Stuart Wolfendale

Every time the MTR introduces or extends a railway service, there is a set of reactions so fast and familiar that they form a tradition which I never want to see die. It was observed yesterday when East Rail was hooked up to West Rail at Hung Hom

 

At the early hour of inauguration, a small group of enthusiasts turned up, stood in a characterless carriage and jumped up and down with glee. One of them, apparently a fully-grown man said that he had not been able to sleep all night in anticipation of this. No other species can do that.

 

Shortly afterwards the electronic signboard broke down. Either that or the barriers malfunction but it always happens.

 

It should not have mattered of course because all that is required of the passengers when they change trains twixt East and West or vice versa, is that they walk across the platform from one to another. However we are dealing here with Hong Kong passengers,  the most carefully cosseted and shepherded of sheep who move in flocks to atomic clocks and break into panic if they lose sight of Bo-Peep.

 

This they did. Short men in backpacks ran to escalators. Women corrugating their hair with their hands pleaded with staff to know which train they should get on- the one they had just got off or the one opposite they had not been on yet.

 

There was a final touch to this opening, not vital to the tradition but a rich embellishment nonetheless. Protestors showed up. This is always about the loss of a minor advantage to a small group with demanding habits. In this case, a now superfluous courtesy shuttle bus between stations which locals had been using for a cheap ride has been abolished. Was this fond farewell to a freebie which had been good while it lasted? No, it was expression of moral outrage as bogus as it is fruitless.

 

This was all in one TV news bulletin. If you had woken up to it from a deep doze into those seconds of not knowing where you are, even half way through the telling of the tradition, you would have realized immediately where you were.

 

 

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The underdogs of the month are the shoeshiners of Central who are doing quite well against government with the dragon slayer support of public sentiment. The developers of the Luk Hoi Tung building don’t seem to read the newspapers. They have said they don’t want any of these old men on their traditional sites anywhere around their new building.

 

Repeatedly they speak of emergencies. The shoeshiners cannot stay on this spot because they will block access to emergency vehicles. No, they cannot move to that spot either because that too will block access to emergency vehicles. Whilst we are at it, a newspaper hawker’s stall cannot stay where it is or move round the corner or be in any other imagineable place because , yes, it will block access to emergency vehicles.

 

The public might take care over setting foot in this building when it’s up. The Luk Hoi Tong people are bracing for an awful lot of emergencies.

 

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Posted in All, Remark, Transport