Longest journey standing

[chris parkinson]

Yesterdays 1630 departure from edinburgh to KGX was full & standing with declassified first class right through from Alnwick to London. This got me thinking - to what extent are EC able / willing to adapt their timetable and run extra trains - for example by providing a relief service at Newcastle with a 60-90 minute warning?

Mitigating factors:
- Remnants of the Rugby crowd
- 20-something girls seeing their mums for Mday
- Aberdeen-KGX service terminated at Waverley

Any other tales of chronically crowded long-distance services (perhaps other than VT/XC's 4 coach voyager Cross Country debacles!)?

 

[jopsuk]

surely the main factor their is the cancelled service? From experience travelling south on a Sunday, the Aberdeen-Kings Cross (KGX, not LKX, btw) is a service that's busy south of Edinburgh itself.

Ability comes down to stock and crew availability more than anything I'd have thought.

 

[TheExmoorBeast]

I've had to stand all the way from Paddington to Exeter one summer saturday, I got off there and caught a local service to Paignton rather than stand to Nabbot & risk standing the rest of the way or not getting on at all..

 

[asylumxl]

I've had to stand all the way from Paddington to Exeter one summer saturday, I got off there and caught a local service to Paignton rather than stand to Nabbot & risk standing the rest of the way or not getting on at all..

I can top that. Paddington to Plymouth. Standing. Train was full of OAPs travelling to Cornwall stations. 4 hours in a corridor connection!

 

[Capybara]

In 2005 I travelled from Wigan to London Euston on a Sunday evening. The train was delayed for three separate reasons during the journey, the coup de grace being slotted in on the slow line behind a stopping train after Milton Keynes. The total journey time was six hours and I had to stand all the way.

 

[TheBigD]

Yesterdays 1630 departure from edinburgh to LKX was full & standing with declassified first class right through from Alnwick to London. This got me thinking - to what extent are EC able / willing to adapt their timetable and run extra trains - for example by providing a relief service at Newcastle with a 60-90 minute warning?

Mitigating factors:
- Remnants of the Rugby crowd
- 20-something girls seeing their mums for Mday
- Aberdeen-LKX service terminated at Waverley

Any other tales of chronically crowded long-distance services (perhaps other than VT/XC's 4 coach voyager Cross Country debacles!)?

East Coast were running a reduced service on Sunday due to the engineering work at Hitchin.

 

[merlodlliw]

Friends of mine always complained about the after 8.00p.m. service to Liverpool from Euston, always standing, now VT run two services from Euston to Liverpool
on a Sunday within three minutes of each other, as the after
8.00p.m. hourly Sunday is the busiest of the day.

 

[dk1]

Travelling back from Ireland via Holyhead a couple of years ago the plan was to catch a Liverpool-Euston Pendo at Crewe. Unfortunatley due to power problems with the HSS we where delayed crossing the Irish Sea. ATW kindly held the connecting train for the ship but not the connecting Crewe train at Chester!! We crossed the footbridge to see the tail lights disapear. Our Pendo at Crewe was now a Sunday afternoon service from Glasgow & was packed solid. Passengers around us had been standing since Lancaster & Oxenholme. I couldnt even turn my foot at one point due to luggage.

How much easier it would be now with VT starting an hourly direct service at Chester. As for the Glasgow passengers they also now have hourly trains & fast from Warrington.

 

[mrcheek]

I got caught on a Fishguard to Cardiff 158 once that was jam packed due to Ireland playing at the Millennium the next day! Usually of course those trains are empty. I just wanted somewhere different to go on Day 9 of my first ever 14 day ALR.
It wasnt a long journey, but tons of us were standing, cramped together the whole way.
But it was an oddly friendly atmosphere. Nobody complained, most of us thought it was pretty funny. I guess football fans might have reacted differently.

 

[Lee_Again]

I recently wrote about a recent Sunday afternoon trip from York.

Read the thread http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30982

Wether, as I suggest, tickets are too cheap, or indeed any other reason, it is disgusting that EastCoast, and Virgin on the otherside, can get away with running a reduced service.

There are lots of ways that additional services can be run. Why do they always go for the easy option and have people travelling in conditions you would expect to find in a third world country.

 

[paul1609]

Not exactly standing but my all time record is Motherwell to London Euston.
In the seats of the Fort William sleeper in the MK1 days, the train used to be left in a siding near Motherwell. On the night in question the locals decided to brick the train in the layover to the extent that most of the windows in the MK 1 BG were broken. Eventually the Inverness portion came to pick us up and the only accomodation available was the floor of the Inverness BG where we slept in our sleeping bags.
its fair to say that quite a lot of alcohol was consumed that night as I was only 16 at the time I'm not sure where we got it but I remember someone was lost when they got off the train at Warrington for a ****. I was decidedly the worse for wear on arrival in Euston about 10 am next day.

 

[AlexS]

Great Yarmouth to Nuneaton on a 2 car 158 summer saturday train. Would have been Brum had the station not been set on fire, ha. Swapped to a nice Mk2 set onwards to Wolves as a result.

 

[starrymarkb]

Wether, as I suggest, tickets are too cheap, or indeed any other reason, it is disgusting that EastCoast, and Virgin on the otherside, can get away with running a reduced service.

There are lots of ways that additional services can be run. Why do they always go for the easy option and have people travelling in conditions you would expect to find in a third world country.

It depends what is available, FGW have grabbed pacers/153s from local services to cover for Westcountry to London HSTs as far as possible, though they have always dumped at Bristol/Swindon for onward HSTs as they were getting overcrowded!

Some operators have Hot Spares, but again it depends on where they are, how soon it would take them to get into position or indeed if TOC is having a very bad day end up with the spare in use when something else breaks.

 

[embers25]

1506 Paddington to Penzance was regularly standing room only from London through to Plymouth although since they banned super off peaks from it, it may not be as bad now. A large reason for the crowds is that it ever since fGW decided to remove most Westbury stops it provides the only reasonable connection for many hours from Pompey and Soton at Westbury for the masses heading West. Of course that also means the 1423 from Pompey to Cardiff is also a sardine can from Soton onwards. What idiot at fGW did decide to completely screw up all Westbury connections given it WAS such a popular route choice. I know in theory you can go via Yeovil with good connections but often the Pompey trains miss the tight connection at Salisbury and also many cheaper fares are routed Westbury/Salisbury preventing use of SWT.

 

[Oracle]

I can only count Birmingham International - Reading! Squatting in vestibules became a habit Southampton-Waterloo, so the squalor south of Brum became second-nature.

 

[emoaconr]

Nowhere near as long as others! Ouch!!

But longest I've done would be Manchester Piccadilly - Chester via Stockport.

 

[Zoe]

Birmingham New Street to Newton Abbot, journey time was extended due to diversion via Kidderminster.

 

[2030720310]

London Paddington to Kingham.

 

[chris89]

In recent years from Wolverhampton to Birmingham International standing. and going way back in 2000, London Paddington to Castle Cary the whole distance/ sitting near the doors.

Chris

 

[dk1]

Peterborough to York at certain times/dates is another regular route of mine where a seat is often thought of as a luxury. Then again its quick so even though its 112 miles it only means standing for around 70mins which is not too bad.

 

[Zamracene749]

Newcastle to London on sunday 21st feb, with two kids and assorted luggage in the vestibule of an hst. Appalling conditions, people were struggling to even board the train let alone find a place to stand.
As an added bonus we got held up outside Hitchin for 40 odd minutes ( due to the tragic accident involving a maintainence worker that day).

Would it be beyond reason for east coast to at least run a handful of services into liverpool st during the works, just to ease the overcrowding?

PS when is the Hitchin work finished? I've got to travel with the family again in a few weeks and the plane is looking like a good option....

PPS just to ice the cake further, our onward journey to Wool was diverted via the Portsmouth line! That was a long, long day.....

 

[royaloak]

Would it be beyond reason for east coast to at least run a handful of services into liverpool st during the works, just to ease the overcrowding?

The crew do not "sign" the diversionary route so NO they cannot run that way, diversionary route retention is expensive so most TOCs dont bother, after all when things go wrong the firm who caused the delay (NR in your example above) pay, so the more delays the more money gets paid.

Some TOCs relied on that money to balance the books and when NR got their act together these TOCs REALLY struggled.

 

[43106]

In September 1985, I had to go to a funeral in Leamington Spa. I got a train to Birmingham OK, but the Birmingham - Edinburgh train up the WCML was full of squaddies with full packs! Some were in the fenced off bit in the guards compartment in sleeping bags, dead to the world! God, they were big blokes - no-one was going to argue with them, so a lot of people had to stand from Birmingham to Edinburgh - me included. The train was Mk2 stock pulled by an electric.