Collective daftitude

March 3rd, 2004

A strange thing happened yesterday at Glasgow Central Station.

Normally during rush hour there is a large crowd filling the main station area, all watching the big board for trains to be called. When a train is called there is a big surge of people towards the platform and everyone piles onto the train desperately trying to be the first to find the mythical ‘best seat’.

Afterwards, the main station area slowly fills up with more people and the cycle begins anew.

Yesterday I missed the platform call so I arrived at platform eight after the surge. Everyone was stopped at the end of platform eight waiting to get onto the platform - for some reason there must have been a barrier or something stopping them.

A top tip if you’re ever in an identical situation is that walking around to the rear of the building that houses the sandwich counter next to platform eight lets you skip right to the front of the queue. So I did that.

How odd - there was no barrier. Everyone was just standing there, waiting because they saw that everyone else was waiting.

It wasn’t until one young guy with more presence of mind than the crowd said ’sod this’ and deliberately walked onto the platform, that everyone realised what was happening and got on the train.

It was very bizarre, like a collective mind with a low IQ.

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