Friday 19 January 2007

Late getting home




I finish work at 5.00pm. I didn’t get home until quarter to eight last night. As a result of the wind, the trains were well and truly buggered up. Last night at the train station was an example of how to operate crowd management. Trains kept terminating at the station that would otherwise carry on, and more and more people were being filtered onto the platform, all waiting for one train. Then we all got on that one train. Jammed in like beans and stuff.

I don’t know how, but I succeeded in getting a seat.

Then the train conductor announced that it wasn’t going where everyone thought it was going. So loads of people got off with a lot of huffing and puffing. I remained on the train as it was still going to where I needed.

Then the train conductor changed his mind, so everyone got on again. People who had lost seats by getting off were not pleased.

And then, the conductor changed his mind AGAIN and this time there was swearing from passengers.

The whole time, I just sat there with my head in my book trying to distance myself from the entire situation. For once, it is not South West trains’ fault for trees breaking all over the place. I’d rather get home late than be involved in a derailment. So I settled into Two Lives and that was that for the next 2.25 hours.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What you have there is a grown up version of Musical Chairs

Cher Ping said...

sounds like the typical confusion that i experience with the deutsche-bahn all the time.

i guess a good generalization would be: if its on a railway track, its going to be delayed, cause anguish, pain, confusion or frustration.