Train stuck on track

Today has been such a long day at work.

First, everyone is worried about the spread of the Coronavirus.  It's not in Austin yet, but it has come to the USA and it is in a few states, including Texas. 

Second - a week ago, they said South by Southwest would not be canceled, but today at 3:50 PM they held a press conference and announced that SBSW was canceled because it brought so many people in such close proximity to each other and brought people from outside Austin creating an environment that could spread the virus. However, the other consequence of cancelling this event, is the immediate economic impact it will have on those involved in SBSW and local enterprise.  Our hotel, for example, will have cancelations equalling $500,000 dollars (that is money counted on to meet the budget).  Small businesses are hit even harder.  SBSW let go ⅓ of it's staff because they were not needed since the event was canceled.  The impact of this had everyone in a depressed mood the rest of the day.

So now I'm on the train ride home, ready to relax or enjoy games with our friends, the Perry's.  As the train leaves Lakeline (the second to last stop), the station just before mine the train slows down to a crawl.  We slow to only 10 miles per hour ... then we slow down to 5 miles per hour ... we are all curious as to what is causing the train to go so slow.  Then the train stops all together - it stops less than a quarter mile from the Leander station (my stop), the last stop.  We happened to stop while the train is over Hero Way Road.  So we are stopped and we have blocked all traffic at that intersection.  Yikes!!!  We are all still wondering what is happening.  The train was 10 minutes late, then 20 minutes late, and now that we have completely stopped, the passengers are all wondering, "what time will we be free to get off the train?" 

The conductor comes around to let us know what is the situation.  Apparently, the train was supposed to get on another track a while back, but didn't switch tracks.   Our train is on the WRONG TRACK.  We are on the track of the south bound train.  We are now blocking the south bound train from leaving Leander.  Holy Cow.  How did this happen?  This could have resulted in a head on collision.  Luckily, technology alerts automatically slowed and eventually stopped the train until a solution could be implemented.  They had the south bound train reverse back away from the station so our train could pull in and we disembark.  We ended up arriving at the station 30 minutes late.

After getting home so late, Mark and I still made it over to Ann and Kent Perry's for a late dinner and games!  What a funny story to tell.