A 27-year-old woman fell asleep on a GO Train after a long day and woke up in the early morning to locked doors and an empty car.
The incident happened back in June. Durham resident Victoria Munroe told CTV News Toronto that she was travelling to Pickering on the Lakeshore East train from Union Station when she drifted off to sleep. She woke up around 1:30 a.m. to 16 missed calls from her boyfriend. When she tried to leave, she realized the train was locked.
“I’m sitting on a train, partially freaking out. I have no food. I have no idea where I am. I could be anywhere in the GTA. I don’t know where they park trains,” she said.
With the last of her phone battery she was able to call her boyfriend, who in turn contacted GO Transit with the train number. Forty-five minutes later an employee unlocked the door. Munroe had ended up in Whitby.
Monroe said the ordeal has caused her lasting anxiety.
“What if I woke up and my phone was dead? I would be there until the morning. Or what if I was diabetic like my brother? I would have been in a coma. No food. No water. There’s so many possibilities. That’s the terrifying part.”
Anne Marie Aikins, a spokesperson for Metrolinx, said that the agency “clearly made an error.”
GO Transit crews are supposed to inspect trains when they arrive at their final destination. An investigation conducted by the transit agency into Munroe’s trip shows that it was a mistake by Metrolinx that led to her being locked in the train.
Monroe said that her conversations with Metrolinx have been brief, but Aikins said she hopes to remedy the situation.
“We didn’t live up to our mark there either providing her with a good response,” Aikins told CTV News Toronto. “I would really like to try and speak to her and see if we can get some resolution for her so she feels a little more confident that that won’t happen again.”
