Trapped on a train

[Bletchleyite]

I know in Greater Manchester, Stagecoach stopped selling Child dayriders apparently because of youth buying them and just sitting riding back and forth on the bus all day (and in that case causing trouble at the same time)

Merseyside had a policy that you could buy a child Saveaway but only use it accompanied by an adult. However, there was nothing saying a child couldn't buy an adult one and travel unaccompanied on that. I suspect, though, most kids riding up and down and causing trouble on Merseyrail probably didn't have any ticket at all, because Merseyrail has long had almost no revenue protection at all other than at the central Liverpool stations plus Chester and Southport unless you're unfortunate enough to meet the RPI squad.

 

[jacksmithyton]

I know in Greater Manchester, Stagecoach stopped selling Child dayriders apparently because of youth buying them and just sitting riding back and forth on the bus all day (and in that case causing trouble at the same time)

What else is there for them to do though? Sit playing their Xbox/watching TV all day? Kids must be bored out of their heads at the moment.

 

[Robertj21a]

What else is there for them to do though? Sit playing their Xbox/watching TV all day? Kids must be bored out of their heads at the moment.

What, no hobbies or other general interests?

 

[scotraildriver]

Two 12-year-old girls spent a night stuck on a train in Helensburgh after 'hiding' from staff members

Two 12-year-old girls were spotted by a passer-by on Saturday morning after ‘hiding from staff’ and spending the night locked on a train in Helensburgh.

www.scotsman.com

 

[Egg Centric]

Two 12-year-old girls spent a night stuck on a train in Helensburgh after 'hiding' from staff members

Two 12-year-old girls were spotted by a passer-by on Saturday morning after ‘hiding from staff’ and spending the night locked on a train in Helensburgh.

www.scotsman.com

So they were hiding under the seats.

Quite amusing really. Kids will be kids. I don't think any adult has done anything wrong from the sounds of it, and the mother can sort out the spankings.

Well I typed that but I just realised they made corporal punishment illegal in Scotland, so some other appropriate way of dealing with it. Bit of a non story really.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What, no hobbies or other general interests?

Most kids these days spend half the day with their head ducked in a mobile device of some sort. I bet if the schools hadn't been out some of them wouldn't even have noticed.

 

[yorkie]

Following CCTV review a press release will be made shortly. As expected the girls and mothers version of events was somewhat fanciful. I suspect the mother is about to seriously regret going to the press.

Thanks for the update. I'm not surprised to hear this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Mar 2021 ==

Isn’t there a massive gap in the timeline here?

The mother’s original Facebook post says “last seen on a train at 2pm” which puts the kids in Glasgow at 3ish. Even if that’s not right, she said she was “not there when she went to collect her at 7pm”, so even if she’d only left Balloch at 6ish she’d be in Glasgow by 7. Where did they go before they ended up going to Helensburgh? Riding up and down for a few hours?

I didn't see those times published; you are right there is a massive gap.

 

[CentralTrainer]

At least one of the two mothers has some wherewithal about her to apologise - the other, well not so much when the chance of publicity rears its head:

”It’s thought the second 12-year-old girl’s parents called British Transport Police to apologise for their antics.

But Amy’s mum Bonnie-Louise Greenan said she did not believe the children had deliberately hidden on the train.

In a Facebook post she claimed her daughter’s friend had fallen out with her mum and didn’t want to go home, so instead the pair decided to ‘play on the trains’.”

 

[scotraildriver]

She can believe what she wants but the CCTV doesn't lie.....

 

[jacksmithyton]

As an aside, who on earth allows their 12 year old to have a nose piercing ring? I think that goes to show the level of parenting here, allowing your kids to just aimlessly wonder about for hours...

 

[applepie2100]

The North Clyde lines between Glasgow and Balloch/Helensburgh are over run with young kids at the moment, it's an absolute nightmare with kids riding trains all night, causing trouble, vandalising units, indeed there have been a significant number of BTP operations lately to try to curb it. NO ONE is going to question 2 12 year olds. There's loads of kids about. At the end of the day they shouldn't have been on the train, they didn't have tickets, they had 2 phones but the wrong charger?, the parents had no idea where they were and there are big, clearly marked emergency egress handles at each door. It's not hard to get out a 334. I suspect they have been drinking and ended up in a deep sleep across a seat. It's certainly common at the moment, even at that age.

This is my local line and I'm glad that it's not just me that's gained that impression. I've been travelling fairly regularly as I'm still working in the office and it feels like barely an afternoon or evening journey goes by without their being at least one group of kids or teenagers making a nuisance of themselves. As others have said It's not surprising to hear that they may well have been hiding and I'm pleased to hear that CCTV has confirmed that the correct checks were carried out. Would this now be good one for the BTP to take further, if only to highlight the danger the girls put themselves in?

 

[scotraildriver]

It's now been proven via CCTV that these 2 girls didn't fall asleep and end up trapped on a train because Scotrail staff failed in their duties, rather that they actively hid from the driver and cleaning staff for almost an hour after travelling many miles without a ticket and then became "trapped" is a non story at best. Yet the mother continues to claim it wasn't deliberate. Just shows what staff are up against on a daily basis with kids running riot on our trains.

 

[philthetube]

This happened to a friend of mine whilst at Uni. Ater a heavy night of drinking he fell asleep on the Met line, only to be woken up in the morning by a driver whilst the train was stabled in Uxbridge sidings. The driver let him out onto the street and my friend took a cab home...

Someone is extracting the urine there, all trains arriving at Uxbridge at night are prepared for service the morning after, which involves a fitter walking through the train, and are also cleaned, and a driver would not take one out in the morning which was not clean.

Also stabling at Uxbridge involves the driver walking through the train in the shunting neck so would need three people to not do their jobs properly for this to happen.

 

[Aictos]

I suspect CCTV will clear everything up, both Scotrail and the BTP will fully investigate this., checking stations as well as trains.

CCTV will indeed clear it up along side I guess a briefing about terminating trains.

A few years ago, there was a incident at a GN station bearing in mind it was single staffed at night so anyone walking around the platforms or track would have been heard.

A passenger claimed they got overcarried into a siding and had to force the doors open, only problem was the passenger lied about the event.

As a result, both CCTV and a new briefing was delivered on how to secure trains being taken out of service.

 

[jacksmithyton]

Someone is extracting the urine there, all trains arriving at Uxbridge at night are prepared for service the morning after, which involves a fitter walking through the train, and are also cleaned, and a driver would not take one out in the morning which was not clean.

Also stabling at Uxbridge involves the driver walking through the train in the shunting neck so would need three people to not do their jobs properly for this to happen.

Apparently this happened in the mid-2000's when the A stock trains were still in use...

 

[gimmea50anyday]

With my TOC conductors are required and are ultimate responsibility to check the train to ensure everybody is off before disposing. Drivers often do help but despite our faith in them the company will still hang us out to dry of we are not seen to do this on the CCTV. Drivers will often carry out a further check before they take a unit on to depot.

In our sweeps we are looking for anyone in the toilets, asleep on seats, left luggage or lost property, also checking windows and passcoms for damage or use. It is however a visual check and not a hands on knees checking under every seat or luggage rack fingertip search and management have acknowledged we will not find people deliberately hiding. I wouldn't be surprised however if a rebrief comes out following this incident.

 

[yorkie]

If they were hiding between the seat backs, that would be difficult to spot and require a lot more time checking trains to eliminate. Given instances of such hiding must be incredibly rare, I think that would be a step too far.

 

[scotraildriver]

Given that they managed to avoid cleaning staff for almost an hour they must have been well hidden. And certainly not asleep as the loud mouth mother claims.

 

[40129]

Do cl-334s have 2+3 seating?

If so, it wouldn't be that difficult for a smallish person to hide between the backs of the three abreast seats without being detected

 

[Journeyman]

Do cl-334s have 2+3 seating?

If so, it wouldn't be that difficult for a smallish person to hide between the backs of the three abreast seats without being detected

They have 2+3 in the centre vehicles and 2+2 in the driving vehicles. The gangways in the 2+3 section are very narrow and make it very tricky to see under the seats.

 

[Fyldeboy]

My thought is what were they doing out on their own for that length of time in a pandemic? So the parents need to take at least some of the blame surely ?

Haven't read the full story but parent was allegedly on social media trying to locate them once they were known to be astray.

 

[d9009alycidon]

I wonder if the girls were actually from Balloch. Balloch is a nice place with generally nice people, however there is an area between Balloch and Dumbarton that is generally know locally as "The Vale" or giving it its full name "The Vale of Leven" The description in Wikipedia is "The area consists of a number of communities which were historically separate villages but have expanded into one conurbation. The largest of these communities is the town of Alexandria, which sits on the west bank of the Leven. Alexandria is connected to the village of Renton to the south and to the village of Balloch in the north. Across the river from Alexandria Is Bonhill which is connected to Jamestown to the north." The Vale has a reputation for being a wild area with one of the highest incidences of Deprivation and Drug and Alcohol misuse in Scotland, it is not an area that you want to be out and about in of an evening.

 

[scotraildriver]

They are from Gartocharn. A somewhat upmarket village.

 

[Gloster]

They are from Gartocharn. A somewhat upmarket village.

That is a fair way from the nearest station.

 

[philthetube]

Someone is extracting the urine there, all trains arriving at Uxbridge at night are prepared for service the morning after, which involves a fitter walking through the train, and are also cleaned, and a driver would not take one out in the morning which was not clean.

Also stabling at Uxbridge involves the driver walking through the train in the shunting neck so would need three people to not do their jobs properly for this to happen.

Apparently this happened in the mid-2000's when the A stock trains were still in use...

what the stock was would not make any difference

 

[Journeyman]

Given that they managed to avoid cleaning staff for almost an hour they must have been well hidden. And certainly not asleep as the loud mouth mother claims.

The other girl's parent(s) have wisely kept quiet about the matter, and maybe have realised their kid was less blameless than first appeared.

 

[scotraildriver]

The other girls parents have apologised to the BTP for their daughters behaviour. The loud one is still blaming everyone else.

 

[86206]

Todays headlines....tomorrows chip wrappers

 

[Gloster]

The problem is that plenty of people will have seen the initial coverage and thought, “Those poor little girls. Wasn’t ScotRail/the railway terrible”. But they never get to see a more accurate version of what happened, which might make them revise their opinions, even under normal circumstances when the Scottish media isn’t full of the Salmond v. Sturgeon civil war.

 

[SignallerJohn]

As an aside, who on earth allows their 12 year old to have a nose piercing ring? I think that goes to show the level of parenting here, allowing your kids to just aimlessly wonder about for hours...

Sorry, are you saying there’s a correlation between letting your daughter have a nose piercing and being a bad parent?