This happened many moons ago, but I will never forget. I was going on Holiday in France and was on my way from Brussels to a small village in Normandy. As usual, I took the train. I had to switch trains in Paris, going from Gare Du Nord to a different station where the train to Normandy was leaving out of. In order to switch trains, I had to take the metro from one station to another. But, it was July and very busy at the metro station and I had a fairly heavy suitcase that I was dragging around.

The metro train ran about every 5 minutes but people kept pushing me to the side and I had little defense with my big suitcase. I was becoming super worried about missing my connecting train to Normandy. Finally, I managed to jump on a subway train under disapproving eyes of some other travellers or commuters. I kept looking at my watch (oh yes we actually had watches back then, no smartphones). I arrived with only minutes to spare and the track I had to be on was quite a walk. I ran through the station as fast as a person can run with a 40 pound suitcase in tow. The final hurdle was a long flight of stairs. As I was making my way up the stairs, I could see my train. Just as I was at the top of the stairs the train started to move and off it went… without me.
I found a public phone and called my friend who lived in Paris. She came and picked me up and I was going to spend the night at her home. That night we were watching the news on TV and the train I had missed by a hair had derailed.