Thursday 16 December 2010

Mushrooms

I had a very interesting journey to the office this morning.

About halfway here it sounded like we had hit something:  lot's of clatering, a bit of bouncing in the carraige.  About 2 minutes later it happened again and the train stopped.

A couple of minutes later we move, slowly, into a siding and the conductors got out of the train to take a look.  Then they came in, then went out again.  One of them came in and made an announcement 'Due to a small unknown technical issue we are stopped.  We don't know what's happened, but we should be moving again in 15 minutes'.

Then he went out again.

About 10 minutes later they came in again.  'We've solved the small issue, and will be stopping in Amersfoort for a techincal inspection'.

The train then moved, *very* slowly onwards to my stop.

When the people got off at my stop we all looked at the carraiges to see if we could spot something - but there was nothing obvious to the untrained eye.

Mushrooms because we were kept in the dark for a long time, and lied to (fed on ****) when they did :)  Small technical issue = something just fell off the train...  Problem fixed = Mechanics are going to take a look 20KM's further up the track...

Stace

4 comments:

  1. Some traditions are universal. When I was working, the common complaint was that management treated us all like "mushrooms", because we were kept in the dark, and fed a lot of s***! :-)

    At least you arrived at work safe and sound.

    Melissa XX

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  2. Stace, I hope you don't mind if I steal your use of the word mushroom. It's brilliant.

    xoxo

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  3. Well Amersfoort is not such a bad place to be stuck. Been to the zoo there several times and it's a lovely place. Usually here, they break down in the middle of nowhere and turn the heating off. In not telling you they hope you might not have noticed!

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  4. Melissa: It's a phrase that we use quite often at work as well :) Nice to know it's not just English.

    And yes getting there safe and sound was the main thing.

    Natasha: Please do steal the use of the word! I got it from my father (all the mechanics used it where he worked) and from what Melissa is saying it's in use across the pond as well - word for word :)

    Karen: There are certainly worse places than Amersfoort to be stuck - where the train stopped was one of them :) In the middle of nowhere, outside of mobile internet range so I couldn't even carry on working...

    I gave up on British trains a long time a go (the Ducth NS, for all it's faults, is so much better!) Last trip to the UK where I needed to catch a train I gave up on the schedule and just waited for a train going to where I needed to be.

    I've heard that Amersfoort zoo is a nice place to visit - as I love photographing animals I really should take a trip there at some point...

    Stace

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