Stopped in the tunnel

The metro train I was going to work on yesterday morning pulled out of the station and, barely into the tunnel, braked sharply and stopped. Silence, puzzled glances, and impatient sighs, because in the morning everyone is trying to keep to the limit. One... two... three... almost four minutes pass, and you can already hear angry people calling out that they'll be late. The situation is awkward: people touching each other, standing in silence, with no idea what's going on. And just when the general silence is about to be broken, the train starts moving again and enters the next station without incident.

The Barcelona metro is modern, well-equipped, and efficient. But it's all recorded messages, SOS buttons, and lots of security cameras broadcasting live to a control center. You miss the human touch of the station managers and the staff in general. It's high time TMB had the drivers speak to passengers much more often than they do through the intercoms in the cars. I'm not asking for the levels of loquacity of the Washington Metro, where the drivers even wished us a good trip and a nice day as airline pilots. But in the face of an unexpected event, firsthand information is helpful and reassuring: basically, it would be explaining why we've stopped and how long they estimate we'll be there approximately.

Standing in the tunnel, I got distracted thinking that we passengers were experiencing the perfect allegory for how the world is: stopped, in a tunnel, without seeing the end and without hearing any authoritative voice from behind the wheel. I quickly returned to reality because, on closer inspection, the global situation is much more serious.