Another Day on the Train

One of my favorite mode of transport is the train. As noted the train is rather punctual compared to other forms of transportation, and that makes me like the train alot, especially the MRT subway which crosses close around my home. During the last weekend, I was traveling to the World Robotic Olympiad (WRO2005), where I was one of the field MCs early in the morning, by the subway. I was expecting it to be just another day on the Subway, when suddenly as we stopped by the RamaIX station, there was an alarm, and the security annouced that all the passengers had to evacuate the train. As this hardly been a procedure that the passengers are used to, most passengers who left were confused and I've noticed that some of them were muttering about train malfunction or maybe another possible mishap (as noted the subway used to had a head on collision between the train and a bogey).

When the train was vacated, I've noticed that there was a single lady in the late 30s wearing rather casual clothes like what you see in the market place was standing meeking just inside the small box that was the access to the train driver's seat. After a short while, I could see the security guard leading her out of the train and hustled her up to the MRT station HQ. It seems that the lady was trying to get into the train driver's cabin, and the driver was afraid it was a hijacking scenario decided to call the security to sort it out.

This hijacking incident could be shrugged off as a minor offense, it does lead to some serious questions what if the hijacking attempt was indeed sinister? On the positive note, we could see at least the security guards managed to clear the matter rather quickly.

Though the incident made me late for over about half an hour, somehow I like to talk about how I was lucky to have survived a train hijack and lived to tell it, in what was supposedly supposed to just be another day on the train ;)