KOTA KINABALU – We often hear of nuisances caused by illegal pavement-parking, driveway-parking, and even double-parking.
But have you heard of railway-track parking?
Certain people today parked their cars so close to a rail line here that a train was forced to literally stop on its tracks to prevent it from banging into the road vehicles.
The incident happened at around 12.30pm near the Sabah College Secondary School in the city’s Sembulan area.
The train – which was on its regular lunch schedule – was on its way with passengers when the engine driver spotted a couple of cars parked dangerously close to the tracks ahead.
If it had continued to move forward, the locomotive would have hit the cars and damaged them and itself.
“The train driver started to blow the horn to attract the attention of people around the area, hoping that the car owners would come out and move their vehicles,” a worker who saw the incident there said.
“A worker eventually came out 15 minutes later and immediately moved his car,” he added.
When the incident occurred, the Sabah Railway Department – which had been alerted by the train’s officials – immediately uploaded a photo of the stationery cars on its Facebook page with the announcement: “Mohon kepada pemilik kenderaan, sila alihkan kenderaan anda jauh dari landasan” (“The owners of these vehicles are requested to move their vehicles further away from the tracks”).
The photos have gone viral locally on social media. – The Vibes, March 10, 2021.
