Late Train Madness
Posted on | October 3, 2006 | No Comments
This morning due to the train hitting somebody at a railway crossing at a station farther away from downtown that my house is, service on my train line (the Keio main line) and even though (according to the NHK (national television network)) service had resumed I got to the train station and found no trains. About 15 minutes later a local train eventually showed up and everybody got onto that one (to the point of having to push to be able to fit inside the train) despite being told that another one would come right away. The second train and shows up and it is litterally empty, there are plenty of empty seats. I have seen this so many times before. Everyone piles into the first train and then the second one is totally empty. I don’t really seem to understand it… Are people in that much of a hurry (even though the train company with give out a certificate saying the train was late so you don’t get penalized at work) or perhaps they don’t believe that another train will really come.
As the train starting heading down the track, making every stop, everything seemed to be going smoothly but then as we came to arrive at Chofu Station we started waiting. We waited for about 20 minutes in a line of 3 trains to get into the station. From Chofu onwards the train (even the express which I switched to) travelled into town and stopped for a few minutes at virtually every signal box along the way. The explanation was that there were too many trains on the line and that we had to wait to go through. Upon hearing that I though to myself. Why are there so many trains on the line. Given the fact that there was the accident in the morning. A general problem with the Keio line that is all the train schedules are tuned to such a point that there is no give whatsoever so even the smallest problem can send the whole line into chaos. However. What was the person who makes the decisions about when which trains travel and when should thinking? Could he or she not plan properly? How could such a gross error (causing about 45 minutes of extra delays) been made?
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