Commuting Fiascos Come In Threes

What a morning trying to get into work. And I thought worrying about the flooding was enough? I boarded my usual NJ about on time, completely oblivious of the train problems out there. I watched the news this morning and the trains sounded fine.

At the next stop we just sat and sat and sat. We can move now? Something happened and the details are still sketchy. While one of the passengers detrained, her foot got caught or hit by the trap door. She says the trap door popped up, but the conductors don’t seem to she how that was possible. I'm not sure if she was intoxicated from a late night or just not awake yet or if the door malfunctioned. We had to wait for police and EMTs to tend to the situation. The engineer kept shouting over the radio that "H" demanded us to get moving. Couldn't we just cut the cars so we could proceed to the next and last station on the route? Probably not. I'm sure the officer taking the report made note of the car in question so they could investigate further later.

By that point we missed both the early and regular Philly trains. UGH! At the same time, I noticed they parked us on track 5 which is where they park the regular Philly trains. Within minutes, an announcement was made that all Philly trains were canceled until further notice. Things were starting to fall into place. The light-rail takes about 2 hours to get into the city. I really didn't feel like going that route. Instead, a few of us went up the conductor on the expensive train when it showed up and asked for help. Thank goodness she offered us a ride. I swear I saw a few regular rides gave us that "oh riffraff" look. Honestly, I would have been more than happy to pay for a ticket. It would have been worth it to cut that leg of the trip into 30 minutes.

The ride on the expensive train is about a half-hour. About 10 minutes outside of the city, we stopped and sat and sat and sat. There was a signal problem that needed fixing. I guess we sat about 15 minutes, we moved again and finally made it into the city.

Turns out that the expensive train was held in NYC for about a half hour because of wire problems in Philly. A lady sitting in front of me knew nothing about the NJ delay. If they were that far behind, maybe their trip didn't hiccup with the problem?

All in all, I got to work only about 15 minutes later than usual, which meant I still beat most people in. But, I spent the rest of the day worrying if I should actually go home. Back in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd hit, the train tacks in Jersey actually flooded out. The news organizations couldn't give me a gauge if that was even a possibility this time. Next time this happens, which I hope it doesn't but I have to be realistic, maybe I'll just email them and try to get a straight answer.

For the record, I did make it home in one piece. Since I didn't sleep on the way into work or on the way home, I was pretty darn kooky by the time the evening rolled around.

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