At southern you notice this 'Reading' thing at Gatwick. Everyone waits for the train at the bottom of the stairs and crams on. You walk though the train, lots of space, lots of space, lots of space, crammed coach, crammed coach, lots of space. The CIC shows the train lenght and anncouncements say, use the full lenght of the platform. But it seems only staff who work at Gatwick are the only ones who ever wait further down the platform.
We also see this on summer sundays from Brighton. 12 express to victoria. Back 4 coaches, crammed silly. Coach 2, one man and a dog. You tell them, lots of seats, but will they move, no, they just stand there moaning about a poor service.
And Mr first class, we do try and check first class. On my 12 car rush hour service from London Bridge I tried to get to first class at the back but could not get more than half a coach down the train. I checked first class where I could, but was uable to make to to the back of the train. Many times when you do, esp the back coach closest to the barriers, you find someone in there with a standard ticket...what do they say, no other seats. How do they know, they have boarded the first door of the first coach, there are another 11 coaches!!!
You do sometimes get a thank you when you check first and throw people out, but at the same time you get those who think as they are regular travellers they need only show you a flash of their pass and get miffed when you ask for a real look.
Really!? The train wasnt even crowded. About 3 people standing in the door vestibule so plenty of standing space. They had no excuse to sit there taking up space from paying passengers! I know I'm a mug for paying £1000s for a seat but these people are really taking the mickey!
