Thursday, 9 February 2012

Faulty gates

Imagine your anxiety when the elevator door fails to open, I am not claustrophobic but I can get reasonably anxious. What if this happens to Delhi metro, not something you want to imagine. But this is exactly what happened. I boarded a train from my station, which was not very crowded  today. For the next seven stations everything was normal with no one trying dare devil stunts either (extremely rare, if you ask me). Then suddenly it happened at the next station. Metro was slowing down before approaching the station, it came to an abrupt halt just before the station. The stoppage time was unusually long. Metro resumed speed again and reached the station.  There was a customary announcement about the station name and need to "Mind the gap". But the doors didn't open. There were at least twenty passengers at each gate ready to board the train and a lesser number ready to disembark. Initially people were puzzled, looked like disoriented teenagers (well some of them are) who have not attended any kind of crisis management classes.

Not all doors were stuck, it was just the first boggie which had the malfunction. Rest of the coaches had their doors open up in time. Nevertheless ladies exclusive coach having a door malfunction is a perfect recipe for disaster.

The most interesting part was to hear what the ladies had to say on the incident. One passenger observed the problem is occurring due to regular interruption in gate functioning. She said, "Everyone wants to board the metro at the last moment. They don't care about their safety or damage to gate sensors". While somebody thought it was an electrical problem and there would be low voltage supply leading to circuit damages, others quipped about the low quality coaches (probably China imports!!). The most interesting explanation came from an old lady, she vouched its due the hard braking that drivers resort to, that the doors are jammed.

Listening to all these interesting theory, I realized it took almost 30 minutes to fix the problem. I was already late for my meeting and this was not very helping.


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