37372
Member
What an evening I've just had, I've been stuck on a 153 for two hours due to a suicide.
At first my journey was running smoothly, it was the 19:27 Northern dervice from donny to Sheffield formed of a FNW 153 with very little legroom, not good for tall people like me. Anyway, we had stopped at Conisbrough and were heading to Mexborough where I was going to get off. There is a foot-crossing over the line about half a mile from Mexborough sation which many people use including myself, we were heading towards it and the driver sounded the 153 horn as normal and passed over the crossing.
All of a sudden there was an almighty BANG which made the little 'doodlebug' rocked side to side, ballast flew past the window for some reason and the wheels screeched and slid, everyone grabbed hold of their seats thinking we were going to de-rail.
The train then slopped abruplty followed by the guard running through to the driver with a very pale face.
Because it was a foot crossing, everyone was assuming that kids had put rocks or something like that on the rails as the sheer force of the collision felt like a large object we had gone over on the rails.
After a couple of minutes, the guard came back out and someone said to him 'Was it vandalism?' The guard then told us that we had hit someone and were going to be there some time. I was shocked because it had never happened to me before and the force the body hit the train and went 'one under' into the engine of the 153 just seemd unreal. He also said had never seen anything like it before apparently, he seemed more shaken tha the driver, probably because he had seen the remains pass underneath him in the back cab.
The driver told us we had to wait for a relief driver to come from Sheffield and take us forward which took almost TWO hours when it should have taken just over half an hour, he said it was like an episode of Keystone cops and it was ridiculous.
Time passed by slowly, people went into the loo for a fag, people were pacing around because of lack of leg room and the whole thing was generally very boring.
Later we found out that the reason we had not heard serious hornage or braked before the crossing is because the driver said the man who commited suicide was calmy waiting at the crossing gates waiting for the train to pass when all of a suden at the last moment he had run out and stood in front of the train, such a tragic loss of life and not the only one, a few weeks back someone just a few yards away had also suffered a particularly gory death when plunging from the local bypass into a scrapyard.
After being stuck on a 153 for ages just a few yards from mexborough station, it finally limped into Mexborough over two hours late, I was extremely glad to get off! For the record, the 153 was 153332...
At first my journey was running smoothly, it was the 19:27 Northern dervice from donny to Sheffield formed of a FNW 153 with very little legroom, not good for tall people like me. Anyway, we had stopped at Conisbrough and were heading to Mexborough where I was going to get off. There is a foot-crossing over the line about half a mile from Mexborough sation which many people use including myself, we were heading towards it and the driver sounded the 153 horn as normal and passed over the crossing.
All of a sudden there was an almighty BANG which made the little 'doodlebug' rocked side to side, ballast flew past the window for some reason and the wheels screeched and slid, everyone grabbed hold of their seats thinking we were going to de-rail.
The train then slopped abruplty followed by the guard running through to the driver with a very pale face.
Because it was a foot crossing, everyone was assuming that kids had put rocks or something like that on the rails as the sheer force of the collision felt like a large object we had gone over on the rails.
After a couple of minutes, the guard came back out and someone said to him 'Was it vandalism?' The guard then told us that we had hit someone and were going to be there some time. I was shocked because it had never happened to me before and the force the body hit the train and went 'one under' into the engine of the 153 just seemd unreal. He also said had never seen anything like it before apparently, he seemed more shaken tha the driver, probably because he had seen the remains pass underneath him in the back cab.
The driver told us we had to wait for a relief driver to come from Sheffield and take us forward which took almost TWO hours when it should have taken just over half an hour, he said it was like an episode of Keystone cops and it was ridiculous.
Time passed by slowly, people went into the loo for a fag, people were pacing around because of lack of leg room and the whole thing was generally very boring.
Later we found out that the reason we had not heard serious hornage or braked before the crossing is because the driver said the man who commited suicide was calmy waiting at the crossing gates waiting for the train to pass when all of a suden at the last moment he had run out and stood in front of the train, such a tragic loss of life and not the only one, a few weeks back someone just a few yards away had also suffered a particularly gory death when plunging from the local bypass into a scrapyard.
After being stuck on a 153 for ages just a few yards from mexborough station, it finally limped into Mexborough over two hours late, I was extremely glad to get off! For the record, the 153 was 153332...