Delay chronicles, part two. (Although I may not have actually posted part one)
Thursday, April 19th, 14:08. The start of my 5.5 hour trip from Zeist (Utrecht) to Ospel (Limburg). Mind you, it's a journey that usually takes about 2 hours. It started out fine, though. The bus was right on time, which is exceptional. It arrived in Utrecht (Utrecht) right on time too, with plenty of time before my train was to leave. A train, by the way, which was also right on time. When it arrived, I heard something about a delay hanging around conversations, but I thought nothing of it, and dismissed it.
The train traject is Utrecht, s' Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Weert. Time of departure: 14:38. It was almost empty, as you would expect on this early afternoon hour. Soon after departure, trouble started. A truck, or a car, sources don't seem to agree, got hit by a train, and then overrun by another one. "At this moment, the truck is under the train." If it was a car, nobody got hurt. Which makes me wonder about two things. First, how the hell did it get under a train? I mean, those trains' fronts are not that high, or streamlined for that matter, so how are you going to make the physics work? Second, how the hell did nobody get hurt? Those trains usually don't move slowly. And then there's of course the question of how the second train got there when the first train already hit it, and wasn't cleaned up yet. Couldn't have been.
Anyway, this happened somewhere between Weert and Roermond. So I'm like "Yay, I get out at Weert."
That was the plan, anyway. In Geldermalsen (Somewhere between Utrecht and 's Hertogenbosch), my train stopped. The comm said there was an accident. A "collision with a person." Something you could call "suicide by train." We'd have to wait. So we waited. After a bit of waiting, and listening to a guy who said he absolutely had to be in 's Hertogenbosch in half an hour or so, there was another call over the comm, saying we would be moving forward a bit, and then going back, to end up next to the perron in Geldermalsen. They have to say that, you see. Otherwise they'd be giving false hope of being clear to proceed to 's Hertogenbosch.
So we moved forward a bit. We barely started going back though, when another voice told us plans had regrettably been changed again, and we would be going back to Utrecht. My best guess as to why, is that there aren't many busses leaving from the train station at Geldermalsen. So anyway, we were moving back to Utrecht soon. The first voice returned to explain why the choice was made to go back to Utrecht, and also that we would stop at Culemborg, as many travelers had requested. I don't know why anyone who was planning to go at least as far as 's Hertogenbosch, would want to get out at Culemborg. But oh well, I didn't really mind, as I wasn't in a hurry to get back to Utrecht.
Almost in Utrecht, the voice told us how best to get to Roermond and the stations after that. How to get to the stations before that, we were left to find out for ourselves. So back at square one, around 16:00, I went immediately to the info point, where some other travelers, but not a lot, were asking the same thing. Something about Arnhem and Nijmegen, and then to 's Hertogenbosch. It wasn't clear which of the two, but since it was the same train, I could figure that out later. When waiting for the train, there was someone wanting to go to Tilburg, who I and someone else advised to go via Rotterdam. Don't know what she did eventually. On my way to Arnhem/Nijmegen, I had a seat (Getting one is a skill you acquire when you travel in full trains a lot, and as you get better, people won't even think you're rude anymore) beside a woman who was sure it didn't matter which of the two you got out, since you would end up in the same train anyhow. I don't know that part of the country by train, so I took her word for it. Since we already had a seat, she thought it best to keep seated, so I would too. In Arnhem though, she changed her mind, and suddenly I wasn't so sure anymore either, so I got out after her. The trip to 's Hertogenbosch was slow and pretty much uneventful, although we did indeed pass Nijmegen.
Finally, after three hours of training through the country, we arrived at 's Hertogenbosch. Square two. From there on, there was only the 10 minute delay from the first train that got there from Utrecht (dammit) and oh yeah, the fact that the collision somewhere between Weert and Roermond was still not cleared up. Not a problem for me, except that everyone in that full train now had to squeeze through the small station in Weert. I'd never been in a queue at the train station in Weert. I think the woman and two girls who I talked to from 's Hertogenbosch to Weert, and who I told where to find the busses that would bring them to Roermond, actually got in them, but I can't be sure. A lot of people got left waiting for the next bus to Roermond to arrive, which probably took about half an hour.
Somewhere along the way, I convinced my mother to pick me up. Where would I be without my mobile phone? She got in one of those rare traffic-jams Weert has. While waiting for her, one of my high school classmates came by on his bike. I think his name was Paul, but I've never been good with names, and high school was when there were suddenly 90 names to remember, instead of 30. But I digress. My mother showed up, and we drove home. The end.
All in all, there were at least four collisions that day, of which three "with a person." Like there's some kind of club, and they chose that day to commit mass suicide. Those three were near Breukelen, which the train I first got into probably passed, Dieren, which I heard of in Arnhem, and Geldermalsen.
Now, I should probably also tell you that I wasn't really disturbed by all this. Knowing I would get there eventually, I actually found it all pretty funny.
Everybody was complaining, and worrying how to get to a specific place.
At 's Hertogenbosch: "We'll take the train to Eindhoven." "And then what?" "Then we're in Eindhoven. We could fly." They were obviously going to Maastricht.
Between 's Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven, someone was complaining that he was traveling since 4 pm. Hah!
And I love to help people who only travel by train once in quite some years. They have this neat roster of where to go at what time, and if anything goes wrong, they're completely lost. I do hope the woman and girls made it to one of the busses before they were all full.
The train traject is Utrecht, s' Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Weert. Time of departure: 14:38. It was almost empty, as you would expect on this early afternoon hour. Soon after departure, trouble started. A truck, or a car, sources don't seem to agree, got hit by a train, and then overrun by another one. "At this moment, the truck is under the train." If it was a car, nobody got hurt. Which makes me wonder about two things. First, how the hell did it get under a train? I mean, those trains' fronts are not that high, or streamlined for that matter, so how are you going to make the physics work? Second, how the hell did nobody get hurt? Those trains usually don't move slowly. And then there's of course the question of how the second train got there when the first train already hit it, and wasn't cleaned up yet. Couldn't have been.
Anyway, this happened somewhere between Weert and Roermond. So I'm like "Yay, I get out at Weert."
That was the plan, anyway. In Geldermalsen (Somewhere between Utrecht and 's Hertogenbosch), my train stopped. The comm said there was an accident. A "collision with a person." Something you could call "suicide by train." We'd have to wait. So we waited. After a bit of waiting, and listening to a guy who said he absolutely had to be in 's Hertogenbosch in half an hour or so, there was another call over the comm, saying we would be moving forward a bit, and then going back, to end up next to the perron in Geldermalsen. They have to say that, you see. Otherwise they'd be giving false hope of being clear to proceed to 's Hertogenbosch.
So we moved forward a bit. We barely started going back though, when another voice told us plans had regrettably been changed again, and we would be going back to Utrecht. My best guess as to why, is that there aren't many busses leaving from the train station at Geldermalsen. So anyway, we were moving back to Utrecht soon. The first voice returned to explain why the choice was made to go back to Utrecht, and also that we would stop at Culemborg, as many travelers had requested. I don't know why anyone who was planning to go at least as far as 's Hertogenbosch, would want to get out at Culemborg. But oh well, I didn't really mind, as I wasn't in a hurry to get back to Utrecht.
Almost in Utrecht, the voice told us how best to get to Roermond and the stations after that. How to get to the stations before that, we were left to find out for ourselves. So back at square one, around 16:00, I went immediately to the info point, where some other travelers, but not a lot, were asking the same thing. Something about Arnhem and Nijmegen, and then to 's Hertogenbosch. It wasn't clear which of the two, but since it was the same train, I could figure that out later. When waiting for the train, there was someone wanting to go to Tilburg, who I and someone else advised to go via Rotterdam. Don't know what she did eventually. On my way to Arnhem/Nijmegen, I had a seat (Getting one is a skill you acquire when you travel in full trains a lot, and as you get better, people won't even think you're rude anymore) beside a woman who was sure it didn't matter which of the two you got out, since you would end up in the same train anyhow. I don't know that part of the country by train, so I took her word for it. Since we already had a seat, she thought it best to keep seated, so I would too. In Arnhem though, she changed her mind, and suddenly I wasn't so sure anymore either, so I got out after her. The trip to 's Hertogenbosch was slow and pretty much uneventful, although we did indeed pass Nijmegen.
Finally, after three hours of training through the country, we arrived at 's Hertogenbosch. Square two. From there on, there was only the 10 minute delay from the first train that got there from Utrecht (dammit) and oh yeah, the fact that the collision somewhere between Weert and Roermond was still not cleared up. Not a problem for me, except that everyone in that full train now had to squeeze through the small station in Weert. I'd never been in a queue at the train station in Weert. I think the woman and two girls who I talked to from 's Hertogenbosch to Weert, and who I told where to find the busses that would bring them to Roermond, actually got in them, but I can't be sure. A lot of people got left waiting for the next bus to Roermond to arrive, which probably took about half an hour.
Somewhere along the way, I convinced my mother to pick me up. Where would I be without my mobile phone? She got in one of those rare traffic-jams Weert has. While waiting for her, one of my high school classmates came by on his bike. I think his name was Paul, but I've never been good with names, and high school was when there were suddenly 90 names to remember, instead of 30. But I digress. My mother showed up, and we drove home. The end.
All in all, there were at least four collisions that day, of which three "with a person." Like there's some kind of club, and they chose that day to commit mass suicide. Those three were near Breukelen, which the train I first got into probably passed, Dieren, which I heard of in Arnhem, and Geldermalsen.
Now, I should probably also tell you that I wasn't really disturbed by all this. Knowing I would get there eventually, I actually found it all pretty funny.
Everybody was complaining, and worrying how to get to a specific place.
At 's Hertogenbosch: "We'll take the train to Eindhoven." "And then what?" "Then we're in Eindhoven. We could fly." They were obviously going to Maastricht.
Between 's Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven, someone was complaining that he was traveling since 4 pm. Hah!
And I love to help people who only travel by train once in quite some years. They have this neat roster of where to go at what time, and if anything goes wrong, they're completely lost. I do hope the woman and girls made it to one of the busses before they were all full.