Getting on and off the train and rude people

[BurtonM]

I often travel with my bike, and wherever possible I make a point of getting up and stationing myself at the door early so I don't have to wait for everyone else to get off.
Weirdly enough I never have that much trouble getting off.

I can't stand when people get off the train in front of me carrying a suitcase, then as soon as they lay a foot on the platform, they stop dead to pull out the handle so they don't have to carry it a foot longer than absolutely necessary, only to have someone fall over the back of them because they couldn't get out of the way first, oh no :roll:

 

[sw1ller]

These threads are always good for a bit of light relief.

I do love it when people stand in front of the doors of a train they have no intention of boarding (thus blocking it for everyone around them), just so they can try and be first on their train. Then again I can't help but smirk a little when a different type of rolling stock turns up for their train and they're in completely the wrong place.

Haha, when I see people stood where they think I should stop I like to roll a few extra feet or stop short. Makes me giggle. It's the small things in life....

 

[shredder1]

People who congregate in the bicycle space completely rendering it useless for anyone who wishes to put a bicycle there for their journey, and won't move to allow a bicycle to be put there, yet there are 35 empty seats in the carriage where they wouldn't be obstructing anyone. They and their bloody minded attitude should be thrown off the train at the first opportunity !!

I love cyclists, but couldnt eat a full one

 

[Deerfold]

I'm not complaining about anything??? read it again :roll:

OK, the post you're commenting on. It was about the keep left signs in the corridors on the tube. Your comment which quoted it was about which side of an escalator you needed to stand which was unrelated.

 

[shredder1]

OK, the post you're commenting on. It was about the keep left signs in the corridors on the tube. Your comment which quoted it was about which side of an escalator you needed to stand which was unrelated.

No I was commenting on escalators, please re-read my comment before one of us dies, the clues in the wording, "escalator" apologies for any confusion, lol

 

[Deerfold]

2. People on the London Underground who ignore the "keep left" signs

some people have a bad right leg and need to hold on to the right hand side of the escalator, maybe they should turn round and face backwards to facilitate the runners?

I'm struggling to understand how this comment about escalators is not related to the one you quoted about the signs in corridors.

Do you just randomly quote other posts?

 

[shredder1]

I'm struggling to understand how this comment about escalators is not related to the one you quoted about the signs in corridors.

Do you just randomly quote other posts?

Well dont worry about it, its not your fault

 

[Deerfold]

Well dont worry about it, its not your fault

So you do randomly quote posts which your subsequent post has nothing to do with?

 

[Mag_seven]

What about men with buggies and large prams? Are they acceptable to you?

I'd rather hoped the "twisted evil" smiley would have deflected any of the PC thought police.

 

[al78]

"Inconsiderate" is superfluous there.

If someone claims to dislike all people, it is very likely they are the problem, not the other people.

 

[shredder1]

So you do randomly quote posts which your subsequent post has nothing to do with?

Help, "stalker" !!

 

[Bellbell]

Are some of these Conductors stupid or just lacking bottle/confrontational skills?

Most of us have enough to deal with without refereeing petty disputes between bored commuters. Plus, at least one, or possibly both, parties in the petty dispute will come away unhappy and the happy advent of TOC twitter accounts means that it's not unheard of to be called in for malicious tweeted complaints from someone who didn't get their own way. Oh, and then there's the complaints from the delayed passengers who are suffering me clearing people away from the bike area so I can move passenger X who is a regular commuter who I know full well is getting off at the next stop, 6 minutes away, with his bike.

I have plenty of bottle/confrontational skills but I prefer to pick my battles wisely.

 

[boxy321]

Haha, when I see people stood where they think I should stop I like to roll a few extra feet or stop short. Makes me giggle. It's the small things in life....

Evil. I like it.

 

[bramling]

If someone claims to dislike all people, it is very likely they are the problem, not the other people.

Or that the actions of some have clouded things for all.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

People who block the doors with a bicycle not being conveyed in the correct space for them and the Guards who walk past and say nothing.

They and their bikes should be thrown off the Train at the first available opportunity !!

Why should they if it's not causing a problem?

For a start, on my local line there are no dedicated bicycle spaces on some types of train. Secondly, on some routes all of the platforms will be on one side of the train, so bicycles in doorways presents no problem for those that know what they're doing (last bit emphasised!).

 

[shredder1]

My mate, who shall remain nameless, does a lot of cycling but is also heavily into railways, so as you can imagine, he takes his bike on the train sometimes. On one recently trip he was telling me, he was on his way home after a long ride, the train he was on was quite with an open gangway, he has put his bike in the designated area on the train and clipped it up and was half dozing and partially asleep, when all of a sudden the train jolted and his bike amazingly undid itself and doubly amazingly set off down the aisle by itself. What happened next, you couldn’t write, the bike went flying down the gang way and one of the pedals hit the only other passenger in the coach, a young girl who was fast asleep with her head poking out into the aisle . The pedal hit her with a loud smack, she immediately work up and screamed holding her head, and then in the next instance went back to sleep, apparently it all happened quite quickly. My mate timorously retrieved his bike some time later.

 

[181]

For a start, on my local line there are no dedicated bicycle spaces on some types of train. Secondly, on some routes all of the platforms will be on one side of the train, so bicycles in doorways presents no problem for those that know what they're doing (last bit emphasised!).

If you know what you're doing, it doesn't matter if the platforms aren't all on the same side -- you just move the bike when necessary (preferably when leaving the previous station, if you're sure which side the platform will be at the next one -- if you don't know, you make sure you're ready to move it if necessary).

 

[Butts]

If you know what you're doing, it doesn't matter if the platforms aren't all on the same side -- you just move the bike when necessary (preferably when leaving the previous station, if you're sure which side the platform will be at the next one -- if you don't know, you make sure you're ready to move it if necessary).

Are bikes permitted to be conveyed on services that have no provision for them or is it at the discretion of the Guard ?

 

[181]

Are bikes permitted to be conveyed on services that have no provision for them or is it at the discretion of the Guard ?

Ultimately I think it's all at the guard's discretion -- even a bike reservation isn't a 100% guarantee, although a guard would need a very good reason for refusing travel to a reservation holder.

If there were any trains with no remotely suitable space at all (e.g. a set of Mk 3s with no guard's van), I presume bikes would be specifically banned (although I remember from a trip to Poland some years ago that there you could put a bike in the very first or very last vestibule of a train with no other provision), but as far as I know all British trains without designated bike areas have double doors at the 1/3 and 2/3 positions, and bikes go in the door vestibules. This has been the case at least since I first took a bike on a class 455 in 1983, and presumably for longer in areas which had such trains sooner.

In the Thames Valley, non-intercity trains are worked by a mixture of 165 and 166 units, some of which have a designated bay for 2 bikes and some of which don't. According to the website 'there is space for 2 full size bikes in each train', with no distinction between trains with and without designated space. There are also some peak hour restrictions. I only recently became aware of the 2-bike figure -- I'm not sure whether it's new or has been there all along. What happens in practice, and has done for many years, is that the effective limit is one bike per vestibule (maybe 2 at a pinch if the train isn't too crowded), plus the bonus 2 spaces on trains that have them. I presume that the 2-bike figure is there to enable guards to keep bike numbers down if off-peak trains are very busy.

To take another example, the 365s serving Cambridge with its large cycling population have no designated bike spaces; the website can be summarized as saying that, subject to peak hour restrictions, you can take bikes on trains where there is space to do so safely and without causing an obstruction. From my observations on occasional journeys over many years, one bike per vestibule on off-peak trains seems to work.

 

[bramling]

Are bikes permitted to be conveyed on services that have no provision for them or is it at the discretion of the Guard ?

On my line there is no guard, so in reality it's a free-for-all.

The official guidance is bikes should be stored in the doorways, which as someone else posted works reasonably well as long as there's no more than one per vestibule. It also relies on the owner being moderately in touch with what's going on around them.

If it's acceptable on, for example, a class 317 or 365, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be acceptable on a class 150 or 170, although that doesn't always seem to follow through.

 

[The Ham]

New bugbear; people who get on to commuter trains with end doors move forward a row or two and stop to decide which of the 75% of seats too sit in when there are a number of people trying to get on the train behind them.

The best thing to do when there are a significant number of people behind you is move about 25% of the way down the coach and sit down, this allows several people to site down at once and let's the train get underway faster.

 

[BurtonM]

There's a certain sub-class of 150 where you can't even fit a bike in the 'cycle space'.

 

[Deerfold]

New bugbear; people who get on to commuter trains with end doors move forward a row or two and stop to decide which of the 75% of seats too sit in when there are a number of people trying to get on the train behind them.

The best thing to do when there are a significant number of people behind you is move about 25% of the way down the coach and sit down, this allows several people to site down at once and let's the train get underway faster.

Oh yes. Had that the other day, with people queuing out of the door waiting. Best bit was when they moved seats a couple of minutes into the journey despite all the dithering choosing in the first place.