Tram nightmare...

So, last week I had to take the tram early in the morning to visit a client.

The day was hot, the humidity was huge and you could only search for a shade, since sitting in the sun meant fast sweating and sunburn.

While waiting at the tram stop, while trying to hide from the sun, I noticed a peculiar smell in the air. Like chlorophyll and moist dirt, along with a sense of gas engine fume. In a few words, an intense and not very pleasant smell. I looked up the tram rails and I saw a couple of municipality gardeners trying to trim and cut the grass that grows in the tram’s railroad.

The sun was hot, the smell was strong and sweaty people kept coming to the tram station. After 6-7 minutes, the tram finally arrived and we all rushed in.

The tram wagons have an air-conditioning system so they are supposed to be cooled during the hot summer days. The problem is that this system is now old and it probably doesn’t get maintained properly. As a result, in days with great humidity, the air that it produces is moist and smells like mold. In addition to that, the air-condition is producing more water that usual and sometimes leaks through the ceiling.

So, we have the smell from the cut grass, the smell of sweat from passengers of all ages and genders that are stacked inside the tram and the moldy smell of the air-conditioning system.

After the tram station, the rails go up a small slope, not more than 100 meters and at the end of the slope there is a traffic light. Usually, no matter how many passengers it has, the tram goes up the slope easily. But that was not the case this time!

The gardeners that were cutting the grass, were letting the cut grass fall inside and on top of the rails. And that was the case for all the length of the slope. The packed tram was now struggling to get to the top because the wheels kept sliding on the grass. And when it finally reached the top, the traffic light went red, so it stopped. When the light turned green again, the tram tried to move forward but to no avail. The wheels were spinning on the cut grass, not letting the tram move more than a couple centimeters.

The passengers got nervous, leading to more sweat. The engine was struggling, leading to more moldy air from the air-condition, the spinning wheels led to more smell from the cut and now almost burned grass, that was now reaching the air intake of the air-conditioning unit and was coming through the ceiling, along with small drops of water. This kept going for a duration of 4 traffic light changes, at the same slope, at the same spot…

The combination of all the smells, the sweat and the fact that we were not moving made it all a nightmare. With every green light, the tram would move 2 cm but no more. Finally, at the fifth green traffic light, the front wheels reach “clean” rails and the tram was finally moving!!!!. You could feel that the wheels from the back wagons were still spinning but the front had clearly grabbed ahold of the clean rails and were slowly but steady dragging the rest of the tram forward.

But the smells were unbearable… It was the worst way to start the day, going to work in conditions like this. At the next station, no more than 300 meters away from that damn traffic light, I got off the tram and took a taxi…. An never looked back!!!!!