One for the train nerds...

[Archie_tect]

I have often watched half empty trains leave Kings X for Newcastle while I waited for my reserved Apex Saver train at 5pm only to find people standing in the aisles to Peterborough... trying to persuade the guard to let me catch an earlier empty one was 'interesting' and as enlightening as talking to the wall.

 

[Linford]

Both hypothetically and in reality, I have got on the train that departed at 20:13. The hypothetical bit is the Advance ticket.

and there was me thinking you were a party animal Claudine.....

 

[Aperitif]

You've arrived at Bristol just in time and bustle through the gates...all-a-fluster. The wagons pull in and you jump on - not expecting for one second that the erstwhile railway Co. would DARE run late etc. You make your way to your designated seat, find it occupied and then find another one. You haven't seen the guff about delays on the announcement boards because you only arrived in the nick of time...an apologetic damson in distress performance could see you elevated to First Class , courtesy of the sympathetic guard, who has instilled a soupcon of seasonal goodwill into the Friday night procedure...

 

[theclaud]

Incidentally, a poster at Wolverhampton station proclaimed that cable theft cost the taxpayer £43 million last year. Discuss.

 

[MossCommuter]

What you do is get on the train and keep your trap shut. Present the ticket on demand (natch), trap still shut, then the guard reacts in one of two ways: 1) stamps ticket and walks away, or 2) questions the ticket and says that on this occasion he'll let you off but here mindful next time

I know this to be true

 

[Linford]

I was sold a train ticket for £33 by a very unhelpful ticket woman in Stafford for a train to chelt which was actually pulling out of the station as I paid for it...the chap who gave me a lift to the station then had to race the train to new st station as it was the last one of the night....which I made.

No wonder people want to drive when public transport outside London is just so rubbish

 

[theclaud]

and there was me thinking you were a party animal Claudine.....

Making it back to Mwmbwls for lasties is my idea of a party these days.

 

[Archie_tect]

He sounds like a right git.

There's an ontological question here. The "20:08" may indeed refer to a designated service and not to a promise of punctuality, but it is not an arbitrary designation. There is a point at which the "20:08" cannot reasonably be supposed to be anything to do with 20:08, without a kind of demented self-referential irony that seems to me just cause for protest. For me that point is when the service is "overtaken", so to speak, by the following one.

Good luck with that one... but then there's a high probability that the ticket checker won't even leave his little warm cubby hole and you'll not even be asked for a ticket for the whole time you are on the train during the journey. Are you feeling lucky...?

 

[swansonj]

He sounds like a right git.

There's an ontological question here. The "20:08" may indeed refer to a designated service and not to a promise of punctuality, but it is not an arbitrary designation. There is a point at which the "20:08" cannot reasonably be supposed to be anything to do with 20:08, without a kind of demented self-referential irony that seems to me just cause for protest. For me that point is when the service is "overtaken", so to speak, by the following one.

Being a physicist, I too would have questioned at what point the physical carriages designated the 2008 cease to be the 2008. But, being that self same physicist, I would never have come up with the delicious "demented self-referential irony"....

 

[theclaud]

I was sold a train ticket for £33 by a very unhelpful ticket woman in Stafford for a train to chelt which was actually pulling out of the station as I paid for it...the chap who gave me a lift to the station then had to race the train to new st station as it was the last one of the night....which I made.

No wonder people want to drive when public transport outside London is just so rubbish

Doesn't sound like a recipe for safe driving, Linfy!

 

[theclaud]

Good luck with that one... but then there's a high probability that the ticket checker won't even leave his little warm cubby hole and you'll not even be asked for a ticket for the whole time you are on the train during the journey. Are you feeling lucky...?

They pretty much always check on this line. The exception is when Second Class is jam-packed due to a match or a run of cancellations, which is of course the ideal opportunity to travel in First Class at no additional cost.

 

[theclaud]

It is the substance of a Thomas the Tank Engine story though

I've raced trains on a bike before. Sometimes I've even won.

 

[Linford]

Doesn't sound like a recipe for safe driving, Linfy!

He was cruising at about 90 down the M6...it was late and the road was quiet. It was either that or kipping on a garage floor in sub zero temps which I didn't fancy

 

[Flying Dodo]

Advance train reservations can sometimes work in your favour.

On the first night/day of LonJog last year, due to the ride running later than scheduled, I could tell we couldn't get to Bingham in time to then get the train to Nottingham, for our scheduled train back south. So I worked out a cunning plan. Rebecca & I bailed after the lunch stop, cycled to Melton Mowbray, got a train to Leicester, and after a 10 minute wait, then intercepted the scheduled train from Nottingham and hopped on. Being an East Midlands Voyager 222 type train with only 2 bike spaces, as someone already had their bike in there, the guard was originally not going to let us both on, until I proudly flashed our seat & more importantly 2 bike reservations for that actual train, and he shoved the other chap off.

I did feel a teeny bit guilty, although he didn't seem bothered.

 

[MontyVeda]

Just get on the train that's most convenient to you and bugger their rules... you bought a specific ticket for a specific train on the grounds it would get you to a specific place by a specific time... flat refuse to pay again if they insist you should because you bought the ticket in good faith that the train would run on time. Don't let 'the man' win.