I burned through my margin and arrived slightly late for class Wednesday because someone decided to jump in front of a subway train at Union station. It’s kind of surreal how the TTC is diplomatic about it, calling it an “emergency situation caused by a personal injury at track level.” It’s understandable to not talk about suicide attempts for fear of encouraging them, but everyone knows what it means to suffer an emergency track level injury.
I was actually on the subway sitting not too far from an unoccupied driver’s booth, when the radio erupted, although I couldn’t make anything out. At the next station, York Mills or Lawrence, the driver made mention of a delay due to a “power outage” at Union station. After a bit of digging, I read that when a person contacts a train, the power is cut so that trains cannot enter the scene until after, um, things are cleaned up, I guess.
Does cutting power imply disabling a block spanning St. Andrew station to Wellesley station? Because when the truth came out, we all got kicked off at Bloor, with the requisite train traffic jam three stations beforehand. They ran shuttle buses between stations, but I opted to take the Bloor-Danforth line to St. George station, where I waited about 15 minutes for a southbound train that would get me to Queen’s Park before turning around at Osgoode station.
Being affected by or being around medical emergencies when commuting is still a dubious novelty. I think I’m quickly becoming hardened against such things, though. Someone tried to die, probably did while succeeding in drawing everyone’s attention posthumously. I’m just looking at my watch wondering whether the professor will have erased the first blackboard by the time I get to class.
Tags: logistics, toronto, ttc
Entries (RSS)