I have recently seen a couple of issues caused by drunks trying to board/on board services
One was at Manchester Picc and a late Saturday evening ATW service to Shrewsbury - the last one of the evening I believe. Standing up on the bridge at the station, I was watching some services depart before my service home.
First of all of course was the despatchers whistle and the mad dash of those further up the platform (there was a Northern unit at the concourse end), who the staff waited for. One jumped on at one of the front doors (don't ask) just as the door was shutting and it jammed part shut.
The guard came down, gave it a push to shut it and get interlock, and give a stern point at the plonker who had caused it.
In the meantime, we (I was with another forum member at the time) watched some people hop on to the back - what we originally thought to be the back passenger door. It soon became clear that this wasn't the case, and a short while later, two people were removed from the back cab. With the guard by now appearing quite animated and the despatcher keeping well out of the way, we wondered why he wasn't just going. Disappearing back into the cab, another little while and a third bloke was ejected from the cab, at which point the train was locked up and departed without them!
Most recently, on the 2242 from Piccadilly towards York last Saturday, I was in the section of the 185 between First and the (front in this case) cab. All was fine until Stalybridge when a load of drunks piled on into the area where I was, heading to Huddersfield. There were about 8 of them and proceeded to start mucking around with the accessible toilet door and generally making a lot of noise. The long and short was throwing each other into the toilet space, preventing the door from opening/closing (forcibly, not always with the buttons) and such like, to the point that by the time anyone else needed it, it wouldn't shut at all and had to be held shut. It ended up being that the lock handle was also turned while the door was open too!
Thankfully they left at Huddersfield and the door attempted to shut, fully shut, then reopened, then did the same thing slowly. I thought it may have re-learnt its positions but any attempt to shut did the same thing...it was pretty much goosed! Some other passengers came down and I advised them of the issue and to use the other one...to be told it was out of order too!
In the end, for the remainder of my journey to the next stop, a bit of teamwork with one person jamming their foot against the door to prevent it opening (despite its best efforts) was the only resolution to the problem.
On that occasion, on leaving the train, the driver was leaning out so I let him know that the drunks had broken the front facility through their stupidity (I thought it may be flashing up on the computer system), which I said he would have likely heard their antics too. He thanked me for letting him know and that it would have to stay like that until it went into service "in 20-30 miles" (aka York). He summed it up that it was just vandalism.
My cynical side tells me that since they all piled out of the pub, these passengers were possibly ticketless too :-x
Anyone else seen any interesting things whilst out and about on the railways?
One was at Manchester Picc and a late Saturday evening ATW service to Shrewsbury - the last one of the evening I believe. Standing up on the bridge at the station, I was watching some services depart before my service home.
First of all of course was the despatchers whistle and the mad dash of those further up the platform (there was a Northern unit at the concourse end), who the staff waited for. One jumped on at one of the front doors (don't ask) just as the door was shutting and it jammed part shut.
The guard came down, gave it a push to shut it and get interlock, and give a stern point at the plonker who had caused it.
In the meantime, we (I was with another forum member at the time) watched some people hop on to the back - what we originally thought to be the back passenger door. It soon became clear that this wasn't the case, and a short while later, two people were removed from the back cab. With the guard by now appearing quite animated and the despatcher keeping well out of the way, we wondered why he wasn't just going. Disappearing back into the cab, another little while and a third bloke was ejected from the cab, at which point the train was locked up and departed without them!
Most recently, on the 2242 from Piccadilly towards York last Saturday, I was in the section of the 185 between First and the (front in this case) cab. All was fine until Stalybridge when a load of drunks piled on into the area where I was, heading to Huddersfield. There were about 8 of them and proceeded to start mucking around with the accessible toilet door and generally making a lot of noise. The long and short was throwing each other into the toilet space, preventing the door from opening/closing (forcibly, not always with the buttons) and such like, to the point that by the time anyone else needed it, it wouldn't shut at all and had to be held shut. It ended up being that the lock handle was also turned while the door was open too!
Thankfully they left at Huddersfield and the door attempted to shut, fully shut, then reopened, then did the same thing slowly. I thought it may have re-learnt its positions but any attempt to shut did the same thing...it was pretty much goosed! Some other passengers came down and I advised them of the issue and to use the other one...to be told it was out of order too!
In the end, for the remainder of my journey to the next stop, a bit of teamwork with one person jamming their foot against the door to prevent it opening (despite its best efforts) was the only resolution to the problem.
On that occasion, on leaving the train, the driver was leaning out so I let him know that the drunks had broken the front facility through their stupidity (I thought it may be flashing up on the computer system), which I said he would have likely heard their antics too. He thanked me for letting him know and that it would have to stay like that until it went into service "in 20-30 miles" (aka York). He summed it up that it was just vandalism.
My cynical side tells me that since they all piled out of the pub, these passengers were possibly ticketless too :-x
Anyone else seen any interesting things whilst out and about on the railways?
