Fall out
24 May 2019The Waterloo and City line is a high speed, one stop, tube line between Waterloo and Bank. Its serves the city!
A tube has to wait at either end for the other to arrive before it can depart.
Todays morning tube was empty. People like to be ‘efficient’ about where they stand, and are quite particular about it!
This one gentleman was standing in a train door way, facing in, reading a paper.
I have to ask him to move so I can board, and he then reverts back to his previous place. I unusually sit, as all the seats were empty.
We’d been there for a few minutes when the “beep..beep..” sounds letting us know that the doors were about to close.
Now, this is where a sequence of events occurred with such beautiful precision timing, that it took me a while after to register what had actually happened!
The doors close, swiftly and sternly, and the gentleman goes to lean back against the door…. just as the driver sees some more passengers running for the tube, and decides to give the doors an open-close flick, to help them out.
As the doors open, our man who was slender and was already in motion to lean back against the door. He falls through the now open gap, and is falling towards the platform, completely off the train! The doors then promptly close shut, and the train leaves!
The whole thing took about 2secs to occur.
I see the man land through the window, and scramble to his feet, making the two handed open-palm Italian-type gesture when someone has been wronged!!
His bag is still on the tube and, where his arms had flailed, the newspaper had become stuck in the door…
OMG! I’m thinking. Can I help?.. pull the emergency stop?..nope. they’d have to continue to the next station anyway.. what would I say on the Intercom? Someones fallen off the train?! no..there was no real emergency, no one was hurt.. just the mans pride, I imagine!
We get to the destination, and I get off the train, and hand the man’s bag to the Driver. I explain what just occurred, and he laughs! “What a pillock!” he exclaims.
Moral of that Story: They say “Dont lean on the doors” for a reason!!