The snow here today has been nothing short of mental. I couldn’t even take a photo tonight with my phone because it was blowing all over the place. But here is a photo so you can see what it is like –
After a shuffle/stomp without slipping to get on to the subway, the train was not moving once I boarded.
Then there was screaming/shrieking/arguing and the train doors still hadn’t closed. I had a look out of the door and could see a woman standing half in the carriage and half on the platform. After a couple of minutes the conductor made a loudspeaker announcement that we had a deranged passenger and we were awaiting police assistance. The woman kept screaming and it was nothing that I could understand.
After a long five minutes, one of my colleagues decided to go and see for herself what was going on. So did a lot of other people and there were then station announcements saying “Police Assistance Required! Police Assistance Required!”
A crowd had gathered around the woman with people yelling at her to get off the train and to basically nick off. After threatening her with arrest, she alighted. Apparently, she had not paid attention to any of the 10,000 announcements that are made on the 1 line saying that if you are in the last five carriages, the doors will not open when you get to the South Ferry station. So she got stuck and wanted to stage a one-woman protest against the MTA… uh-huh.
Power to the people won in the end and I can only image the state of this woman if she had to endure the never ending Connex dramas in Melbourne.
Between her, this manic preacher in my carriage yesterday who continually shouted about fire and brimstone in exactly 2 months and two days and then a stand up comedian who got on the train when she got off who had everyone in the carriage cringing with his jokes, it is never a dull day riding the subway.