Worst Train Service You Have Been On

[Liam_Hendry]

My worst one was when I was on the way to London for the Scotland-Brazil game at Emirates. Boarded The Highland Chieftain at Perth. No Problems until we made an unscheduled stop at Durham. Due to a missing signal part, we were up and running an hour later. Then at Darlington the problem got worse. A group of Englishmen ran onto the track and took signal parts. 5 hours had passed and we hadn't left the platform. Then everyone was put on buses to York. 11 Hours after leaving Perth and we were in a very crowded York station. Waiting there for an hour we finally boarded the replacement York-London service. Got to my hotel at nearly 1am - 16 hours after leaving Perth. What was suppose to be a 6 hour journey turned into 10 hours extra of wasted time!

 

[Squaddie]

Then at Darlington the problem got worse. A group of Englishmen ran onto the track and took signal parts.

How did you know they were English?

 

[Liam_Hendry]

How did you know they were English?

It was in the newspaper paper the morning after the football match.

 

[David Barrett]

Regardless of nationality I would consider them to be thieves.

 

[Carlisle]

It was revenge for the scots nicking those goalposts at wembley

 

[embers25]

My worst one was when I was on the way to London for the Scotland-Brazil game at Emirates. Boarded The Highland Chieftain at Perth. No Problems until we made an unscheduled stop at Durham. Due to a missing signal part, we were up and running an hour later. Then at Darlington the problem got worse. A group of Englishmen ran onto the track and took signal parts. 5 hours had passed and we hadn't left the platform. Then everyone was put on buses to York. 11 Hours after leaving Perth and we were in a very crowded York station. Waiting there for an hour we finally boarded the Leeds-London service. Got to my hotel at nearly 1am - 16 hours after leaving Perth. What was suppose to be a 6 hour journey turned into 10 hours extra of wasted time!

You boarded the Leeds to London service...which one would that be then from York? One hijacked by Englishmen and taken the wrong route?

 

[Impey0711]

London midland ! Cannot rely on that service as every day they cancel services due to staff shortages and this has been going on a while not just a few weeks

 

[OLJR]

Back around 2005 or 2006 I took a GNER service from King's Cross to Newcastle. The overhead lines had come down in multiple locations all the way to York and although trains were operating they were both taking a long time and stopping at Huntingdon.

It took about 6 hours to reach York but one hour as usual afterwards.

I have to be honest, the journey was fine really. I just sat back and read my book. But I would not have wanted to be without a seat, which I would have been had I booked on one of the half past departures (cancelled) rather than an on the hour service (not cancelled)!

 

[Marcus1980]

Bristol to Hastings back in 2008 and Pwhelli to Rye in 2006.

Pwhelli to Rye, July 2006

Went to see my fave band play in this North Walian town, complete with a nearby Polish village called Phenross. Told my Dutch friend she'd love it there, and so she went. I decided to stay another night in Wales, so to avoid the huge cram on the trains, as Wakestock ended the night before, how wrong was I to do so.

I left for the Birmingham train at 8:00, this was supposed to go to Birmingham but terminated early at Maclleneth, here we had to get a train to Birmingham but this cancelled early at Shrewsbury, from here we had to catch a train to Wolverhampton, then change there to get to Birmingham. Once at Birmingham, I missed my next train to take me to London Euston, this meant waiting around in Birmingham for the next train in an hour, then when I got my train this one stopped everywhere unlike the one I missed.

When I got to London, I then got the tube to Charing Cross to travel to Rye. This meant getting a later train due to all the messing about previously. The one I would have got was quicker, this one stopped everywhere including the smaller hub stations like Doleham, which at the time had 3,000 passengers a year, now it's 57. It's a hamlet in East Sussex popular with walkers at weekends.

On this train, I also had to tolerate an arguing separated couple over their daughter's custody, with the girl crying as he ripped up a Birthday card she sent.

It took me 3 extra hours to get to Rye, arrived as soon as the nearby club was kicking out.

What should have been Pwhelli-->>Birmingham-->>Euston-->>Charing Cross-->>Rye, ended up Pwhelli-->>Maclleneth-->>Shrewsbury-->>Wolverhampton-->>Birmingham-->>Euston-->>Charing Cross-->>Rye.

Bristol Temple Meads May 2008
Went to see my fave band play the Thekla boat, even got on their tourbus. Well on a high with a bottle of red wine left in my hotel, following day the complete opposite in terms of happiness.

Firstly, my first train to Paddington was delayed by 30 mins, with **CORRECTION** constantly flashing up on the board, cue groans every time this happened. There was some fault somewhere and at the same time maintenance work. When it did arrive, this stayed still for 15 mins, with constant announcements "There is no way we can tell when we will leave", when it got going it moved slowly to Bath, then the driver when he left here, kept stopping and going and making the brakes squeak. It was like he got all dithery and in a panic due to events beforehand. When it got to London, it was late by an hour and 30 mins.

Then, at Charing Cross to get to Hastings, we were told to get off the train at Robertsbridge and get a replacement bus. At Battle, he waited for 15 mins before finally going. It took me 2 and a half hours longer than it should have. Also, we were not allowed on the bus right away, as we had to wait for the driver to arrive, who was drinking tea or summat.

A friend of mine had it worse, she went to see her team Chelsea play at the Millennium, but some vandals thought it would be a funny idea to cut the signal cables at Newport, which started off her spiral of crap. It should have taken her 3:30 mins to get home, it took her EIGHT. The final hurdle was stuck behind a broken down freight train for 30 mins!.

 

[6Gman]

My worst one was when I was on the way to London for the Scotland-Brazil game at Emirates.

er, why hold a Scotland v Brazil match in London?

 

[rf_ioliver]

Easy...5 or 6 years ago, flew into Manchester on a Sunday afternoon. Got to Manchester Picadilly only to find the place absolutely crammed with people, no announcements etc. After an hour got a train to York, 2 car 158...and a seat Absolutely crammed with people...finally got to York to catch a train to Newcastle...fairly relieved by this time after the previous 3 hours.

Got on board a Voyager to find an empty first class, sat down only to receive a pile of abuse from some BTP officer about how I wasn't allowed to sit in 1st. I held a 1st class ticket however.

Turns out the he and the two other officers were "guarding" the 1st class carriage for health and safety reasons. I as well as a bemused french couple were shephered off into standard class on threat of arrest.

Where we found that day's football supporters drinking, smoking, vomiting, urinating and worse....don't even ask what happened to two of the toilets on the train. I spent the rest of the journey sitting next to a door eating whatever the buffet could find for me listening to another BTP officer complain about the football supporters and the fact that a number of his colleagues were skiving in 1st while he had to look after everything else.

Very very glad to get off in Newcastle...I said a prayer for the train cleaners that night....

t.

Ian

 

[Polarbear]

I think one of my worst journeys must be the sleeper move I did on an All Line Rover in 1979.

The train departed Inverness late as there was trouble with one of the loco's (an omen for what was to come). The combination of a 27 & a 47 seemed odd as well. Unfortunately, one or both of the loco's expired somewhere on the highland main line (I was asleep at the time) & I suspect we lost a lot of time sourcing a replacement.

I woke up at around 07:00 & we weren't moving. The train was in a yard of but there was overhead catenary - so having slept through all the fun & games & with an expected arrival time at Euston of 07:30, I assumed we were around Willesden. I was therefore more than a bit gobsmacked when we finally did get moving, to note that the first station we passed was Motherwell...!! :roll:

Arrival at Euston was around 11:45 after getting looped, sidetracked, put onto the slow lines & routed via Northampton for good measure to keep out of the way of daytime services (oh, and a class 81 at the helm too). Being British Rail, little in the way of apologies, compensation or anything that you would take for granted nowadays. The sleeper attendant was particularly grumpy & whilst I appreciate it wasn't his fault we were so late, it equally wasn't my fault that his shift finished so late.

Happy days...

 

[Toad]

er, why hold a Scotland v Brazil match in London?

Top Teams, Brazil, England, Andorra, Cape Verdi won't go up their !!

 

[hairyhandedfool]

er, why hold a Scotland v Brazil match in London?

If it is the game I am thinking of, it was Brazil vs Scotland, and Brazil's Football Association claim it was because many (the majority I believe) of their players are based in Europe, so many of their friendlies were played in Europe to save those players from having a 13 hour flight home.

 

[Techniquest]

Good God there's been some horrid journeys experienced here! Particularly that one with the hooligans on the train to Newcastle...

I'm really struggling to think of a worst journey to be honest, unless going half way across the country to get bowled by an Adelante vice HST counts. After an all-day session of bashing and an all-nighter too. When I was barely able to afford one coffee, never mind the 20 I wanted during the night! Actually, that reminds me of a journey that *should* have just about worked, but thanks to idiotic passengers it all went tits up...Don't ask me when it was, I can't be bothered to check the dates right now.

Anyway, this must have been 2009 I think, or 2008. Whichever it was, it was during a time when I'd happily go from one side of the country to the other on cheap coaches to save money [drastically different to now, where the thought of several hours on a coach makes me shudder and cringe - Ed]. Having already spent around 2.5 hours on buses to get to Gloucester on the cheap, I had booked a Megabus journey to London. The times before when I'd done it we had gone RA to the Swindon stop some miles north of Swindon. Not this time, obviously things had changed as we had to go first to Cheltenham before finding a route I was very unfamiliar with to get to Swindon. Anyway, despite being late by the time we got to Swindon, there was still time for a short break here, which two women took advantage of to go to the Sainsburys adjacent to our stop. Strictly limited to about 15 minutes everyone, including the two women, was told. So it comes to departure time and the driver does a headcount. Missing two people, the two who'd gone to Sainsburys. Eventually, about 20 minutes later, they come back armed with bags full of God only knows what. Nothing said at all to them about it and when they finally sat down we left to hit the M4.

Now the plan had been to get into London, belt it up the road from the coach station to the Victoria line and get to Kings Cross to get the evening Grand Central HST to York where I had booked accommodation that was unrefundable at £35, ready to come back the next day. Since we were so late, the HST had left well before we'd got to London, let alone the time I'd get to Kings Cross. I rang to cancel the accommodation, and looked at every different option to get to York beforehand. Nothing whatsoever within my price range, by rail at least. However, someone suggested to me on the phone using Megabus to get up north on the overnight trip to Newcastle. £25 or so I believe it cost and I was fortunate I could book it there and then at the coach station. What I did after that I don't know, I genuinely can't remember but no doubt it involved a leap to/from Clapham Junction. Finally it's time to get going north, and we leave a bit late, late enough for me to get really peeved about it.

6 and something hours later, after yet another horrendously boring journey up the M1 [I had seen enough of it to last me a lifetime already on other trips! - Ed] we finally arrive in Newcastle. You'd think it being an overnight and mentally straining day/night I'd sleep easily. Ha, fat chance of that! I manage a minor bit of doss somehow when we get within an hour of Newcastle, then race down after the mandatory photo of the coach to the Tyne and Wear Metro. I have no idea at this point if I'll make it to Sunderland in time, or even if it's going to be an HST anyway. By some miracle, I get there with some minutes to spare and I was rewarded with a proper HST to London. Not even close to the way I had intended to get it in mind, thanks to two idiotic women who decided a shopping spree in Sainsburys was a good enough reason to seriously delay everyone :roll:

Suffice to say, after a couple of hours, I collapsed into a deep sleep for a bit. I don't recall how I got home afterwards. Certainly wasn't the trip I had planned!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Villefranche Vernet-les-Bains to Perpignion - awful , stinking ex Paris graffitied and window etched EMU ....ran late and missed a critical connection.

 

[tractakid]

My worst journey was a London Midland 23:14 rail replacement bus from Euston to Milton Keynes, via Lancelot Road, Wembley, where the bus driver got lost.

Bailed the bus at Hemel Hempstead as I reckoned the last train of the day, which was actually running, would beat it (tracking on realtimetrains). Of course, RTT couldn't tell me the train would get stuck at Kings Langley or Apsley due to an onboard fight. No information to be found at Hemel, refreshing RTT showed no progress. Help point didn't know any better, just advised about the really late replacement bus service that normally runs on what was now Sunday.

3 hours to get home. Walking out of MKC, saw the replacement bus drive away outside the station.

Annoyingly, was just under 2 hours late, so only got a half refund in RTVs. But, they sent me a little too little. So the additional £1 they sent pushed it to just over half.

I then had to try 3 different ticket offices to spend the RTVs later on.

 

[Tracked]

Worst ever would be when I worked in Rotherham years ago, travelling from Doncaster to there and back every day would throw up the worst in Pacer-based traction possible, though the highlights:

Northern Spirit put on single car 153 on Friday 17:35 from Rotherham train. Not Busy, obviously ...

A 142 and 3-Car 144 are put on, train delayed while the guard argues with people he's trying to cram into the already busy 142 while the larger 144 is empty. Eventually he sees sense, I am stuck in middle of 142, it's summer and the carriage is naturally quite cool inside ...

More recently:

the 142 a couple of months ago between Sheffield and Kiveton Park, Northern Spirit seating and an interior that quite possibly hadn't been changed either. Interior paneling also looked somewhat warped, engine sounded poorly.

Late 2006, coming home from Leeds & trains cancelled due to suicide in Adwick area, staff on Leeds station advising travel to Wakefield where coaches will be waiting. Coaches not waiting, coach shows up but massive queue means I don't get on it, though trains start running shortly after

 

[Muzer]

Unless I actually have somewhere to go/something to do urgently, delays tend to make things interesting


I find my worst journeys are ones where train amenities (like heating during the winter...) aren't working or they're overcrowded.

 

[nicobobinus]

Probably the morning when the OLE went squiff on the NLL at West Hampstead back in the noughties. After a 20 minute wait at Highbury & Islington, the most wedged 313 I've ever seen in my life (and in the era of Silverlink Metro there were many) crawled in 75 down, deposited about 50% of it's passengers (the second the doors opened as people literally fell out) and the 150+ of us on the platform barged on. Some aggression from passengers who hadn't made it to the doors to get off as the swarm started pushing in, but again, this wasn't unusual. And off we crawled - so far so good.

Eventually we pulled in to Gospel Oak 82 down. As we crossed the bridge over Gordon House Road I caught sight of a group of perhaps 100 people at the C11 bus stop (unofficial rail replacement in times of trouble) who saw our train and immediately broke into a mass run across the road back to the station. There were a similar number of people on the platform already, and our 3-car 313 was already crush loaded. Tempers flared as the platform throng realised nobody was going to get on, and the three station staff on the platform were inundated with people in varying states of anger looking for some unrealistic solution to the situation (the term 'C11' was heard a lot mixed in with expletives). As for the train? It was going nowhere, sat at a red with a vague hope that it would head on into the quagmire around West Hampstead as an when a green appeared. Well, it didn't.

After about 10 minutes the one staff bod who had found a loudhailer bellowed out that an eastbound train would be coming into the opposite platform to reverse out form a working through to Richmond. All protocol disappeared as people disgorged from the unit on the westbound platform, headed to the back of the train and just jumped off the platform ledge and crossed over to the other side over the trackbed. Not one or two bolder commuters, but 15 or 20. If anyone in an official capacity saw this happen they turned a blind eye, but I think they were too preoccupied with other matters to notice.

Another 5 minutes passed, no train appeared.
10 minutes passed, no train appeared. People began sloping downstairs back to the C11 bus stop.
The original 313 sat on the westbound platform going nowhere.

Then a class 150 appeared in the GOBLIN bay platform and I decided enough was enough, so I wrote off my morning plans and went home 'along the top'.

 

[Techniquest]

That was a grim experience!

Think my worst on trains themselves has been two occassions within 6 weeks of each other. First was December 2008 on the 0450 Edinburgh to Fort Wiliam, where the heating cables hadn't been hooked up properly so I froze all the way to Westerton, as the cables couldn't be sorted out until a brief stop at Ashill

January 2009, and I'm on the 2030 Swansea to Paddington, on a Cardiff to Reading journey. Heating failure on board which meant a very cold journey even when, as per the Scotland experience, I was wrapped up in multiple layers. Swear it was warmer off the train than it had been on it...

 

[317666]

Probably any time I've caught the 21:53 from Kings Cross on a Saturday, at this point there's a gap between fast Cambridge trains, so a four-coach 365 also takes all the passengers who would have caught a fast service as well as everyone heading to Stevenage, Hitchin etc (the latter being enough to fill up a 365 without all the Cambridge passengers!). I've found that waiting for the 22:15, which is eight coaches and only arrives five minutes later, is a far better option.

In terms of delays though, a fairly annoying one was actually just last Saturday. I caught the 05:45 Cambridge - Kings Cross with an advance for the 07:20 Euston - Manchester Piccadilly. We ground to a halt at Knebworth with the driver informing us of a points failure at Woolmer Green, and we would therefore run wrong-line back to Stevenage and go via the Hertford Loop. 'Fair enough' I thought, I had 45 minutes to change in London and it's do-able in 10 minutes so I wasn't worried. Unfortunately, when we got back to Stevenage I saw a pair of 313s heading onto the loop. 'Never mind, we'll probably overtake them at Hertford' I thought. I couldn't have been more wrong, ended up stuck behind them all the way into London and getting to Kings Cross 45 minutes late, so I ended up missing the 07:35 as well as the 07:20 and had to catch the 08:00. Not the most horrible journey in the world compared to others in this thread so maybe I'm just lucky!

 

[causton]

So far my worst two journeys have been both on Stagecoach diesels!

...First one was when I was going to Exeter and decided to take SWT... big mistake as the 159 had a main line air failure around Sherborne, and we limped on to Yeovil Junction. Luckily there was another 159 heading up towards Yeovil Junction to start service, as it had been cancelled from Exeter to Yeovil due to no guard being available, so was due to start at Yeovil. That plan went out the window as we commandeered it back from Yeovil to Exeter, where it terminated in the bay platform at Exeter Central! Had to catch another unit (think it was the next Exeter service behind!) to St Davids. Total delay of about an hour. Because I was an idiot and used a Megatrain ticket, no compensation. Yay!

The second was when I was taking an HST up to Nottingham from St Pancras. Checking the map on Open Train Times I noticed an FCC train in the fast line platform at St Albans. We were not too far behind and I thought 'bugger, why hasn't that gone onto the slow platform, that'll slow us down!' but that was the least of my concerns, as the headcode changed to a 5xxx and RTT indicated the train had been there for quite some time, and would not be moving anytime soon. So we sat beside a golf course just outside St Albans for over an hour... So it was decided we would 'wrong-line' it to Radlett Junction then overtake it on the slow line. Which we did, completely jamming the other three lines of the MML (as we crossed over we saw trains on all three other lines had been stopped for us!) then, as we passed St Albans... the train's problem must have been fixed as the train was moving again. Brilliant. Ended up terminating at Leicester 1 hour and 14 minutes down, with another train to get us to Nottingham which left us with about an hour and a half of delay...

 

[Muzer]

...First one was when I was going to Exeter and decided to take SWT... big mistake as the 159 had a main line air failure around Sherborne, and we limped on to Yeovil Junction. Luckily there was another 159 heading up towards Yeovil Junction to start service, as it had been cancelled from Exeter to Yeovil due to no guard being available, so was due to start at Yeovil. That plan went out the window as we commandeered it back from Yeovil to Exeter, where it terminated in the bay platform at Exeter Central! Had to catch another unit (think it was the next Exeter service behind!) to St Davids. Total delay of about an hour. Because I was an idiot and used a Megatrain ticket, no compensation. Yay!

You're pretty unlucky, then - as far as I remember, the SWT 158s and 159s are consistently among the most reliable diesels in the country

(I commuted on them between Andover and Salisbury for 7 years and can count the number of breakdowns I directly experienced on one hand)