NJ Transit commuter spends 90 minutes trapped on an empty train
Written by David C. Lester, Editor-in-Chief
This story sounds like something straight out of the Twilight Zone. On August 26, 2020 a woman boards the 7:56 a.m. NJ Transit commuter train in Woodbridge, N.J. for her daily journey to work in New York. During the trip, she fell asleep, expecting to wake up upon arrival in New York’s Pennsylvania Station. Instead, when she wakes up, 26-year-old Tohga Hansi is on the train – yet no one else is on it, the train is shut down, the air conditioning is off, and she has no idea where she is, as there were no identifying landmarks she could see from the train.
Hansi said “I walked the whole train up and down to realize that I had been locked inside and did not know the train went out of service.” She got back to partial reality when she used her cell phone, with the battery level dropping, to call her parents and 911. Hansi said “After I realized I was alone on the train, I had a full-blown crying panic attack while on the phone with my dad and then with 911.”
After talking with the police, she realized she was back in the world of reality. However, that reality wasn’t very pleasant. She had to spend 90 minutes on the train before she was rescued.
Jim Smith, an NJ Transit spokesman, said “On August 26th, at approximately 9:00 a.m., North Jersey Coast Line train 3224 was taken out of service at Newark Penn Station for mechanical reasons. Customers were instructed through the train’s public address system to exit the train and board a following train to complete their trip to New York.”
Hansi said “I did not hear the out-of-service announcement, but regardless, not one crew member checked the train to see if I was still on board.” Hansi added “It took over an hour for them to get me out of there and not only was I traumatized, I felt customer service was barely considerate of what I went through.”
Hansi was finally rescued by another train, and traveled on to New York.
NJ Transit’s Smith said “Train crews are required to check the trains to ensure all customers have exited. An investigation is underway and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken upon completion of that investigation. We sincerely apologize for the customer’s unacceptable experience.”
Several NJ Transit officials added that the situation is being investigated and something needs to be done to prevent such an occurrence again. Hansi added that the agency said they could give her two free tickets for what she had to put up with. Afterward, they increased their offer to six tickets.
Source: nj.com.
