From Delay, to Out of Service - 20100122

Yesterday train service in the East Rail line was struck for an hour. I was lucky enough to be one of the ten thousands affected. Though the incident did create a little mess, and my trip back home was delayed for an hour, I accept MTR's apology.

The failure of train system started at around 7:30pm. My train stopped at University. At that time, I was taking a nap in a seat, which was something so scarce during the peak hour. Initially, nobody cared when there was an announcement on something like "the train in the prior station was yet to depart, this train would be delayed". However, when time passed, minute by minute, the train just stood there resiliently. Some of the passengers, most of them the standing males, were getting annoyed. Foul languages could easily be heard from the cell phones exchange. One of the guys told his wife, sarcastically, that he could only back home at midnight as Bin Laden has blown up one train. Another middle-age guy, on a hurry to cross the border, yelled at the cell phone for his bad luck.

About 15 minutes passed, the announcement changed to "owing to the signal problem, the train would be temporary out of service". Swarms of passengers rushed for exit. Some of the men, again, in order to vent their anger, pointed fingers at the MTR's staff. Others started to queue up for the shuttle buses. Being held in University, the situation was even worse. Apart from quite a few buses to Ma On Shan, there was virtually no other choice in the bus stop. I chose to climb up the Tai Po Road for either bus or minibus then. Though dozens of others shared the same mind of mine, I stayed for a while, watching every vehicles, in full capacity, slipped pass one by one. Luckily, at around 8:30pm, I received a SMS from Jen that the train service has been resumed and thus I ran back down to catch a train at once! The train was spacious, and the travelling was as swift as usual and I finally got back home at 9:10pm.

The experience was a little bit funny. It could be seen how easily people could be got induced and ignited by others. Thus, the Chinese proverb "don't stay in crowded place" makes sense. In addition, I didn't give a damn on such a short delay. We Hong Kongers are already fortunate enough to have such an efficient railway and such a rare incident should be well tolerable. And finally, the real lesson learnt is, just stay in the train while there is any delay, never follow the stampede as the service would be resumed, in an hour at most.