St Leonards station on the North Shore Line has two platforms, one on each track, rather than a centrally located island platform. On this particular day in the mid 1980s, a bunch of school kids were on their way to the city aboard one of the red rattlers. Among them was an acquaintance of mine whom I will call Joe, to protect the foolish. It stopped at St Leonards, and while people were piling aboard, another red rattler drew alongside to stop at the other platform.

As chance would have it, the set of doors where Joe was standing - with the doors open, naturally - was exactly lined up with another set of open doors on the opposite train. "Hey, watch this!" said Joe, and jumped across the gap between the trains (perhaps a bit under a metre?). So far so good: we have the train full of commuters heading into town, among them Joe's friends, and another, emptier train with Joe on board.

Before Joe could jump back onto the city train, however, the train he was on began to move. At this point, Joe thought - hey, better jump back onto my train, or I'll be late for school. He leapt out of the doors, which were now no longer in line, hit the side of our train head on, and dropped into the space between the two tracks (officially called the "six foot").

Someone saw what had happened and yelled out "Lie down!" Joe listened and obeyed - the first smart thing he had done all morning - and curled up into a ball. The other train moved off. The platform attendant went down on the tracks and helped Joe back up to the platform.

Okay, Joe cannot be considered a contender for a Darwin Award, but definitely deserves an honourable mention. As he was only an acquaintance, I have no idea what happened to him - perhaps he has already qualified for a Darwin Award in some other way.

A postscript to this story: I now work for the railway company and I have seen so much stupid behaviour by passengers you would not believe. People don't seem to realise how much weight trains carry, how long they take to stop, and how little damage will be done to a train by impacting with a human body...

Submitted on 05/07/2006

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: Personal Account, mid '80s

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I like this story and will vote to keep as a PA! I live in New York City where stupidity and our own Subway System go hand in hand. As common as such stupidity is (and I have witnessed my share of it a-plenty), this story is quite unique and VERY cartoony! As for the kids' ages, it's a PA, so it doesn't matter! Thanks for submitting, I liked this one!

Sheryl said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Thanks for the story, I liked this but not quite as much as James did! I seem to recall that New Zealand had much the same train carriages at one time as well.

Jorge said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account

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