A fun evening at the Rolling Loud concert turned into an almost four-hour long nightmare for London, Ont. resident Grace Stride after she got stuck in a hot, cramped GO Train following a fatal collision on the tracks west of Exhibition Station.
The incident involving a pedestrian happened shortly after 11 p.m. Friday on the Lakeshore West line and resulted in westbound service being suspended between Union Station and Mimico GO for more than two hours.
At one point, there were thousands of stranded travellers waiting on the platform at Exhibition Station.
The crowds eventually dissipated.
However, it was a much more intense experience for passengers trapped inside the at-capacity westbound train, which Stride said didn’t move for more than two hours.
Stride, who had come in to the city for the weekend and was staying with some friends at an AirBnB in Oakville, said they were literally just a couple minutes into their roughly 30-minute ride home when the train they were on abruptly stopped.
She said several riders eventually got upset and some even became agitated and tried prying open the doors and windows.
“Mob mentality was going on in the train,” she told CP24.
“People were banging on the windows, chanting, and yelling. Tempers were flaring. … It was so scary.”
Stride, who noted that staff scolded her for “being impatient”, told CP24 that a number of people on the train became thirsty and started feeling unwell. One person even had a seizure, she said, noting there were pregnant and disabled people aboard who also required assistance.
“It was just not a good experience. … We could have walked home faster,” said Stride, who was one of several passengers who took to Twitter to vent about the situation.
Metrolinx posted an initial tweet about the incident on its Lakeshore West Train (@GOtransitLW) at 11:19 p.m. Friday, advising passengers that the train would not be able to move through the area for about two hours.
A follow-up post at 1:14 a.m. let people know that the investigation was complete.
“The tracks have been cleared and have reopened. We will be returning to our regularly scheduled #GOtrain service with some minor delays,” they wrote.
In a follow-up email to CP24.com, Metrolinx Spokesperson Suniya Kukaswadia said throughout this incident safety was always their “top priority.”
“Emergency personnel were on scene and we worked with them to get passengers moving as soon as it was safe to do so,” she wrote.
“Once the train was released crews determined several doors had been opened by customers and needed to be secured before the train could operate.”
Kukaswadia said their policy after every serious incident is to conduct a “thorough review of all actions implemented to determine any lessons learned.”
“We appreciate our customers’ patience during a difficult time. All feedback from customers will be reviewed,” she added.
The collision and lengthy delays on GO’s Lakeshore West line occurred during an already busy weekend as more than 80 events were planned across the city.
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