Have you ever been stuck in a subway tunnel? Like, stuck for 45 minutes? What if the train loses power and is forced to run off a battery? That happened to me earlier tonight. No word of a lie. I was on the train and it was slowly pulling out of Broadview Station when it suddenly lurched to a stop. That’s not particularly uncommon. Trains stop between stations for various reasons all the time. After a few minutes though the power seemed to be cut. There was some minimal lighting in the cars, but it was obvious things were powered down. The usual hum of the ventilation systems was missing. Things were eerily quiet. I can’t even begin to describe what that was like. I mean, the subway has a certain sound and feel to it. Without all of the background white noise things just feel abnormal. Over the announcement system someone stated that there was a delay both ways at Broadview Station (no shit) due to unauthorized access at track level. The announcer followed it up by stating that they’d release more information as it became available. Basically some moron was wandering the tracks illegally. So, I totally understand why they had to power down the trains. Even though the person is a complete asshole, it’s not good to take the chance of nailing them with a train.

Now, even though the announcements were stating that they’d provide more info as it became available they didn’t give much info at all. Most of us were stuck there just waiting for things to run again. And really, I’m sure most people figured that things would be up and running quickly. From where I was sitting though I could hear the radio from the operator’s booth. I could hear what the fuss was about. Apparently a couple of idiots decided it would be a good idea to run across the train tracks on the Bloor Viaduct. I could hear Transit Control actually asking other train operators if they could see the idiots running. If there was any doubt as to how serious things were, after about 10 minutes we saw police officers marching down the length of the train. Later an undercover cop went through. Hardcore, I guess, but yeah they needed to apprehend this idiot.

The time dragged on. At thirty minutes there was an announcement that they were running shuttle buses from St. George to Woodbine Station. That wasn’t useful to those of us stuck in the tunnel. We were basically committed. Ay 40 minutes the power was restored, but there was still no movement. From what I could piece together, one of the trains ran out of battery power while waiting. Oops. At 50 minutes, we were finally told to evacuate the train as it was going out of service. We had to make our way to the last car and exit into the station. As it turns out, our train was only halfway out of the station when the power was cut. On the platform I waited another 10 minutes before a new train came in and service was restored.

I’m not angry at the people in charge. Yes, I’m frustrated at having to wait so long in a tunnel, but I understand the motives behind the actions. It must be tough having to deal with idiots like that. I eventually got to where I wanted to go, and hey, I got a story out of it, at least.