Teacher pulled the communication chord

[Old Yard Dog]

My first trip abroad was to Germany in 1966 with the school. We travelled from Bradford Exchange to Kings Cross and I'm convinced that we passed Peterborough football ground on the right rather than the left so either my memory's playing tricks (highly likely) or I did an exotic line. We were then directed to travel to Victoria changing at Leicester Square and Charing Cross rather than use the Circle line. Not what I'd have done with a party of 30 school boys. I had my first ever beer at Victoria station, half of keg mild.

After taking the boat train to Dover Western Docks and the ferry to Ostend, we boarded an overnight train to Mannheim. Having stopped for ages en route at Bruxelles Nord, some of the younger lads stuck their heads out the window and shouted out "Quelle gare?" and then "Mais quelle ville?" when they got the reply "Nord". On arrival in Mannheim in the early hours we had hours to kill before our connection left for Wuerzburg. A more soulless and depressing place was hard to imagine.

After a day trip by train to Nuernberg and gricing the tram line (no 5?) to the zoo, we set off the next day by train for Oberammergau but, annoyingly in retrospect, were due to do the last bit by coach. We were scheduled to alight at a small station in the middle of nowhere, possibly Murnau. However the train was very long and the platform rather short. So our German teacher didn't realize we had actually called there and set off again as our carriage was never in the platform. So he pulled the communication chord! An irate guard appeared and a heated argument ensued. "Ich habe nichts geseht, nichts gehoert" our tecaher retorted. Eventually he was let off and we caught out waiting coach where we were then told "The driver's name is Adolf, you are not to laugh".

This poses the interesting question - would this be considered a valid use of the communication chord today?

 

[317666]

Very interesting, by the time I went to school any sort of trip like that would see you packed onto a Ryanair flight

 

[me123]

^You got to fly with school?!? We were bussed everywhere - including twice to the South of Germany. 50 wailing kids on a bus with a journey time of approx. 36 hours... Ryanair seems like bliss in comparison!

 

[Groningen]

communication chord

We call it the emergency break.

There was a Dutch national, who for no apparent reason brought the train to a standstill.

Reason: he wanted to have the form in which he was charged with bringing the train to a stop.

Last price i saw for the fine is 200 euro.

 

[AlexNL]

A friend of mine once pulled the emergency break when he noticed that the train was likely to miss his stop (it was an all-station service, last of the day). The brakes brought the train to a standstill just before the last carriage had cleared the platform, so it was still possible to alight easily.

The guard actually thanked him for his attention.

 

[daikilo]

Back in the day, the correct name was "communication cord" as coaches existed with no internal corridors let alone gangway connections. At short platfroms, it was usual practice to pull forward. The case in point thus should not have been allowed to happen and I suspect the rule would have said that the guard was at fault.

As for today, the relevant equipment (cord, handle, button) is generally given a sense of emergency so use for any other reason could lead to a fine.

 

[GW43125]

Very interesting, by the time I went to school any sort of trip like that would see you packed onto a Ryanair flight

When I went to Spain in 2013 and Italy in 2014 we got to fly with BA!

 

[duesselmartin]

I went from Ireland to Scotland by Ferry.

 

[317666]

^You got to fly with school?!? We were bussed everywhere - including twice to the South of Germany. 50 wailing kids on a bus with a journey time of approx. 36 hours... Ryanair seems like bliss in comparison!

Only once, and it was for the French exchange which I didn't go on. The only other trip we had abroad was a day trip to Boulogne - coach and ferry!

 

[richw]

^You got to fly with school?!? We were bussed everywhere - including twice to the South of Germany. 50 wailing kids on a bus with a journey time of approx. 36 hours... Ryanair seems like bliss in comparison!

We did too. Went from Cornwall to Rhineland,

 

[eisenach]

Between 2007 and 2011 I took 26 odd kids on our French exchange from Hereford to Nîmes every year.
The SNCF / Eurostar part was always fine (4 hours-ish direct from Lille to Nîmes) but Hfd to Padd was often quite hairy ! First GW gave us free tickets for the next year once because they'd messed up.

 

[Calthrop]

Puts me in mind of a thing I read long ago, in Dennis Wheatley’s memoirs of his service in World War 1. Wheatley and several fellow-officers were travelling back from home leave, on the train from – whichever Channel port – heading toward whatever was the “civilised railways’ “ railhead for the Western Front. One of their companions got into some kind of delaying bother, just pre-departure: it came about that the train left without him; he was frantically running along the track out of the station, in pursuit of it – Wheatley and the others, on the train, were concerned for him, but couldn’t see what they might do to help.

A possibility seemed very clear to me, the reader – pull the communication cord, make the train stop, and help the chap on board to join the rest of them. Seemingly, that didn’t occur to Wheatley and his chums. There would likely have been a hassle – across the language barrier – with the guard: “Pay the fine to me, now !”; “No; we’ll write a note explaining the situation – you take it to the British Army’s appropriate office, and they’ll pay you the money” – etc. ; but one would imagine that a French railway official would hold no terrors for these fellows who’d been – and were shortly to be again – at death-grips with the Germans. “People are funny”.

 

[Galvanize]

Only once, and it was for the French exchange which I didn't go on. The only other trip we had abroad was a day trip to Boulogne - coach and ferry!

Disneyland Paris in January 2005 with the school, it was a miserable coach journey. But instead of the ferry, it was Eurotunnel from Cheriton to Coquelles.
Journey was made longer for at least one or two vehicles in the convoy of coaches, as they got pulled over by HM Customs, and then missed the Eurotunnel train they were supposed to go on.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

^You got to fly with school?!? We were bussed everywhere - including twice to the South of Germany. 50 wailing kids on a bus with a journey time of approx. 36 hours... Ryanair seems like bliss in comparison!

Yes all our school trips were by coach in the UK and coach and sealink ferry when travelling abroad, usually France. (They did do it by train once to the south of France, but the train split enroute while one of the schoolmasters and some of the kids were in the dining car so they went on towards Spain and the rest of the group to Toulouse, I think they met up ok again in the end.)

 

[RichmondCommu]

Many years a go whilst travelling across France if you were on the top bunk of a couchette you were always very close to the communication handle. Whilst I always managed to avoid pulling it the thought of doing so scared the life out of me! So much easier if you could afford the first class supplement which of course meant you were that much further away from the handle!