It’s Black Eye Week for SkyTrain!
On Wednesday there was a problem with a switch at Waterfront Station that forced them to use only one platform during the early morning rush hour. I ended up being twenty minutes late for work (only five in reality as I normally get in fifteen minutes early). The worst part about this was the constant announcements with Mr. Stammer from SkyTrain control. Tip: Write down what you want to say, then read it into the PA. Don’t think off the top of your head every fricking time you turn the PA on. As outages go, this was pretty minor compared to the previous two.
On Thursday the PA system hummed to life as soon as I sat down in a car on the Canada Line at Waterfront Station. Never a good sign. Mr. Stammer said there was a minor power issue in Richmond and delays would be minor, only a few minutes at most. My train, whose ultimate destination was YVR-Airport, headed off. A few minutes later, when the issue should theoretically be resolved, Mr. Stammer came back on and was all, “Hoo boy, nope, this is a major power problem. Richmond is hooped! We’re setting up a bus bridge between Marine Drive and the airport. Sorry. We’ll figure this system out one of these days, lol!” My train’s destination suddenly changed to Marine Drive. That’s the stop after mine so apart from delays amounting to a mere five minutes, I wasn’t particularly affected by this. The overall delay for those who were affected amounted to around thirty minutes. Again, relatively minor compared to the Mega-Outages but still, you start to wonder how much duct tape is involved in holding everything together here.