When Public Transportation Fails

Today I went to San Francisco. Not wanting to drive when there is public transportation available, I decided to take Caltrain. Cuts down on the mileage I'm putting on my car, gives me time to study instead of having to focus on driving, and is good for the environment. Sounds like a good plan, right?

The train ride there didn't start off well, and quickly went from bad to worse. The train was jam packed. It's not like that when I ride it during the week. It was awful-- loud, hot, steamy, smelly. People sitting on the stairs, standing in the aisles.

Then the the train broke down just before Redwood city. The lights went out and air conditioning went off. We pulled into Redwood city and sat there for half an hour, sweating, before the conductor informed us that the engineer could not restart the engine and that we would have to get off and wait for the next train (they run every hour on weekends). About three hundred to four hundred people got off the train. Someone ahead of me flagged the one taxi waiting at the train station. There were no other taxis.

I asked the conductor what would happen if the next train was this full and we couldn't all get on. She said we'd have to wait for the train after that in that case. I decided then that I was getting a taxi, and began asking people on the platform if they wanted to share a ride and split the cab fare to San Francisco. Eventually a very nice Danish couple with two beautiful kids agreed. Then it was a matter of finding a cab, of which there were none. You'd think with that many people stranded there would be plenty of cabs, but no, there weren't any for several minutes. Weird for a train station, where there is usually a line of cabs no matter what is going on.

The cab cost me $30 and took forever. The traffic on the highway was bad and then the cab driver did not seem to know his way around San Francisco very well. Sigh.

The train ride back wasn't so bad. I arrived at six fifteen at the Caltrain depot in San Francisco and there was already a line for the seven o'clock train to San Jose. It seems there are often more riders than seats. So I stood in line for forty minutes, but got a great seat and the train had a smooth ride.

I don't know if I will take Caltrain again on the weekend. I will probably give it a second chance, but if it turns out anything like today that's it. Because today it really wasn't worth it.

Addendum:

I found out later that the people left waiting from my broken down train mostly made it on to the next train, but that about 120 people had to wait even longer for buses to San Francisco.

Last time my train was held up, in August, it was also because of a problem in Redwood city, which I found out yesterday was in fact a bank robbery, and the robbers got caught by the police on the highway!