A Toronto resident says he was shocked to find a window missing from a moving GO train as he made his way to Union Station over the weekend.
It happened on the Stouffville line at around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday.
Kyle Macdonald said that he was in Markham to visit his mother and had boarded a southbound train to return downtown.
Macdonald said as he was finding a seat on the train he walked past a large pane of glass placed on a row of two seats but initially didn’t think much of it.
However, about 20 minutes into the trip he decided to investigate the loud noise he’d been hearing coming from that area.
To his surprise, Macdonald saw a gaping hole where one of the train’s windows should have been.
“I could not believe my eyes that the glass was the actual window and the noise was the wind blowing in the train. It was as if someone was working on the window and just left it unfinished,” he told CP24 on Tuesday.
“It was a nice spring night, but I don’t think that’s how they wanted to ventilate the train.”
Baffled to see other train riders “just walking by and sitting as if it was nothing,” Macdonald took a seat nearby and grabbed his phone, filming a short video that he posted on Instagram.
In the now-viral clip, he shows the pane of glass on the seats before panning over to the window area and back.
“Just wondering how this is safe?” he then chimes in, filming himself with a concerned expression.
Macdonald said he made it to Union Station unscathed, and heard an announcement that the GO train was out of service as it pulled into the station.
“I’m just happy everyone got home safe,” he said.
Incident is an ‘act of vandalism’: Metrolinx
In a statement, Metrolinx said it is looking into an “act of vandalism” on one of its trains on the Stouffville line that occurred on Sunday evening.
The provincial transportation agency said a customer alerted staff at Union Station to the issue and the problem was “addressed immediately after.”
“Our GO trains are equipped with safety features to protect our customers in the event of an emergency and misusing them is a serious offense,” Metrolinx said.
The agency says its customers can report immediate safety or security concerns by pressing the yellow emergency strip on vehicles or by texting “HELP” to 77777.
