This morning began like any other day. I came rushing down the stairs a little bit late, found Ray in the kitchen making me breakfast and left soon afterwards to walk down to the train station, a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in my hand because I hadn't had enough time to drink it.
Ray and I watched the sun rise into the clear Spring sky over the rippling ocean. All was cool and calm... but it wouldn't stay that way!
The six-thirty train pulled up to the platform and I got on as per usual. Several stations later, less than halfway of where I needed to be going, the train came to a halt. Still nothing unusual here in South Africa. I realise that I really do spend a lot of time complaining about the hours I spend riding the train, but the constant delays, cancellations, waiting, running after and missing trains, can become wearying.
It is after a ten minute standstill that people were beginning to become annoyed, muttering and swearing. Every now and again the train would jerk forward, roll backwards, hop another inch along. From my window I watched passengers walking by, shouting, but having no idea what was happening. I was sitting with a group of UCT students, the familiar faces that I recognised from catching the train each day. We were trying to decide what we should do, as it didn't seem that we were going anywhere any anytime quickly! Out came the phones, texting and calling friends, attempting to put together a plan to mission it to varsity.
The real excitement only began after almost an hour of sitting... The connecting door between the first carriage and ours was thrown open and people started streaming in, screaming, "Get out, OUT!! There is smoke!!" And it smelled terrible, acrid, like burning tires and some sort of metal... Immediate panic set in as passengers stood and rushed forward, crushing through the narrow aisle. I fought to stay calm, I couldn't see any flames, but being trapped in a possibly dangerous area with no escape, as all the doors were firmly locked (and there was NO WAY I could fit through the window!) was scary.
That was it, time to go. We moved from carriage to carriage looking for a way out. Our only exit was jumping off from between the carriages. With the help of complete, but kind strangers, I passed my bag down to an unknown man waiting below, and climbed over the barrier, heart pounding, hands holding me steady when the train suddenly shook and my legs even more, warning me, "Don't touch the cables! Put your foot there... hold onto that railing..." and, with no platform below, JUMPED!! (The drop is a LOT higher than it looks!) I turned around and grabbed the next girl's bag, helping her down, until the group of us, some whose names I do not know, were safe. (But hey, we're students, and students do crazy things right?!)
As the last boy leapt, a man shouted, "CLEAR THE TRACKS!!" as the train stuck behind ours was about to start pushing the stuck train along. Apparently our train wasn't able to move because there was a great risk of setting the first carriage alight...!! In the past hour our train had moved less than a hundred metres, we could still see the platform of the station we had "left".
We walked along the train tracks with scores of others, to the next train station, where one of the girl's brother gave a lift through to varsity. We squashed in, retold, complained and laughed about our unexpected adventure :)
We arrived safely at UCT at nine, with one of my new friends saying, "Our train caught on fire and we only missed one lecture!!"
I am not the most patient person, but I realised that becoming angry or upset about this incident is just pointless, a waste of enegry and emotion, as my frustration would not have changed anything. Instead I just sat back, took a deep breath, and decided to enjoy all the drama. I also kept thinking, "This is such a great story! I can't wait to tweet about this, to Facebook about it, to blog about it!" (Laughs) I will say, though, that I am very glad that my train did not burst into flames on the ride home :)
No comments:
Post a Comment