What drives you round the bend when using the train?

[richw]

Fellow passengers with poor hygiene!

I once jokingly tweeted GWR asking if they could ban smelly people as I couldn't hold my breath for an hour when a particularly smelly individual was sat near me, unfortunately on a crowded 153 so no where to move.

 

[Kite159]

Short formed services.

Ie when it's only 6 coaches instead of 8 or 9.

And Woking passengers

 

[mbreckers]

Ie when it's only 6 coaches instead of 8 or 9.

Borders Railway passengers are jealous of the Duchess Kite159 and their only 6 coaches zD

 

[Mordac]

Not so much annoying as causing amazement, but a studenty looking sort of person in beard and overcoat has just produced a MANUAL TYPEWRITER and is tapping away on my Scotrail train out of Edinburgh. I'm assuming some sort of clown heading back from the Festival, but I have to admit that this is a new one on me.

Hipster ****. (him, not you).

 

[47271]

Hipster ****. (him, not you).

No, he was more pretentious than a hipster chap, I'm sure 'chap' is what you meant to star out?

I couldn't bring myself to dislike him. It was like watching someone writing in a Parisian attic in the 1920s. But I did nod off before he started and was woken up by the tapping.

It's the Edinburgh Festival, which I nominate generally as one of the things that can most drive us round the bend on an affected train?

 

[satisnek]

And Woking passengers

That's interesting.... My father used to complain about exactly the same thing 40-odd years ago.

Some things never change!

 

[NSE]

I hate it when people moan about kids crying, despite the parents really looking after them. Yes, it's annoying when the parents ignore them, but when the parents are trying really hard to pacify, particular parents travelling on their own, then I have no issue with it. Babies cry. You did it, I did it. It happens.

 

[fowler9]

When you are trying to get off a train why do people seem to assume that the train has been sent empty to their stop and will leave in about 2 seconds time if they don't get on right away?

 

[ChathillMan]

This one has been festering for some time....

Everyone standing in the same area on a platform, usually near stairs or entrance areas. The departure board says train formed of 8 coaches. Where do you think all 8 cars are going? They can't all fit in your small plot on the platform. MOVE DOWN THE OTHER END, you might even ease overcrowding in certain coaches


Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk

 

[Peter Mugridge]

In a related manner, it is somewhat amusing to remember that at Waterloo in the days of EPB workings everyone used to pile on in the first carriage near the entrance even with several minutes to go before departure; now there are 455s with internal gangways, a lot of people seem to run down to the far end right at the last moment with whistles blowing left right and centre...

 

[bicbasher]

Eating smelly food, which on some units, such as the 377s linger as there's no open windows.

Misbehaving kids, especially those who swing on the handlebars while the parent is oblivious.

Passengers using tweezers, nail varnish, make-up etc.

Pax not giving up seats for pregnant women, the elderly or those who really need it.

Loudspeakers on mobile phones, so the whole carriage can hear your banal conversation.

 

[talltim]

The OP missed out the number one annoyance - the constant needless and patronising "elf'n'safety" onboard announcements!

I don't need to know all that crap about safety information, unattended luggage, suspicious items, quiet zones, refreshments and not being allowed to smoke - just tell us where the train's going, what stations it's calling at and then shut the **** up!

+1. And the repeated announcements about penalty fares, (with often reference to them as fines) normally a couple of times before the train leaves and then one after too.

 

[Dr_Intoxicated]

This one has been festering for some time....

Everyone standing in the same area on a platform, usually near stairs or entrance areas. The departure board says train formed of 8 coaches. Where do you think all 8 cars are going? They can't all fit in your small plot on the platform. MOVE DOWN THE OTHER END, you might even ease overcrowding in certain coaches


Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk

Not in favour of this as then the sensible people like me that bother to go to the other end get crowded. There has to be some reward for using one's brain now and again.

 

[GarethJohn]

Announcements not being made when the train your on is late.
Seat reservations:
You buy a cheaper advance ticket and can reserve yourself a seat.
Filling a carriage with reservations on near empty train meaning passengers have to walk up and down the train to find an unreserved seat . I fail to believe that that many passengers have failed to turn up.
Staff not removing them once their no longer valid

 

[GarethJohn]

Being allowed to reserve seats while the train has began it's journey, when I sit in the seat I have reserved it.

 

[Mordac]

+1. And the repeated announcements about penalty fares, (with often reference to them as fines) normally a couple of times before the train leaves and then one after too.

Also guards repeating the same thing the PIS has just said, sometimes verbatim.

 

[talltim]

Also guards repeating the same thing the PIS has just said, sometimes verbatim.

Luckily none of the trains I catch have automated PIS

 

[urbophile]

Also guards repeating the same thing the PIS has just said, sometimes verbatim.

Or, as often on Merseyrail, the PIS (what an acronym!) giving out incorrect information and not being corrected/overridden by the guard.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Preserved lines that don't adjust their timetables to reflect connections to and from National Rail services.

There's a well-known example of this in Bill Bryson's book "Notes From A Small Island". He wanted to get from Llandudno to Porthmadog on a Sunday changing at Blaenau for the Ffestiniog line, but the Llandudno-Blaenau train was replaced by a bus, which was timed to arrive in Blaenau a few minutes after the Porthmadog train left, and the next train was 4 hours later!

When he asked the bloke at the Ffestiniog ticket office why they didn't time their trains a little later to connect with the bus, the response was "Why should we? They should time their buses to leave earlier!"

 

[Richard_B]

People bringing their 5-12 year old kids them and deciding to sit in the quiet zoneof a train and then letting the kids be noisy.

 

[185143]

People bringing their 5-12 year old kids them and deciding to sit in the quiet zoneof a train and then letting the kids be noisy.

Not always their fault though. If you were given reservations in the quiet coach on a busy train and the only alternative was to stand?

 

[Cowley]

Swearing louts acting like morons, especially when I know there's older people or kids having to listen to it. I was on a bus coming back to Exeter from Teignmouth a few years back when a load of them got and were shouting at their mates that were following them on motorbikes behind the bus, I was at the back and there was a very uncomfortable looking older couple a few seats ahead, the driver obviously wasn't going to say anything and eventually I snapped and bellowed at them to sit down and shut up, myself being fairly large they decided not to argue and we actually had quite a nice chat once things had calmed down.
Could have gone either way though, luckily they got off before my stop.

Also noisy people talking too loud generally. Was on a train in the 90s trying to read while a fairly large Hyacinth Bucket type woman was having a very loud and boring conversation with the other people on her table, when this time someone else snapped and told her she was irritating everyone else in the carriage. The whole carriage applauded this and the woman looked like she was going to explode. It was hilarious.

 

[Scotrail84]

People that decide to paint their nails on trains. It absolutely stinks and there's no need for it.

 

[yorksrob]

A lot of these noise issues are dissolved by having your own music player and headphones.

 

[AM9]

Also noisy people talking too loud generally. Was on a train in the 90s trying to read while a fairly large Hyacinth Bucket type woman was having a very loud and boring conversation with the other people on her table, when this time someone else snapped and told her she was irritating everyone else in the carriage. The whole carriage applauded this and the woman looked like she was going to explode. It was hilarious.

One way to fix those with no self-awareness of their loudness is to record a short section of their voice. Then play it back to them (loudly). They can hardly complain if it was that loud to record from any resonable distance. It certainly shuts them up quickly.
A smartphone is a likely means to record voice.

 

[Cowley]

One way to fix those with no self-awareness of their loudness is to record a short section of their voice. Then play it back to them (loudly). They can hardley complain if it was that loud to record from any resonable distance. It certainly shuts them up quickly.
A smartphone is a likely means to record voice.

That's a great idea.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

That's a great idea.

If you like confrontation....

 

[ejstubbs]

Just joined a well loaded SWT WoE train and people with baggage on seats ! I had to politely ask someone to move her bags and she got grumpy

On the bus the other day two women ended up having a seriously angry argument because one refused to move her handbag which she'd placed on the seat next to her. There were other seats available further back on the bus, but since those were next to a noisy crowd of f-ing and c-ing youngsters apparently bunking off the first day back at school, I could understand why the other woman was reluctant to sit there. And the point nonetheless remains that seats are for people to sit on, not luggage (though apparently a handbag doesn't always count as luggage, at least according to some airlines :roll.

Stopping at the bottom of an escalator to adjust one of those wheeled trollies

It often doesn't even require that. Many escalator users seem to be taken by surprise on discovering that, having stepped off the escalator, they have to actually move their legs in order to make any further progress. This used to cause no end of fun in a busy Camden Town station at the weekends, when bovine tourists stationery at the foot of the down escalator found themselves being jostled and trampled by a continuous stream of people unavoidably needing to get past.

A screaming child is chuffing annoying regardless of what the parents are trying to do.

There was one on the lower deck of the bus I took at lunchtime today. I know this is a cruel world full of pain and suffering, but nothing that could conceivably have been happening to that child, on that bus, at that moment could possibly have justified the ear-splitting, head-piercing, anguished shrieks that issued from that infant. And I was sitting upstairs!

 

[anti-pacer]

That's a great idea.

Although probably highly illegal.

 

[AM9]

Although probably highly illegal.

Which law would one be breaking?