wensley
Established Member
On my occasional trips, I'd noticed, over time, that York station on a Saturday afternoon/evening seemed to be becoming more and more, well, lively.
More and more tipsy people, more and more stag and hen parties, more of that ear-splitting whooping laugh that only middle-aged women seem to make. Presumably York's become a popular party venue.
Now it's seems clear that it's not just me that's noticed. There are posters around stating that trains from York to Middlesbrough on Saturday evenings have alcohol prohibition. Tonight, there was a ticket block on at the station entrance, security types wandering around (especially on patforms 10 and 11). The northbound Grand Central I was using from York (1650 from KX), having taken on board a party contingent, made repeated announcements declaring this was also a dry train, threats of being removed by the BTP, etc. There were also security bods on the train itself.
It seems to particularly concern trains heading for Teeside! I don't use the southbound services from York on Saturday evening so I don't know if they have similar problems.
I know there are trains declared as dry when the operators anticipate carrying a lot of football supporters and I think Merseyrail has a total ban on alcohol. And LU of course. Are there any other routes where there is a permanent alcohol ban on certain days?
It was the last race night of the season as well so Saturday was very busy, we had a lot of people through the barrier, quite a few needing to buy tickets. There were a few issues on the station but really things went off well and the majority of punters were well behaved. 1N96 (2058 YRK-SUN) was the quietest and best behaved I have seen it in months!
Both 1N94/6 have security staff north of York on Saturday nights. I know that TPE have security staff on their services, again largely going north. The main issues seem to arise between York and Teesside but from chatting to XC and TPE York - Leeds flows can have their own problems.