Finally, a thread made for me...
1) I was conducting a few friends (one of them being frightened of London and the other two having a collective sense of direction equal to roughly 0) across London, as we were all on our way to Colchester. At Liverpool Street, the platform for our train was announced and we went over to the gates. Now, at Liverpool Street, there are two gates leading to the platforms - one normal size, one a disabled gate. My friends filed through the wide gate. I am very pedantic, so I don't use disabled ticket gates, as... they're disabled ticket gates.
Anyway, I walked over to the normal gate, nearly knocking someone over, who, understandably (being British) was very unhappy about being queue-jumped. I apologised profusely. I can't remember which gate I retreated shame-facedly through.
2) Later on the same journey, the conductor came through. Now, I was quite apprehensive about it, because the conductor had made a very long-winded announcement beforehand about the validity of split-save tickets. I had just bought my first Section 16.2 split, and wasn't quite sure whether it was still valid, so was particularly anxious that it would turn out to be valid as I didn't want to look like I hadn't listened to him. So, I did what any self-respecting person would do - downloaded the National Rail Conditions of Travel on my phone, found section 16.2, confirmed my split was valid, and presented the relevant passage along with my ticket to the poor conductor. This would have been fine if I hadn't prefaced it with a two-minute ramble, which roughly ran along the lines of this, "I think this is valid the man from the ticket office didn't raise any objections and it said duty manager on his name badge so I think he knew what he was doing I'm sorry if it's not valid please don't fine me but I'm only going back to Harold Wood anyway so I think it's a perfectly valid combination and I did listen to your annou..." cue me tailing off as I saw his eyes glaze over. (Before anyone takes me to task over punctuation, the unpunctuated sentence gives a good idea of how I said it. Even better would have been if I had removed all the spaces.) Fortunately, he just said, "Yeah... yeah that's fine mate..." and moved on swiftly. I have his badge-name permanently etched on my mind so that I can apologise if I see him again!
3) Different journey now. CrossCountry, Reading to Manchester. I have already narrated this tale in condensed format on my Trip Reports thread (self-plug heroically not inserted
) I was travelling with two (different) friends, and we were sitting on a table, which was also occupied by a businessman at work. The opposite side was full of Explorer Scouts, who were making a great deal of noise. We were not making a great deal of noise (well, not compared to them, anyway...) but we were decidedly hyperactive. Aside from inventing a game called Puddle (involving quite some talking, at progressively higher volume), and making fun of the Explorer Scouts (not that they could hear), the only other thing that will have annoyed the businessman will have been my reaction to passing Tyseley Depot, especially given I say numbers out loud as an aide-memoire as I can't write fast enough. That paragraph doesn't sound dreadfully bad, but "hyperactive spotter with a distinct lack of WMR units passing Tyseley Depot", condensed into one sentence like that, does it justice, I think. That makes two people I have an outstanding apology to make to...
4) Not knowing what Monster is. That is, according to a GWR trolley attendant...
5) Losing my balance on a packed EMR 170 while sorting out my luggage and falling backwards into a lady sitting in one of the airline seats. These are not roomy at the best of times, but certainly not when someone falls onto you at a 90-degree angle. Especially if they're wearing a massive rucksack that is easily as wide as the amount of leg-room you get.
6) Having decided not to put my rucksack in the luggage rack (on the out of sight, out of mind principle), I stood in the vestibule (being a young thing with good "railway feet"). Unfortunately, my railway feet are not good enough to withstand both a heavy rucksack and the lively track of the North Staffordshire line, as the gentleman sitting on his suitcase next to me found out to his cost.
7) Somehow ending up in a circle of particularly loud and boisterous American students on the Piccadilly Line. I tried my hardest to give every other passenger a look that said "I'm not a member of this group, I ended up here through no fault of my own, HELP!" but I received no reply. Typical Londoners. Fortunately the students all alighted a few stops later.
8) Seeing two 222s coupled up at St Pancras, but the displays were only showing a five-coach train. I asked a member of staff which coaches to board, and, after rephrasing my question about 83 times, he eventually gave me the answer that if the train was formed of only one unit, the display would be shaded to indicate that. Deeply confused, I went through the barrier, and found that one of the units had gone off ECS before I asked, so no wonder the poor man was confused. That makes three people I have an outstanding apology to make to...
I think I'll stop there, and save the rest for the next time a thread like this comes up!