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At 5:59 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2015 — only one minute after the first train was scheduled to leave Christie Station — the Toronto Transit Commission’s Bloor-Danforth line was already delayed.

It wasn’t the best way to start the day. And it got worse.

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First, the train at Christie was late entering service, stopping riders for four minutes. Less than an hour later, a train at Lansdowne stopped for three minutes because of an unattended box. (Transit officials examined it and found nothing inside.) At Kennedy, 11 minutes later, a train was delayed for three minutes because it was speeding. Just before 9 a.m., an ill rider activated the emergency alarm at Bloor, stalling riders for another three minutes.

[np_storybar title=”Inside the TTC war room: The hidden hands that try to keep Toronto’s subways moving” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/features/inside-the-ttc-war-room”] From transit control centre, a team of 86 TTC employees is tasked with keeping subways, streetcars and buses running on time 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. According to internal targets, a train must appear every two minutes and 21 seconds. Transit control moves things along by rerouting trains in the opposite direction or onto another line, calling police to respond to emergencies, recovering signals and deploying mechanics.

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