Imperfect Circle

I was late for work today. And half an hour at that, no thanks to SMRT's newly opened stretch of the Circle Line. I had been hopeful. It would be the first time I would be travelling on that newly opened stretch to make it to the office. I wanted to time the trip, to determine if it would take me less time and if so, by how much.

But as these things go, when something is new, what can go wrong went wrong. The train, starting from Serangoon station towards Dhoby Ghaut station stalled at the second stop, and again at the third stop, and the fourth, and so on. The sweet voice from the intercom said that something was wrong, but didn't explain what was wrong. 'She' apologised, again and again - what do you expect from a 'canned' announcer - sweetness notwithstanding. I was getting irritated at the repeated apologies. Please just go already. And at one stretched, when it was moving ('at last'), it came to an abrupt stop, throwing everyone off balance. This was turning out to be a really bad experience on my first trip on this new stretch of the line. It has only been the third day of its operations. I wondered why. It wasn't as if this is the first time that SMRT is operating a driver-less train. They have been doing it for some time now with the partially opened line, and I have not experience any problems during those rides. I am a regular commuter on this partially completed line.

Well, put it down to beginner's bad luck. Dare I take the train back this evening? Well, lets see what the sky says.