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Friday, May 17, 2013

(Rant) Screw this Nambu line!

Today I came to get the 8:31 train bound for Kawasaki and the retardedly over-secure gate system screws me over once again. If I got aboard that train, I could have reported to work by 9am. Looks like I'm gonna miss it. 

This is what happened. The Nambu line, which this railway line is called, splits the town in two. There is only one entrance to the station, and for people living on one side has to cross the railway line to get there. And we happen to live on that side. There is no overhead bridge to cross the railway line. So we can only cross the line when the gates are open. 


The thing is, when a train comes from Kawasaki (A) direction, even though the crossing is past the station, the gates close and we have to wait for about 2 minutes till the train leaves the station and then actually you can cross the line. It is not that bad when the train comes from the Tachikawa (B) direction because the station is past the crossing. So when the train passes the crossing, the gates open. 

So today, I came to the crossing at around 8:27am. There was a train coming from Kawasaki direction and it hadn't even arrived at the station when I got to the crossing. I don't know where the trigger point is located, but it is pretty fast away from the station. The train arrives at the station few seconds later. Then I had to wait till everyone got off the train and for the train to leave the station. We were all good up to now, because the train I was supposed to take was still far away. But just a split second before the gates opened (because the train bound for Tachikawa left the station), the train bound for Kawasaki reached the gate-close-trigger point. Goddammit! So I missed the train!!!

Sometimes people are so mad about this system, that they sneak through the gates. You can easily lift it up an go through. I've done that in the past. It is not insecure because the trigger points are far away. I had to wait like 1 minute for the train to get to the station. I could have sneaked through, but I didn't feel like doing it. Nobody did so. If anyone attempted it, I might have too. 

This system is completely secure. System failure is unheard of. But people do jump on to incoming trains when they feel that they cannot go on any longer. That's different.

The town has two options. Build a overhead crossing or build another entrance to the station from the other side. I like the latter because it cuts the distance to the station by almost 30% for us. But anything is welcome at this point. You have no idea how many man hours get wasted because of this everyday. 

Now, that's only 2 trains. What about 3 trains or even 4 trains trying to screw you up? I've seen 3 trains (one coming from B, then another coming from A just before the gates opened, and another managing to sneak in from B before the gates opened. One day, there was a delay in trains and few trains came one after another and 4 trains arrived at the station at the same time!!! At least, it happened in the evening when I was going home. If it happened in the morning, there would have been so much chaos. 

Nambu line is not a important line. It just connects the main lines like in a H shape. The vertical lines and main lines and the horizontal line is the Nambu line. This issue probably isn't there with other lines because a lot of them goes underground or overhead or the have overhead crossing or even underground crossing. And those stations have many entrances. 

I guess I should try to get to the station 5 minutes before the train is scheduled to leave. Shame! Combined, that would be a lot of wasted time - time otherwise could have been put to playing Crysis. LOL


2 comments:

  1. Wait, isn't this metro?
    Doesn't metro have corssings inside the station?
    They were there in BKK and SIN. we can even cross the highway, still being under the road and inside the station.

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  2. No this is not metro. This is a normal poor man's railway line. We don't live in the city. This is just a town, say, like Piliyandala compared to Colombo.

    Nambu line is not a main line. It is there just to connect the main lines.

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