‘Mind the massive gap’: Beijing subway train keeps running with door wide open
Guards hold up cloth sign warning passengers to keep away from the gaping hole in the side of their carriage
Passengers on a surface level section of the Beijing subway got a breezy ride on Wednesday, when the driver of their train decided to go full steam ahead despite one of the doors failing to close, local media reported.
The incident happened on the Batong Line, an extension of the underground Line 1, while the train was heading eastbound, news website 163.com reported on Thursday.
While the report did not say at what point in the journey the door malfunctioned – the line runs between Sihui in the west and Tuqiao in the east – a passenger captured some of the action on a mobile phone.
The footage shows two guards holding a cloth banner in front of the gaping hole in the side of the carriage. The sign reads: “Please stand away from the malfunctioning door”.
The film was uploaded to Weibo by a Beijing-based user with five million followers whose name translates as “Beijing Affairs that Beijing People Do Not Know”. It generated 2,400 comments, many of which praised the guards for their bravery in standing by the open door.
“The two subway staff: please be careful!” one person wrote.
An unnamed official from Beijing Metro, which operates the subway network, was quoted as saying that a decision was taken to keep the train in service as it would have caused more disruption to have sent engineers to fix the problem at the point where the malfunction happened.
“If this train did not run, the train behind it would have been blocked as we couldn’t have moved it out of the way. Our only choice was to do what we did, so we could move the train to a location where it could be repaired,” he said.
The guards were stationed in front of the open door to ensure passenger safety, he added.
