Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Big Bang on the Subway

I was riding the Hibiya line today to one of my classes when all of a sudden there was this very loud "bang!". It sounded like a cross between a gunshot and a car running over a petbottle with a cap on it. Everyone was looking at each other and thinking, what the heck was that?! And then the train went "vooooh-errrrr" as it slowed down and stopped. Did something just explode?

Then an announcement came on in Japanese that said to wait a minute. I'm thinking, please don't let there be a jumper or anything. I definitely don't want that sound to be running over someone. Then another announcement asking us to wait. People settled in to their seats at this point, and I started thinking, this isn't good. The train when "voooh-errrr" again and instead of going forward started to slide backward. The breaks screeched on. "Just a moment please". A few minutes later the train tries to go forward again and it still results in us sliding backwards instead. At this point I am starting to think we are all doomed to sit there for hours. Maybe that big bang was a transformer blowing.

Then a few minutes later it started up again and we were on our way. No explanation, just a sorry for the delay announcement. My question of course is, what the heck happened? It couldn't have been a transformer because the lights and heating were still on in the train. As far as I know they don't have separate generators for that. So what exactly wast that big bang that prevent the train from moving forward for a while?

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