Reasons to Hate the Commute

#711 - La Mesa Founders, Inc. Hates Trains, Probably

People were surprised when a train station was opened at the La Mesa Watershed. Why the Watershed? It was out of the way and out of the city. The only rationale that occurred to anyone was that it really did significantly cut travel time between Quezon City in Manila, and Norzagaray in Bulacan.

Plus, the station was located at an area of the watershed that had been restricted from as far back as anyone could remember. Most of the watershed has been open to the public as a nature park, but not that part. Everyone just presumed it was a nature reserve, where endangered flora and fauna were raised, so it made sense that tourists were not allowed inside.

Every station is run by different Sinauna-affiliated entities: everyone knows this. But no one knew a thing about the "La Mesa Founders, Inc." who apparently sponsored the Watershed station. What was the nature of their business? What products did they sell? Nobody knew.

And there was absolutely no announcement about the building. People woke up one day and poof - an announcement on their news feeds that a new Sinauna station was opening at the Watershed.

As one of my friends goes home to Norzagaray on long weekends, a few other friends and I decided to tag along to see this new route.

From Fairview station, you enter a pitch black underground tunnel to get to the Watershed station. That was strange enough, but we soon learned that getting out of it was even stranger.

Once we were aboveground, it dawned on us that we were on a very different train. All the seats were made of tree branches and vines, some with a couple of leaves and clods of dirt still on them. One of my friends was wearing shorts and got a butt splinter.

I don't know how the train looks like from the outside, but I imagine it looks the same as it does from the inside - like a kid saw a train once and tried to make a shoddy copy using mud, twigs and twine.

What made the ride barely tolerable was the shaking. The rails were in horrible shape - a quick look out the window showed that they were covered in moss and earth, and made of rotting wood and rusty steel. How old WERE those tracks? It's a wonder any train could run on them to begin with.

Worse, we were not alone. There were ghosts in the train with us, or what sure looked like ghosts. They were made of white smoke, like what you'd usually find in the middle of a fog, although there was no fog.

Mostly they were wearing old-style clothes, I mean REALLY old - barong tagalog and baro't saya kind of old.

They chatted with each other soundlessly, their hands wildly gesturing. They must have been really loud on this train when they were still around, but white smoke shadows are all that's left of them now.

And they were pretty harmless. You wouldn't know if there was a ghost in your seat until you got up to take a look. It was just creepy. And, if you ask me, sort of impolite.

Most clear among the ghosts in the car was a young woman in a simple white terno, but wearing a colorful panuelo and tapis. I don't know why she was the most vivid one, although the bright color of her clothes might just have made her stand out. She was usually on her feet, and she looked out the windows often, placing her palms against the glass. Unlike the other ghosts, her facial expression was actually visible, and she looked worried.

Other people have reported that this young woman is on every car. Someone actually claimed she talked to them and told them "the forest is angry." But she seemed like she wasn't even aware that my friends and I were there, so I don't believe it.

The shaky ride seemed to affect the ghosts, as well. They occasionally held on to some part of the train, or to each other.

This led me and my friends to imagine all sorts of scenarios. We discussed them openly during our ride, confident that the ghosts wouldn't hear. Perhaps the train was already in bad shape a long time ago, which was why the train stopped its operations in the first place.

Or maybe it was just in bad shape while it was passing through the Watershed? Maybe the spirit of the forest really WAS angry at the old passengers, and is still angry at us now...?

The train stopped at the Watershed station. There was apparently a rundown, extremely old shed there - and apparently, La Mesa Founders, Inc. couldn't be bothered to fix it up, either. Some of the ghosts got off. Some new ghosts got on. The young lady in the colorful panuelo and tapis stayed, peering out the windows all the while.

Long story short: you have ghosts and butt splinters and a bumpy ride all throughout the 15 minutes the train passes through the La Mesa Watershed. And then it enters another tunnel and emerges in Norzagaray, and you get back your smoothly running, normal modern train. All of a sudden no shaky rides, no panicked ghosts, and no splinters. Still some itching, though.

There have been a couple of complaints officially filed about this wood train already, but they've been ignored. There was only a lukewarm "Station management has been informed and will take due steps to resolve the issue" blanket response, but no actual game plan, no timeline.

Here's my takeaway from the experience: the Sinauna Group needs to be careful with the entities they get to build their stations. Some of them may have some experience with trains, but don't know the first thing about running them.