It was the morning commute from hell on the TTC.

In a string of incidents and issues Thursday — causing delays which prompted an apology from Mayor John Tory — the transit service responded to everything from signal issues to medical emergencies to a trespasser on the tracks.

Thousands of passengers at the height of rush hour had to deal with at least 40 additional minutes to their travel times. And, if anything, commuters were united by their bitterness.

“The TTC is an “Award Winning Transit Service” . . . this is why participation trophies are bad,” one passenger tweeted.

“Getting screwed over by the TTC one last time before my farewell to this city,” another added.

There was also some sweetness. Commuter Nikki Clydesdale said passengers were trading seats between stations, offering their spot to anyone having a rough time standing for so long.

“The (emergency) workers were doing a great job of helping people out,” Clydesdale said. “I saw them laughing with and comforting a girl who was having an anxiety attack.”

The chaotic sequence began around 6 a.m. when the TTC tweeted about a five-minute delay southbound between St. George and St. Patrick stations because of signal issues.

The delay steadily grew worse.

Between Sheppard West and St. Patrick stations, more signal problems meant a 40-minute delay by 8 a.m. Commuters took to social media to declare that the delays were actually much longer.

“When a 20-minute subway ride turns into a 1.5 hour subway ride. Thanks #TTC,” one passenger tweeted.

Fourteen emergency alarms were set off across the TTC over the course of the morning, including passengers fainting and having seizures inside the subway cars. This led to a “domino effect” and caused more delays, TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said.

Problems on the morning commute included:

Trains turning back at Islington station due to signal issues at Kipling on Line 2 at around 8:30 a.m. but the issue was later resolved.

Inside Queen’s Park station around 9 a.m, a pair of medical incidents drew emergency services to the same platform. As the train crawled into the station, commuters reached out to find water for a sick girl, crouching down to offer her help.

A suspicious package was reported near the Bloor subway station around 11 a.m. Bloor St. shut down at Yonge while the situation was investigated. No evacuations were necessary.

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At around 11:50 a.m, the TTC had also suspended service both ways at Rosedale station, with a power-off situation because of a trespasser at the track level. Power was rebooted quickly after the issue was resolved.

It wasn’t until nearly 1:30 p.m., when the original signal issue at St. Patrick was resolved.

Ross said the TTC sincerely apologized to passengers for the delays. The situation’s origins had been traced back to Wednesday night maintenance crews, he explained, who inadvertently caused the signals at St. Patrick station to default to red and cause longer-than-normal travel times.

A piece of equipment was mistakenly removed from an equipment room. To resolve the issue, track crews had to manually allow trains to bypass over trip arms that normally prevent trains from running red lights. Because of the issue southbound at St. Patrick, not enough trains were able to leave Wilson Yard to meet the morning rush.

“This was a unique, one-off situation that has not happened before and should not happen again,” he wrote in an explainer posted on Twitter.

Tory also apologized. The mayor posted five tweets on the delays, beginning with an apology on behalf of the city and the TTC. “It was due to work being done overnight installing the automatic train control system,” Tory wrote of the Line 1 disruption.

“We’re trying our hardest to avoid disruptions at all times as we work to install this new signal system . . . once we have automatic train control, this won’t happen — that’s why we’re installing it and replacing a decades-old system.

“We will continue to try to do better and we know today’s TTC service didn’t meet the standard that people expect and deserve.”

Later in the day, at St. Clair West station, some riders voiced their concerns to TTC staff at the transit agency’s monthly hour-long “Meet-the-Managers” event.

“The TTC is a great system . . . with a lot of ancient technology,” said customer Sajjad Syed, who stopped by to talk delays and overall cleanliness on TTC vehicles.

Syed said better communication is needed by TTC staff during delays such as the one experienced on Thursday.

The issues come just before a planned disruption of the transit service on Saturday and Sunday, where Line 1 will be closed between Sheppard West and St. George for signal upgrades for the second time in a month.

Installation of the new signal system is expected to be completed by 2019.

With files from Alanna Rizza and Sammy Hudes

Correction – August 16, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that said the delay was caused by the removal of a piece of equipment 1950s from an equipment room at St. Patrick Station. In fact, the equipment was from a later decade.

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