Sydney metro riders were in for a surprising Wednesday morning commute when they were left holding onto the handrails as the train travelled along the underground line with a door left open.
The incident took place at around 8am on the M1 metro line when the train doors didn’t close at Chatswood station and remained open till Crows Nest station.
Multiple videos quickly popped up on social media of the journey, with passengers holding onto handrails as a staff member dressed in black stands near the door and speaks into a radio.
Another staff member can be seen with a earpiece, urging passengers to stand back.
Above the door, an electric sign can be seen, reading “this door is out of service”.
You can peep the footage here:
According to Daniel Williams, chief executive of Metro Trains Sydney — the private operator for the M1 line — a door fault had been identified on the train.
A customer journey coordinator and customer operations lead were on board the service, he explained, and were contacted by the Operational Control Centre (OCC).
“They tried to remotely fix the issue. When this was unsuccessful, the OCC instructed the frontline staff to manually close the door,” Williams said in a statement shortly after the incident.
“To enable the train to complete its short journey to the next station, two staff members stood by the door until the service came to a stop. The door was able to be closed at the next station, and the metro removed from service.”
Metro passenger Ben McKimm — who was aboard the train and shared footage of the incident on X (formerly Twitter) — explained riders were pretty stunned when the outer doors on the metro platform closed at Chatswood station while the train door remained open.
Speaking to PEDESTRIAN.TV, he said there was an initial announcement over the metro speakers of delays due to an issue with the door.
But a few minutes later, the train exited Chatswood station with the door still wide open as metro staff aboard quickly cordoned off the area.
“Everyone freaked out for a second and started looking at each other [but] it didn’t feel unsafe, to be honest. To be fair to the metro workers, they did a great job and formed a sort of human barrier to the door,” he told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
Still, given these trains are driverless, McKimm admitted it was “a bit weird” that it “took off” with the door open and didn’t seem to slow down or stop till Crows Nest.
“Maybe they had control [of the train] at HQ or back in head office, but the staff on the train, it seemed like they couldn’t do anything about it,” he said.
The doors were manually shut by the metro staff just before the next stop, he added.
A spokesperson for the Sydney Metro confirmed no passengers were injured.
The matter is now under investigation.
The metro opened back in 2019 and it has now expanded to operate between Tallawong and Sydenham.
Metro speeds can reach up to 100 km/hour within the tunnel section and up to 110 km/h on the surface track section, according to Sydney Metro.
Lead image: X (formerly Twitter) / Transport for NSW
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