Я не успел догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

It means I didn’t manage to catch up with the bus in time.

A few shades of meaning are packed into this:

• не успел = didn’t have time / didn’t manage in time
• догнать автобус = to catch up with the bus

So this is not just a neutral I didn’t take the bus. It suggests the bus was already leaving or moving, and the speaker failed to reach it in time.

Догнать literally means to catch up with.

With transport, Russian often uses verbs like this when the idea is that you were trying to reach it before it got away. So:

• догнать автобус = catch up with the bus
• in natural English, this often becomes simply catch the bus

But the Russian wording is a bit more vivid: it suggests the bus was already going, and the speaker tried to reach it.

If you said something like успеть на автобус, that would mean more to be in time for the bus.
догнать автобус is more physical: running after it, trying to reach it.

Because the sentence is about one complete attempted action: catching up with the bus.

Russian aspect matters here:

• догонять = imperfective, to be catching up / trying to catch up
• догнать = perfective, to catch up

After успеть / не успеть, Russian very often uses a perfective infinitive, because the idea is whether you managed to complete an action in time:

• Я успел сделать это. = I managed to do it in time.
• Я не успел догнать автобус. = I didn’t manage to catch up with the bus in time.

So догнать fits the meaning much better than догонять here.

Because in the past tense, Russian verbs agree with the subject in gender and number.

Here the subject is я, but я itself does not show gender. The verb form tells you:

• я успел = the speaker is male
• я успела = the speaker is female

So this sentence is spoken by a male speaker.
If a woman said it, it would be:

• Я не успела догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

Yes, коллега ends in -а, but it is a common-gender noun. That means it can refer to either a man or a woman.

The verb tells you the actual gender of the person:

• коллега подвёз = the colleague was male
• коллега подвезла = the colleague was female

So in your sentence, подвезла shows that the colleague is a woman.

This is common with words like:

• коллега = colleague
• судья = judge
• староста = class monitor / head student

They may look feminine in form, but can refer to men too.

Подвезла means gave me a ride or drove me to.

The verb is подвезти (perfective). It usually means that someone took you somewhere by vehicle as a favor or as practical help.

So:

• коллега подвезла меня до вокзала = my colleague gave me a ride to the station

It is not just a neutral transported. It often has the feel of:

• someone helped you out
• they drove you somewhere
• usually by car or another vehicle

The imperfective pair is подвозить:

• Она часто подвозит меня до метро. = She often gives me a ride to the metro.

But here we have a single completed action, so подвезла is perfective.

Because меня is the accusative case, and it is the direct object of подвезла.

Compare:

• я = I (subject form, nominative)
• меня = me (object form; here accusative)

In this sentence:

• коллега = the subject, the person doing the action
• подвезла меня = gave me a ride

So Russian uses меня, just as English uses me, not I.

Because до requires the genitive case.

• вокзал = nominative form
• до вокзала = genitive after до

The preposition до means up to, as far as, or to in the sense of destination limit.

So:

• до вокзала = to the station / as far as the station

This is very common:

• до дома = to home / to the house
• до работы = to work
• до центра = to the center

So the ending changes because the preposition requires it.

Usually вокзал means a major station terminal, most often a train station in many contexts.

So до вокзала will normally be understood as to the railway station unless the context suggests something else.

Related words:

• вокзал = station terminal, often train station
• железнодорожный вокзал = railway station
• автовокзал = bus station

So if the meaning shown to the learner is station, that is a good translation. In many situations, English would simply say the station.

Поэтому means therefore, so, or that’s why.

It connects the two ideas:

1. Я не успел догнать автобус
2. поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала

So the logic is:

• I didn’t manage to catch the bus, so my colleague gave me a ride to the station.

The comma is natural because Russian is joining two clauses here. In writing, поэтому often appears after a comma when it introduces the result of the previous clause.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible, though the original sentence is very natural.

Original:

• Я не успел догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

You could also say:

• Поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала after the first clause, as here
• Меня до вокзала подвезла коллега if you want to emphasize me or to the station
• Коллега меня подвезла до вокзала which is also natural

But the original version is probably the clearest and most neutral for a learner.

Russian word order often changes emphasis rather than basic meaning.