I have ideas, though. Thought about making up a new blog, publishing the codes to get on it for all, and then let people publish their own. Say, you've got a lot of good stories that I know. 5C w/ the Georgia blonde. A mile a minute @ IU. The friend of the 'girlfriend who was leaving for college'. And I've always wanted to ask you about the incident in Jackson/Crankfaces bathroom. Stuff like that.
you'll have to remind me about that one in Jkson/CKs loo. yeah. erm, like you say. let's leave this for another blog.
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