Public transport is a massive part of any Londoner’s existence. Unless you walk or cycle, it is likely that you will depend on a bus, tube or train to get you from A to B. But first you have to catch it. Now there are any number of apps and on-line timetables that allow you to time your journey with a relative amount of precision, but in my experience it is wise to build in a decent buffer because anything can happen on the way to your point of departure (e.g. engineering works, demonstrations, engineering works, sporting events and engineering works).
It is always interesting watching the reaction of commuters when they don’t quite make it.
It all starts with the five-metre dash. The open doors of the target train precipitate this gear change and people of all shapes and sizes carrying bags of all shapes and sizes transform into the Usain Bolt of London commuting. Some who are not necessarily designed for exercise of any form find their inner athlete and propel themselves towards those open doors with the sort of bloody desire exhibited only by the likes of Ranulph Fiennes as he conquered some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth.
Some decide to take the nonchalant approach and instead of breaking into a sprint decide to use their mind to bend the doors to their will. This sort of commuter appears unhurried – and can actually make the simple task of catching a train look cool - but beneath that Hoxton-hip façade, is a man pleading with doors to stay open.
But no matter the approach, crunch time is when the doors start to close.
No matter whether it is Ranulph Bolt or Hoxton-hip, the physical reaction is generally the same. The commuter becomes air borne. It might be in the shape of a frantic lunge, a giant leap or even a dive with head aimed somewhere inside the carriage, but the risk of missing that ever shrinking gap and possibly finding one half of himself inside the train and the other half dangling under the train seems inconsequential to actually missing the train – and waiting two minutes for the next one.
Some commuters’ bodies actually change shape in the final throes of gaining entry. Commuters not readily designed for confined spaces find ways to contort their bodies – matrix style – through those “Sliding Doors”. Even if Gwenyth Paltrow was on the other side of those doors, I am not sure I would be willing to risk life and limb to gain entry in that fashion.
Of course it’s the reactions of those who miss their trains that are the most amusing. Some will pretend that they weren’t heading full tilt for the doors and veer off at the last second and pull out their smart phones to make it look as though they aren’t mightily pissed off at just missing it. Others pull up just before falling onto the tracks, glower at those that did make it and stomp off back down the platform muttering obscenities under their breath.
Some reactions are slightly more extreme however…
I was at Clapham Junction rail station on my way to work. The train I catch to Victoria is opposite the train that heads out to Gatwick, so it is used a lot by those who need to catch aeroplanes – unsurprisingly! Anyway I was just about to board my train when I notice this pint-sized woman with a travel bag of equivalent size hurtling down the station stairs towards the train on the opposite platform. The doors are open but she is anything but Hoxton-hip. She has abandoned any sense of rush hour decorum (i.e. don’t draw attention to yourself, avert your eyes, never acknowledge your fellow passenger and take your medicine in silence) and is shouting at the train at the top of her lungs as if the train – which we all know is made of steel and is essentially inanimate – will hear her and ask her if it can be of assistance.
And then the electronic death knell – “deet-deet-deet-deet – mind the closing doors”. Well this woman was like a dog with a bone; there was no way this train was leaving CJ without her in it. She kept coming, bag now in one hand (adrenaline makes you super strong) bellowing like some sort of demented banshee (that’s saying something given that a banshee is generally of unsound mind anyway) as the doors started closing.
Needless to say she didn’t make it – commuting can be cruel that way. The doors closed in her face and the train pulled serenely out of the station. She was already wailing, but it was the way she actually started bashing the moving train with her fists that intrigued me. She actually tried to claw the doors open, but the train was having none of it. If she was in India she would have had another crack at the cherry but she would have needed to time her leap onto the back of the train with some precision especially with the added complication of luggage. But she wasn’t although the platform attendant appeared to be from the sub continent.
However the poor woman just couldn’t let it go – figuratively of course, because by this time the train was on course for East Croyden with two or three of her finger nails wedged into one of the doors – and by the time my train pulled out of Clapham Junction she was still remonstrating with your man from the sub continent as if he had it within his power to ask the driver to stop and reverse back up the line to pick this lunatic up!
There’s a lesson in this somewhere; if you need to catch two forms of transportation consecutively factor in a delay-or-two because in London the best laid travel plans can unravel with startling speed!
Out.