Some of my regular readers may recall that on the advice of a friend I diverted my route to Greenock to go via the Erskine Bridge, to avoid roadworks at the airport. Unfortunately due to two other roadworks encountered around the bridge I ended up going completely out of my way and ended up being diverted via the airport and twenty minutes late. Today's experience turned out to be similar.
My last day on board and heading back home to Glasgow, one of my shipmates suggested that I accompany him in his car as company for the trip. I happily accepted and then slightly regretted it when we were on our way as rather than dropping me off near the flat, like the bus, he said he would drop me off on the South side near Ibrox Underground and I could get the tube back. No matter it was a pleasant journey back in the glorious sunshine and we arrived in good time at Ibrox, I considered that I might see the bus going past on my way back to the flat. I bid my farewells and boarded a tube train for the short, 4 stops 5 minutes, trip back. The tube train left Govan and headed down under the River Clyde when we stopped at the bottom of the slope, as I was later to find this is called the "Sump". Nothing much happened and minutes went by until a very large man in a reflective waistcoat, who we later found out was Joe the driver (see pic.) , came out of the cab and announced that "it had chucked it!" For those of you out with Glasgow this translates as " the train has been subject to a serious mechanical failure".
Not much more information was forthcoming from Joe and the lady opposite became concerned about our proximity to the River Clyde directly above our heads. I assured her that it seemed really unlikely that we would drown but she didn't seem comforted, then a male passenger started to get unsettled that another train would come down the tunnel and run into us. Fortunately at this point an off duty employee of the underground, who was travelling as a passenger, came into the carriage and assured him that couldn't happen. I was reminded of the programme from last night about the sinking of the Concordia when the stewardess was telling the passengers that everything was under control and that they should return to their cabins. Though today I would have had more confidence in Captain Schettino than Joe who was now going up and down the carriages looking more concerned at each pass.
As there was no noise we could overhear Joe speaking to the Controller, that it had definitely "chucked it" and we were going to try going backwards up the hill to return to Govan. We started off really slowly and got slower and slower until we stopped, then shortly afterwards the lights all went out. This as we found out, was to allow maintenance personnel to walk down the tunnel with the live rail disconnected. The emergency lighting had then come on and more time past until Joe announced we were going to go back down the hill to the "Sump" and get a good run at getting into the station. Some of the passengers were getting a tad agitated as we could see the lights of the station up ahead but we weren't allowed to walk out on the track and get out, and I don't believe that anyone really felt that going back down the track with the train and having a run at it was a brilliant idea.
Upshot of all this was that we didn't go back down to the sump for a slingshot run, the engineers that turned up seemed to know how to use a big screwdriver to override something and we set off to Govan station at a fair old lick. We were duly decanted onto the station and I caught a train round the long way back to the West End, a mere hour and a half later than the bus!
Of interest was the reaction of my fellow passengers to the event. Without sufficient information from an authoritative source people will fill in the gaps and unfortunately that usually means that they will be imagining the worst case scenario. Keep your customers informed with accurate and frequent announcements when things start to go all wrong.
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