Trivia - Furthest you've seen someone carried beyond their intended stop

[zwk500]

Most likely is you'd be put on the next train back (if there is one), or you'd have to fork out for a taxi/hotel room.

 

[tomwills98]

I've dealt with a few complaints of why the conductor didn't wake them up after they checked their ticket and know which station they're getting off at. It amazes me how little responsibility some people have

 

[gordonthemoron]

I have in the past overslept on a train from KGX to Grantham, had to get the girlfriend to pick me up from Doncaster

 

[nlogax]

Most likely is you'd be put on the next train back (if there is one), or you'd have to fork out for a taxi/hotel room.

Or, if like a friend of mine you went for the last train from Waterloo to Clapham, fell asleep and then needed to spend the night sleeping at Southampton Central.

 

[LowLevel]

Passenger with London-York ticket is discovered by train staff fast asleep on arrival at Edinburgh at 23:17. What would most likely happen?

Much depends on how you take responsibility for your situation.

I've known everything from waiting rooms or first class lounges being opened up to allow people to stay overnight for the first train back with suitable ticket endorsements, to people being marched outside by security/the police when they've decided it's the railway's fault to sort at great expense.

Or you pay for your own taxi or hotel.

Sleeping through your station is something for the most part we have great sympathy over, it happens, as long as you don't try and take it out on the people who can help you, and who can subsequently make your life a misery.

 

[Jimini]

I've caught myself out a couple of times over the years at Clapham Junction heading south to Balham. Get to platform 15, train about to depart, jump on, and bosh! Hello Sutton

 

[Taunton]

My own moment was a couple of years ago visiting Sydney, Australia, and staying in suburban Parramatta, a major stop on the west side local train system. After a week of office meetings half a day out of my time zone I went into Central Sydney, not for the first time on that trip, and returned late evening. Somehow dozed off, woke up to realise we were stopping at a station I didn't recognise. There was a network diagram at the end of the coach, but it was closely printed and I didn't have my specs with me. Next station, again unrecognised, so assuming I was overcarried, I got out. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone. Four platforms, fully and brightly lit, not a person around. Found a map, I was about four stations too far. There was a service back in about half an hour. Zero taxis outside. Waited on the return platform, several services passed non stop, not a person around. Bizarre.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Passenger with London-York ticket is discovered by train staff fast asleep on arrival at Edinburgh at 23:17. What would most likely happen?

I would guess a firm steer off the train and pointing them in the direction of one of the many nearby hotels, with a suggestion that they will need to have their credit card ready to pay the rack rate.

(Edit - oops. Didn't see posts on next page before writing mine. As you were.)

 

[D1537]

An acquaintance of mine, a football fan, went to watch his team Aston Villa play at Stoke. As is customary, a large amount of beer was consumed before and after the game.
He boarded his train at Stoke to return to Birmingham and woke up some hours later as the train was leaving Newton Abbot.

Another friend of mine didn't go a long way past his station, but excelled by doing it twice. Aiming for Coventry from Euston, he managed to end up at Birmingham, and then missed again, waking in Northampton. Alcohol may again have been involved. Edit: apparently he's got form for this - a journey from Derby to Birmingham in the last few months saw him spending some time at Newport.

I've done it a couple of times, the longest was a not-inconsiderable 248 miles there and back however, when travelling from Manchester to Newcastle in the late 80s after staying at my girlfriend's for the weekend, waking up ridiculously early on Monday morning and getting the first train from Victoria to York. I then boarded the first northbound HST and fell asleep, waking up to a beautiful view of the sun glinting off the sea to my right. Oops. The guard was a Newcastle man and was very sympathetic, telling me the train to get back from Waverley that he was working. I was ... late.

 

[stut]

One of my oddest ones, when living near Tooting, was falling asleep on the Northern Line after getting on at Moorgate after work, and waking up again at Moorgate going in the opposite direction!

 

[Steve4031]

During my second stay in England I was at Kings Cross about 2100. I was getting ready to board the train to Cambridge. I observed to or three girls standing on the platform. I said hello. They stuck their nose up in the air. A few minutes later, they asked me which train was going to Cambridge. There were two trains on departing from the platform on adjacent tracks. The Cambridge was on one. An intercity 125 for Edinburgh with the first stop at York was on the other. I did not say **** as they boarded the Intercity 125. Bye Felica!!

 

[Silver Cobra]

Back in 2018, travelling from Edinburgh to Stevenage on the 1630 LNER service during the summer, a fellow passenger who wanted to alight the service at York didn't realise we had stopped at York until the train started pulling out of the station, with the next stop on the service being Stevenage. Clearly very distraught with the situation, a member of LNER staff helped organise for her to take the first available service from Stevenage back to York (at no cost to the passenger, as by her reaction it was obviously an honest mistake). Based on my rough guess of the timings of the journey, it meant where she was meant to alight at York around 7pm, she didn't get back to York until well past 10pm that day, and enduring a 300+ mile round trip in the process.

 

[glynmonhughes]

On the last Virgin (in those days) train from Euston to Liverpool Lime Street (2107), we were joined at Crewe by a man and woman who announced that they'd like some refreshments. They were told that the refreshment service had finished as we would soon be arriving. "But it's well over an hour before we get to Euston," said the woman. The steward told her that we were going to Liverpool. "Why is that?" she asked. "This is the kind of train that goes to London." She was informed that they do go in both directions, surprisingly. She told her companion that it was alright, they'd just get another train back when they arrived in Liverpool. I could not resist wading in and telling them that the last train for that day had well gone and then next one was around 5.30am. "We could go to Manchester, then," she suggested. "It's much the same story there," I told her. The rest of the conversation centred around finding a hotel for the night. Plenty of choice in Liverpool, of course. I'd be horrified to know what the "walk-up" rate would have been. And quite a funny story to tell their boss the next day when they arrived in late, having spent the night in a hotel in Liverpool. Having said that, there are plenty of on-platform destination displays as well as the on-door display on Pendolinos. And rather a lot of sniggering from passengers in the carriage who delighted in ostentatiously rearranging their empty sandwich packs, miniatures of spirits and mixers . . .

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Feb 2021 ==

There was another occasion, which was not a massive over-carry but one which would make the publicity people wonder why they bother. When the Wirral Line of Merseyrail was having refurbishments to the underground stations in Liverpool city centre, each station was closed in turn for a few months. Posters went up at all stations, there were on-platform announcements and on-train announcements. When the work was under way, an announcement was made that this train "will not be stopping at Lime Street". Passengers were informed that they could alight at Moorfields where there was a connecting bus service or at Liverpool Central where the station is a short walk away. At Moorfields, the announcement was made again. A family group had been deep in conversation, laughing, shouting and, really, making rather a nuisance of themselves. They then got up to alight at Lime Street, only to see the platform appear and then disappear. 'Oh my God," shrilled one of them. "It's not stopped. What do we do now? Why didn't anyone say?" Several people pointed to the posters on the train and to the dot-matrix display. The response from the offended party? "Well, that's not my fault."

 

[Parallel]

I don’t think I’ve actually ever been over carried, but I have come very close on one occasion. My bag strap had somehow got caught on/in the luggage rack and by the time I managed to free it, the doors were about to close. The next stop was only 5 minutes away though, so not the end of the world if I didn’t make it in time.

 

[CHAPS2034]

The rest of the conversation centred around finding a hotel for the night. Plenty of choice in Liverpool, of course. I'd be horrified to know what the "walk-up" rate would have been. And quite a funny story to tell their boss the next day when they arrived in late, having spent the night in a hotel in Liverpool.

Perhaps one of them was the boss...

 

[plugwash]

Not a winner in terms of absoloute distance, but in terms of relative distance I once tried to travel from Picadilly to Oxford road and ended up about halfway to Liverpool (I forget what the exact station was).

 

[221129]

Someone ended up at Edinburgh instead of Leeds. That was a fun call to Transpennine Express asking them to take them to Bradford Via Preston and Manchester.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Not a winner in terms of absoloute distance, but in terms of relative distance I once tried to travel from Picadilly to Oxford road and ended up about halfway to Liverpool (I forget what the exact station was).

Can anybody beat this for relativity?
Has anybody only intended to travel 1-2 Tube/overseas metro stops and ended up 20 miles/40 kilometres away?

 

[py_megapixel]

Can anybody beat this for relativity?
Has anybody only intended to travel 1-2 Tube/overseas metro stops and ended up 20 miles/40 kilometres away?

There's plenty of places to inadvertently end up if you fall asleep meaning to just do the 10 min hop from Manchester to Stockport. (off the top of my head, I'm not sure which of Bournemouth, Exeter or Norwich would be furthest!)
Not heard any stories of it actually happening though

 

[plugwash]

I'm sure there was a story not so long ago of an elderly person who was found dead on board a crosscountry train somewhere on the south coast and when they looked at the persons ticket they found the person had intended to travel from Manchester to Stockport.

 

[Gloster]

Not a railway story, but at least a dozen years ago there was a news story, with enough specific supporting detail to mean that it was possibly true. An old man from Nailsworth wanted to take some stuff to his local tip, or maybe the tip was in Nailsworth. He eventually rang his son up in panic, just after he had crossed the Saltash Bridge.

 

[Mills444]

I'm sure there was a story not so long ago of an elderly person who was found dead on board a crosscountry train somewhere on the south coast and when they looked at the persons ticket they found the person had intended to travel from Manchester to Stockport.

Indeed at Bournemouth during March otherwise they would have probably been woken.

 

[BrettSy96]

I’ve seen a family on an EMT service to Liverpool lime street from Norwich realise they weren’t on the London Liverpool Street train just before we got to Ely, which luckily enough was the best place they could have noticed as it’s quite easy enough to get from Ely to Liverpool Street.

 

[317666]

I’ve seen a family on an EMT service to Liverpool lime street from Norwich realise they weren’t on the London Liverpool Street train just before we got to Ely, which luckily enough was the best place they could have noticed as it’s quite easy enough to get from Ely to Liverpool Street.

Not an overcarry as such, but you've reminded me of the old Peterborough - Liverpool Street via Ipswich service which ran until December 2010. On one occasion I was at Ely and the Kings Cross train had been cancelled. A few minutes later a 170 rolled in with 'London Liverpool Street' on the destination boards. I was travelling to Ipswich so it was my train in any case, but not long after leaving Ely I overheard an elderly couple sat nearby express concern about the fact we seemed to be passing Newmarket Racecourse. When the conductor came round and confirmed their mistake, they couldn't believe such an indirect service existed! I can't remember how long it used to take, but I'm sure they reached London significantly later than if they'd taken the next train to Cambridge and changed there!

 

[merry]

I've boarded a train in a hurry at Kings Cross going to Newark, but read the stacked platform displays incorrectly (P6 is shown above P7...) and went left to P7 not right to P6 when I got off the escalator. Ooops! First stop York. Guard was sympathetic when I sought him out & endorsed my ticket to travel back. About 90 mins late, but time for an excellent hot choc & pastry in the cafe so no stress!
The guard told me it was very easy to do & he had occasionally got on the wrong train at Kings Cross too, in simlar circumstances (i.e. hurrying). He works in & out of the Cross, so what hope did we passengers have, was his approach?

Flip side: My 15 year old daughter took her first solo train journey a few years ago to visit her uncle in London for the weekend (he & his partner spoiled her rotten of course). She was quitr worried about missing her stop, until I pointed out that if the train went past Kings Cross it would get very bumpy indeed...she got the joke and worried less

Some guys I knew used to go to the pub in Loughborough or Leicester with friends and take the train back to Derby back in the 70s and 80s. More than one of them reported having fallen asleep and ended up a lot further north (Sheffield, Doncaster, Leeds, whatever), sleeping in their inebraited state. As railway-related people, they generally talked nicely to a parcels or mail guard and got a ride back with the mailbags keeping the guard company.
This crew reported a few stag nights where the groom was "helped to a suitable state of inebriation", then stuffed into a mail sack and put on a mail train. The guard was usually quite co-operative with the 'joke' (maybe a pint or tenner crossed the discussion...?), but equally the staff usually ensured the groom was sent back to the right place in time for the wedding. All's well that ends well?
As an aside, it apparently wasn't unknown to use signal chain to attach a balance weight to the groom's ankle on a stag night, having hidden a set of kit in strategic bushes on the pub crawl route. Lovely guys!

 

[Paul Jones 88]

I once had a very angry girl moaning at me and my wife on the train from York to King's Cross who told us that she was misdirected to this train and she only wanted to go to Leeds, this was a fast service next stop London, I advised her to find a member of staff.

 

[mirodo]

I once awoke at Gatwick Airport, having fallen asleep and overshot East Croydon. I managed to gather my senses and jump off just before the doors closed, only to discover that I was on a *northbound* service, having presumably been to the end of the line and back, and would have actually made it home more quickly if I’d stayed put!

 

[peteb]

I've often wondered whether people intending to defraud the railway simply buy a ticket from, say, Birmingham to Coventry, and then claim to have fallen asleep when challenged for their ticket half way to London! Do the railway authorities actually "send" people back or do they just allow them to leg it out of the station? Surely claiming over-carry must be the easiest ruse to avoid penalty fares etc?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A couple of observations; does jumping on a random train travelling in completely the wrong direction count as "overcarrying", and does anyone ever get chinged for the excess fare (an inadvertent peak hours trip from the North West to/from London Euston could well prove to be eye-wateringly expensive!)

I've often wondered whether people intending to defraud the railway simply buy a ticket from, say, Birmingham to Coventry, and then claim to have fallen asleep when challenged for their ticket half way to London! Do the railway authorities actually "send" people back or do they just allow them to leg it out of the station? Surely claiming over-carry must be the easiest ruse to avoid penalty fares etc?

A similar thought previously occurred to me as well!

 

[Class800]

I once got on at East Croydon wanting London Bridge and ended up at Gatwick Airport!