Rescued from train breakdown

An adventure on the way to work is always blog-worthy, if not actually welcome. Waiting on wynyard station from just before 9am today, the 1 minute warning jumped up and down to 2 minutes: up and down. I was starting to think it would make a good short film, when the announcement came through.

“Due to a mechanical failure at town hall…”, you get the idea. Ultimately, they started using terms like “severely disrupted”, and “your ticket will be recognised by sydney buses”. This last announcement was enough to empty out the train platform, and we were herded towards the bus stops above the station.

There were no surprises in seeing some resulting chaos: of course, not everyone wanted a bus to north sydney, and it seemed that not all the bus drivers had been told yet.

Surprisingly, though – and there’s not even a state election looming – they had a specially hired bus ready to go, and someone with a megaphone herding people towards it, within 25 minutes.

Now, the bus, standing-room only, is making its way to the harbour bridge: all told, it was handled much better than I would have hoped. I didn’t even see a single screaming match between a commuter and a cityrail staffer! Who would have thought that sydney commuters could be so civil!

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