I was riding in the 2nd car of one of the now rare two car inbound
morning N's. The train was made up of two Bredas, in case theres any
confusion.
About halfway through the tunnel between Carl/Cole and Duboce/Noe, the
car jolted, lost power, and breaked to a stop very abruptly.
We could see the first car in front of us with the lights on, but our
car was dark and no air conditioning. People tried the intercom (which
was lit up), but it was no use.
We sat there in the dark with absolutely no information about what was
happening for over ten minutes. Eventually, because it was standing
room only crowded, people popped the emergency door releases to get some
air.
Finally, another inbound N pulled up behind us. That driver left his
train, walked up to ours and asked if there was a driver in our car. We
said no, he went to the first car to confer and then he walked back to
tell us that our car had completely uncoupled from the first car. He
also told us that help was coming. No indication about how soon, but at
least this driver got points for leaving his train to investigate and
tell us what was going on.
Let me pause & interject a few observations:
a. hmm-- another reason to NOT have sealed windows on the new cars
b. the intercom was USELESS in this situation. perhaps, like elevators
have, there should be an emergency radio phone to central control thats
rider accessible. Yes, everyone tried their cell phones but the tunnel
made them as helpful as doorstops.
c. the driver in the first car should have come back to tell us what
was going on.
Anyway, back to our story, eventually (10 minutes+ later), people got
restless of waiting and began walking out towards the tunnel entrance.
This finally got a reaction from the driver of the first car of our
train who came on his car's outside speaker system to tell people to get
back on the train or if they walked the police would be waiting to give
out citations at the tunnel's mouth. Why couldn't this speaker be used
to give us useful info, no one knows?
The wait continued -- so much in fact that people in trains behind ours
in the tunnel began abandoning their trains and walking past to the end
of the tunnel.
Finally, MUNI mechanics arrived...looked at the situation, climbed on
board and told us in a remarkable overstatement of the obvious
"something that is never supposed to happen has happened" and "the
trains have completely uncoupled".
It was finally decided that one of the mechanics/engineers would drive
our train as-is. Essentially, we split from a two car train into two
single car trains.
Of course to get out of the tunnel involved getting the popped doors
closed first. This irritated the new driver as he tried to get all the
doors closed and yelled at us saying "ok, did any other imbeciles pop
open any other doors on this car?".
We were driven to Duboce & Church where we got a regular driver and
coupled up with another train where our car became the lead car of the
train.
Thats about it....
MARK.
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