This whole discussion takes me back to the old Central Division of the Southern in the time prior to the 1978 Timetable changes. There was a standard service pattern but this was abandoned between about 1600 and 1900 to the main business of getting passengers home from work. The principal notion was that you filled your train up at Victoria or London Bridge, got it fast forty miles down the main line and then served a carefully selected number of stations thereafter. The whole service was put together with a series of ‘flights’ where a fast service led out of London, followed by another stopping short of the first one’s initial stop and so on. The most famous ‘flight’ was the ‘Three Fives’ from London Bridge. Here, in 1976, the first left at 1658 fast to Hassocks, Preston Park and Brighton; then came the 1700 for Burgess Hill, Hove and the West Coast and finally the 1704 for East Croydon, Haywards Heath, Wivelsfield and the East Coast. Prior to electrification this pattern had included slip coaches for the East Grinstead line at Three Bridges. In this way a fast service was provided and the loads were balanced between trains and, memory suggests, the service worked pretty well.
Now one consequence of this was that there were plenty of trains which called at East Croydon and plenty which didn’t. In the hour from 1700 there were five trains from Victoria and five from London Bridge non-stopping EC and seven of these were fast to Haywards Heath or beyond. Everybody seemed to know which was their train and would only rarely find themselves on the wrong one. The same, however, couldn’t be said for those hoping to alight at East Croydon. On a regular basis trains would slow coming through Windmill Bridge Junction; a passenger or two would arise from their seats, collect umbrellas from racks and move towards doors; the train would then accelerate through the station and head for open country. It provided a late dinner for them and some simple amusement for us; and everyday there would be new victims.
For various reasons the practice of decades came to an end in 1978 as the Central Division came to regard it as wrong for, all but the merest few, trains to omit stops not just at East Croydon but at Clapham Junction, Gatwick and Haywards Heath. What was lost were fast peak services, the companionship of travelling with the same people each day, balloons and streamers in the carriages before Christmas, the tipping of the ex-Belle stewards who brought class, white jackets and blue piping to the buffet cars and the sense of Sussex beginning at the carriage door at Victoria. What was gained was that there was no longer a need to engage eye, ear or brain before boarding and the conversion of part of the mainline journey into an extension of the joys of the Victoria Line ride into Victoria. A little elitist perhaps, but I know whether I preferred the old or the new ways!
Meanwhile on the South East Division we still have, for now, our non-stop trains from Waterloo (East) to High Brooms and, despite the best endeavours of the guards, late dinners are still supplied to those who imagine that all trains stop at London Bridge. Perhaps these are the next generation of passengers headed for East Croydon, genetically predestined for unwanted country travel?
May I now add a couple of little anecdotes to this journey down memory lane? In the mid-1970s the off-peak service from Victoria to Preston Park offered a few options. The direct train left at xx44, called at all stations from Purley and took 90 minutes. Alternatively changing at Haywards Heath could get the journey down to 76 minutes. Or taking the xx00 non-stop to Brighton gave a decently reliable 3 minute connection and a 61 minute trip. One summer’s evening I was having a pot of tea at a table in the buffet car of what was probably the 2100 ex-Victoria when a particularly tall guard came through inspecting tickets. When he reached the wine and cigarette crowd by the buffet counter he took the opportunity to scandalise a goodly number of them by surcharging them a few pence for the excess on their Preston Park seasons. Such a thing had not happened before! Once he had gone the indignation soon turned to mirth as the funny side prevailed. The camaraderie of those travelling the line was a big part of all our lives.
Turning then to the late 1990s and the train which left, and still leaves, Charing Cross around 1800 for the Hastings Line. At a time of stock shortage only 4 cars, memory suggest a VEP unit, were available on this particular evening. “Control” decided that passengers for High Brooms and Tunbridge Wells were catered for by the following TW semi-fast and so announcements were repeatedly made on train and station that the train would run fast from Waterloo (East) to Frant. The concept of a train which passed through Tunbridge Wells without stopping was beyond the grasp of travellers taught from the cradle of certain certainties of life: as a result another plethora of reheated dinners and stories to be related to wide-eyed grandchildren. But the look on their faces as it became evident that TW was to be passed was wonderful – talk about a trip outside the comfort zone – it was as if the River Styx ran just beyond Grove Tunnel!
So I have little sympathy for those who make assumptions and ignore announcements. I am, however, reminded that I never managed to travel between Millers Dale and Matlock,. My mother inadvertently managed it, one day, by failing to change at Chinley en route from Manchester Central to Edale; and she got the return trip back to Chinley thrown in all for free.
Having said that, the last few times I've departed Euston, such checks were in place. I don't think many will ever realise the sheer volume of railway operating experience, built over decades, that was lost when BR was disbanded.