What was you worst experience of getting stuck?
It was around five years ago. I was running an evening economy-class train and there was this fallen tree blocking my path because of a heavy downpour. As the ‘captain,’ I couldn’t abandon the train and had to wait for six hours, until 2 a.m. when the tree was finally cleared from the rails, before I could continue the trip to the final station.
Did the passengers wait, too?
No, when a train is stuck for a long time in whatever scenario, the machinist usually suggests that passengers abandon it and take another form of transportation. What hit me the most was that there was this passenger who stayed and waited. As it turns out, he spent the last of his money for the train ticket and had no more money to get home. That was very sad.
What do you do when people climb up on the train roof?
In economy class, when traffic is low, usually around noon, we often yell and threaten to cancel the trip if they don’t climb down, which usually works.
But in the early morning or late afternoon when the train is fully packed with passengers, yelling at hundreds of ‘train surfers’ or threatening to stop the trip will just get me killed [laughs]. The worst thing is that this happens not because they can’t afford the ticket — because they can. They say they climb up for the breeze, and some of them even play cards up there; it’s just unbelievable.
