Sheep City

I was on the train this morning and as usual the train crowds were maddening. I stood there in the jostling midst of all manner of people, overwhelmed by their bodily scents and I-hate-Mondays or I-wish-it’s-less-crowded look etched on everyone’s faces, I wondered if I could last the journey to Tanjong Pagar. But before I could finish completing my thoughts, I arrived at Bedok and a larger stream of passengers poured in.

I moaned quietly. If I were a woman I would have registered a complaint because I could feel human touch at the strangest parts of my body. This is the experience many of us would have had while on board the morning train. These days the human congestion is terrible and getting worse day by day. You can forget about getting a seat during the peak hours although you can always detect strange fellows dashing for seats each time, at a speed even our national sprinters will be put to shame.

You don’t have to mention those inconsiderate buffoons who would block train doors before boarding.

The other thing I noticed is that there are now lesser seats on the trains. This is especially true for the newer trains but the older ones, like the one I was traveling on, had seats removed obviously to accommodate a larger standing crowd. I could be wrong. Perhaps they are planning to install a couch but that is not likely. You can still see the joint marks and rivet holes on the floor. I was immensely perplexed. Shouldn’t there be more seats when there is a larger volume of commuters? As the train fares not enough, the train delays, disruptions, people jumping or falling onto rail tracks to kill themselves (suicide cases in Sheep City is high by the way) and countless other annoyances, we are now meant to take the damn train to stand?

For the love of all things sacred and bursting with goodness, these SMRT folks if they are never capable of thinking to find solutions, they might as well remove all seats and reserve a few lot for the old, pregnant and infirmed.

By the way, SMRT have won, would you believe, the Best Passenger Experience award at the Metro Awards in Denmark. It is an experience all right, and I hate it.