Day 215 - S-Tog delays and the joys of heavy unionization

A Wednesday morning weeks ago, I woke up at 5, took a shower, and made my way to the Metro just like I do everyday. The Metro took me to Vanløse - the end of the line - just like it does everyday. Here's where things got sketchy.

Normally, the train that takes me to Måløv arrives at 5:38. There's a sign on the platform at every station that looks like this.

It's a Brazil-ish piece of technology, ie, old looking stuff operating at blazing speeds. The little station cards and the how-long-until-this-train-arrives cards flip-flip-flip around as time advances. I love them.

On the day in question, the card had no train on it, just a sentence in Danish that I couldn't understand. Something about the train.

Next, there were announcements on the station loudspeaker. Also in Danish. Also that I could barely understand. Something about the train. Something about a meeting. Something about the central station.

Then it was time to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. At nearly 7AM, my work friend Anders popped in. He had been waiting at the Flintholm station and decided to walk to Vanløse to find out if American Collin needed help. As a native Dane, he actually understood what was going on! 

It turns out that the S-tog union at DSB was having a union meeting. All of the trains in the system were traveling inbound to the central station to deliver the union members to this meeting. As it turns out, the meeting was on "safety issues". There was no announcement that this meeting would take place. It just happened and broke all of outer KBH. Anders called us a cab and we were on our way to Novo. I arrived an hour and half later than would be usual.

From 6 until 9:30 all S-tog trains were offline. The system didn't get fully going until 11:30.