I have been rather lucky in that in all my years of rail traveling I have only come across a couple of incidents that could be considered unacceptable behavior.
One was around 2010 when Mrs Deltic and myself were on our way to a weeks holiday in East Yorkshire, traveling from Lincoln, our best route was to Doncaster and on to Hull.
The Lincoln - Doncaster portion was (as is considered the norm) run by a Pacer (a 144 in this case). All was fine (well as fine as a pacer journey can be) until Rotherham Central where a group of lads got on, shouting swearing and swilling Strongbow. We ignored them until they pulled Mrs Deltic's case from where we had put it in the luggage rack and threw it on the floor so one of them could sit in it, while the others actively tried to avoid the Guard. I challenged the fella that did the luggage throwing and for my trouble received a beer breathed sneer and a "what are you going to do about it?", to which I offered to show him what I was going to do about it at the next station. Needless to say he didn't take me up on my offer and they all alighted at Meadowhall. Interestingly the Guard had informed BTP who were waiting and boarded at Sheffield to be informed they were a stop too late.
Another was Wednesday just gone at Birmingham New St on our way to Cosford. A woman had been stopped by LM ticket inspectors and BTP and was shouting and swearing about having a ticket but had lost it. Her story may have been true I am not judging her for that but I do Judge that her behavior with young children about was appalling. The BTP officer seemed to have had enough and threatened her with arrest which made her rhetoric worse. I never saw the conclusion but I can only assume that she spent the afternoon in a nick somewhere in Birmingham.
One positive story I have.
When I was about 14 or 15 I went to Doncaster for my cousins birthday party, travelling alone as my parents were working.
On the way home at about 9 pmish I got on and found a seat, the train was busy and at the table I was sat at i was joined by a group of guys (late 20's early 30's) who had had a few pints, but they were jolly enough. they seemed to take me under their wing and we had a good laugh and a joke, one even told his Mrs about me and let me talk to her on the phone. At journeys end they said they would not have me walking home alone and had a whip round to get me a taxi.
this just goes to prove that not all intoxicated people on trains are bad.
These are my experiences yours may vary, but after covering a lifetime mileage of a little under 1,000,000 miles 2 bad incidents i don't consider is bad going.
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I must be unlucky, I dread travelling these days as inevitably there will be noisy headphone, drunken ones, male and increasingly more so, femail.
One incident from the past particularly sticks in my memory.
Travelling home down to Plymouth on a Penzance service, a group of four servicemen were obviously returning from leave and were having a good time. As time went on their language became more and more littered with expletives. The coach was fairly well occupied by families with children, and eventually, as a railman, I felt the need to lean over the aisle to their table and said, keep the language down lads, there are women and children on board.
Having returned to my seat, comments about f*****g civvies, and other choice comments were becoming louder from them.
A gentlemen who had been sitting opposite me during all this put down his book, stepped over to the servicemen and said ' he may be a civilian, I'm not, my office tomorrow morning 09 hundred hours'. and he rejoined his seat followed by mumbles of 'yessir'.
I smiled a thankyou, we heard no more from them for the rest of the journey.
Sometimes things couldn't be better.
Given the area that you describe I can only assume that the servicemen you encountered were members of my former service (which I shall not name here but some of you will know what i mean).
It saddens me to hear of these people bringing the service into disrepute in this manner.
Your comments to them were perfectly justified and, I hope that the (what i assume to be) Officer gave them the biggest rollicking they had ever had, with some punishment duties thrown in and a massive fine, as bringing the service into disrepute is taken very seriously.
