Most unusual luggage you’ve travelled with or seen on a passenger service?

Intercity 225 · 6 Sep 2019

Hi,

I’m currently travelling with a small set of stepladders, much to the amusement of some of my fellow passengers. It’s probably not the strangest thing I’ve taken on board as luggage though, previously I’ve needed to carry an unboxed Henry hoover on a train... that sparked even more astonished responses!

These events have got me thinking - what are the strangest/most unusual items that have been taken on board timetabled passenger services?

I’m sure that some of you will have encountered much more bizarre things than I’ve carried personally so please share them here!

RailUK Forums

RPI · 6 Sep 2019

Once had 3 blokes get on at Redruth, saw them put something in the TGS which I just assumed were bikes, only saw them as they'd shut the door, turns out it was a flippin fridge!

Intercity 225 · 6 Sep 2019

Haha - brilliant! Exactly the kind of thing I’m hoping to hear about :lol:

Spartacus · 6 Sep 2019

I know a mate who purchased a rather large signalbox name board which had to be taken home on the train.... and the bus.... and visited Weatherspoons en-route.... Bus was probably most difficult as it needed a shunt up the stairwell and back to get round the bend getting on and off.
Meanwhile at least one, I think two, station boards for Glasshoughton station went to the official opening by train!

FQTV · 6 Sep 2019

Sacks of logs on the luggage rack of a 158 on the Kyle Line.

voyagerdude220 · 6 Sep 2019

I once saw a couple of gentlemen carrying a cardboard box with a couple of live chickens getting off a train.

PeterC · 6 Sep 2019

When my cat went into a total panic about being in the carrier I ended up getting off the train and walking through a crowded rush hour station with him quite calmly sitting on my shoulder.

mrcheek · 6 Sep 2019

Most unusual I have ever carried was a medium sized painting I purchased at Barnstaple market.
Coming back from Paddington I once saw a woman with an absolutely enormous canvas, way bigger than she was

Master29 · 6 Sep 2019

Didn`t I hear at one time someone actually ask GWR (maybe then FGW) if they could use the train for their removals. This was possibly from somewhere between Ealing Broadway and Maidenhead but don`t quote me on this. I vaguely remember a flat no no. I suppose I can`t blame first for that.

Intercity 225 · 6 Sep 2019

These are fantastic - very entertaining!

Keep it up!

RichJF · 6 Sep 2019

I used to commute to school by train as a teenager & used to play a musical instrument.
Forgot my carry case for it a few times so was carrying a trumpet in full brass on my lap in rush hour on the BML!

Also saw a very "happy" guy with dreadlocks carrying a boombox at Clapham...but...no music playing just carrying it on his shoulder onto the train!

AlbertBeale · 6 Sep 2019

Master29 said:
Didn`t I hear at one time someone actually ask GWR (maybe then FGW) if they could use the train for their removals. This was possibly from somewhere between Ealing Broadway and Maidenhead but don`t quote me on this. I vaguely remember a flat no no. I suppose I can`t blame first for that.

A colleague of mine, who's not the sort to bother to ask if he thinks the answer might be no, was moving flat from London to Bradford many many years ago. He chose a direct train from Kings Cross, and arranged with several friends to go to the station before the train was in the platform, having himself got to the station with the help of a couple of friends' cars I seem to remember; as soon as the train arrived we put a load of cases and boxes and small items of furniture in the guards van until it was virtually full. He had a team of people at the other end to help him unload. No problems at all en route apparently...

marks87 · 6 Sep 2019

voyagerdude220 said:
I once saw a couple of gentlemen carrying a cardboard box with a couple of live chickens getting off a train.

That must have been a large box to fit a train inside.

Mag_seven · 6 Sep 2019

mrcheek said:
Most unusual I have ever carried was a medium sized painting I purchased at Barnstaple market.
Coming back from Paddington I once saw a woman with an absolutely enormous canvas, way bigger than she was

I had to carry quite a big picture on a train once too - my arms are still aching as it had to go under them!

Palatine · 6 Sep 2019

RichJF said:
I used to commute to school by train as a teenager & used to play a musical instrument.
Forgot my carry case for it a few times so was carrying a trumpet in full brass on my lap in rush hour on the BML!

Also saw a very "happy" guy with dreadlocks carrying a boombox at Clapham...but...no music playing just carrying it on his shoulder onto the train!

I travelled by train to school with someone who played a cello in the school orchestra. In the days when trains still had doors you could open it was not unknown for us to hold the door open as the train was leaving, for him to throw in the cello and for him to follow after. In life after school he had something to do with building the Chunnel.

Terry Tait · 6 Sep 2019

I have seen a bloke carrying a rolled up carpet on the train at Ashford before.

Chris M · 6 Sep 2019

I've carried loads of unusual stuff on the DLR when moving stuff between my old flat near Gallions Reach and my new one in Woolwich, but nearly everything fit in my large rucksack so didn't generate any comments. The same isn't true to when I've carried large cuddly toys, which nearly always bring a smile to people's faces.

The largest (so far) was by bus, but only as that was more convenient for the journey.

The most unusual I've seen was on the jubilee line where a woman had an open box with about 4 pekingese puppies in on her lap.

dgl · 6 Sep 2019

61 Key keyboard was my weirdest (a Roland RS-5 if anyone was wondering), from Weymouth to Taunton and back.

westv · 6 Sep 2019

Quite a few years ago I wheeled an old office chair across London Bridge and sat on it in the guard's van when travelling back home.

xotGD · 6 Sep 2019

I'm looking across the room at a vintage child's chair I bought in London and got home via tube and train. It fitted into the overhead rack. Plus gave me somewhere to sit while waiting at Kings Cross!

I recently saw someone with a large plastic barrel on a train. Presumably empty as it would have been very heavy if full.

Quakkerillo · 6 Sep 2019

When moving, I took my electric piano with me strapped on a little hand trolley, including on a city bus. I thought it was quite funny, but I definitely got some weird looks!

ChiefPlanner · 6 Sep 2019

A passenger tried to board a packed peak hour Northern line with a large roll of chicken wire. He was repulsed , with vigor.

I personally carried a large , pine , coffee table from West Hampstead to Wimbledon via Waterloo (then a taxl) , a gratifying number of passengers offered help to be fair. A superb pine shop sale purchase. Still have it.

2L70 · 6 Sep 2019

Somebody got on with a bathtub from Newstead to Kirkby on the Worksop line once.

Nagora · 6 Sep 2019

I helped a friend move once and we took a 6' tall set of bookshelves (fully assembled with a back on them) on the Circle Line.

4COR · 6 Sep 2019

On a GWR from OXF to PAD one evening, I sat opposite a lady who was sat at a table with a fairly young lamb sat in an open topped cardboard box next to her.

(Apparently rejected by its mother, she was taking it home to her house in London from the farm she was doing work experience on!)

dazzler · 6 Sep 2019

A BBb Contra-Bass Tuba (in the wheeled hard case) by HST from York to Kings Cross, then Hammersmith & City line to Barking (and return) one weekend in February (roughly 1990 or 1991)
Regularly took my EEb Bass Tuba in the gig bag on the train around Yorkshire. (Smaller and more manoeuvrable than the Contra-Bass Tuba!!)

6Gman · 6 Sep 2019

A few years ago two gentlemen got on my train at Wigan NW and joined me in my compartment (I said it was some time ago). They sat side-by-side and seemed a bit grumpy.

A little later I noticed the handcuffs.

Does that count?

(Even more years ago I recall watching a patient on a stretcher being loaded onto a train at Norwich. Some Corridor Composites (CK) carriages had hinged compartment windows to allow loading. Those compartments were notoriously leaky and draughty.)

Ianigsy · 6 Sep 2019

A few years ago I was on a Glasgow train at Fort William when a troop of German-speaking boy scouts boarded and filled the whole of the luggage rack with their tent pole .

LOL The Irony · 6 Sep 2019

A suitcase. It was new at the time and had nothing in it.

crosscity · 6 Sep 2019

I was doing my teacher training at Sussex University in the seventies and decided to take a white plywood model of a regular icosahedron* from the Resource Centre to my placement school at Three Bridges. I lived in Hove and so caught a rush-hour 4VEP. It just fitted through the slam-door, and sat on my knee for the half-hour journey, much to the amusement of fellow passengers.

* if you're interested: a regular icosahedron is a convex polyhedron made up of equilateral triangles with 20 faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices. It is one of the five Platonic solids, and the one with the most sides. It has five equilateral triangular faces meeting at each vertex.

Most unusual luggage you’ve travelled with or seen on a passenger service?

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