People standing in first class

[sheff1]

Your choice, but I can assure you that "tutting" wouldn't cover the half of it.

 

[methethpropbut]

I'd rather risk being tutted at by platform staff then entering a First Class vestibule and encountering a Revenue Protection Officer!

Same. If they want to find the right person to tut at, it's definitely not the standard-paying commuter!

 

[Qwerty133]

I'd rather risk being tutted at by platform staff then entering a First Class vestibule and encountering a Revenue Protection Officer!

But there is no offence of entering a first class vestible. As long as you immediately walk towards standard upon boarding RPIs couldn't do anything.

 

[infobleep]

If by your location the 'home' line you refer to is Thameslink then using first class is anything but clear. Stopping trains generally have first class declassified they look exactly the same as the fast trains that don't - some trains are fast but are declassified some stopping trains are not declassified. Quite clear to everyone I'm sure.

Do the coaches state whether they are declassified? I know if it's a class 700 the back coach does.

Of course to make it slightly more confusing the back coach of a Thameslink service is declassified but only if it's a class 700. Should they be using a Southern branded train then there's no declassification occurs.

Another section of line where they struggle with people standing in first class is East Croydon to Victoria. They might as well declassified it between those two stations the trains are so busy. I'd only recommend declassifying it at certain times of the day though.

 

[boxy321]

The 7:22 Pendo this morning was busier than usual to Brum. Several times, the TM announced that the service was very busy, apologised foe the lack of seats, and people should move out of the vestibules and along to allow more room and for Health and Safety.

His language implied people outside the extremities of 1st could move through, but this was not actually announced and tea and coffee were served as usual throughout. In the past, a rare declassification meant no at-seat service and this was in coach H only. It's understandable not to declassify and 1st was nearly full too.

I have not had a ticket check on board VT for around a month now. When they do, it's generally from the kitchen end through 1st, then a full train check towards Milton Keynes after the hoardes get off at Coventry (this station now gets overwhelmed when a peak pendolino turns up in the evening). Nobody checks anything in standard to or from Cov/Brum during the peaks. It would take an hour.

 

[jon0844]

That's right. The chances of normal passengers realising that the rear 1st class on Thameslink 700s is declassified (if they didn't know already) is extremely low.

The declassification "warning message" appears for under five seconds of the standard 40 second message loop - it's only shown in the rear 1st (not elsewhere) and there is no audio announcement. It's not shown at all when the train is at, approaching or departing a station. The message never has time to appear on some shorter journey segments.

You have to park yourself in 1st class for a while before getting confirmation that it's declassified.
( And that's assuming the displays are working at all - on a recent trip we helpfully had 'this train terminates here' for the whole journey. )

It does make for a more interesting mix of passengers, though.

Sometimes the train is announced as having first class at the front of the train. So even then it doesn't say first class at the back isn't first class.

Plus you have the slows to Luton which are declassified both ends? I don't know if that's announced at all.

Over the weekend where trains terminated at St Pancras high level, the trains had no service pattern set up at all. Just 'listen for announcements' which isn't very helpful for the deaf.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Do the coaches state whether they are declassified? I know if it's a class 700 the back coach does.



.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't - sometimes it says the doors on the last car won't open but they do - sometimes it says 'we are now at Hendon' when we aren't. Might make it more interesting if it added a few Kafka references now and again or showed episodes of Noah & Nelly.

As for the once infamous revenue staff - from a point where they would swoop anytime on anyone (as long as they were 'easy prey' of course - no picking on bigger or nastier looking people) they no longer seem to exist as I haven't seen them in the last 11 months (of mainly sitting in the first class sections) commuting. And as the long as the timetable says it is a standard only service I will continue to do so.

 

[221129]

I'd rather risk being tutted at by platform staff then entering a First Class vestibule and encountering a Revenue Protection Officer!

Then you would likely get left behind on the platform.

 

[retsim]

I used to commute regularly between Coventry and Birmingham - and I quite often had to stand in first class during rush hour.

(this is with an nNetwork pass with First Class addon)

Yes, a lot of people chance it, but the trains do get full, particularly during term time when there are lots of students commuting between Coventry and Birmingham.

 

[TBirdFrank]

A friend tonight was telling me about his quote of £225 for two singles SOU - MAN. He's driving.

 

[boxy321]

I used to commute regularly between Coventry and Birmingham - and I quite often had to stand in first class during rush hour.

(this is with an nNetwork pass with First Class addon)

Yes, a lot of people chance it, but the trains do get full, particularly during term time when there are lots of students commuting between Coventry and Birmingham.

In two years of avoiding LM and XC and doing the same commute every day, I have never stood in 1st. I have seen people standing briefly twice in this period. We're you doing Brum-Cov in the morning or the other way round?

 

[infobleep]

Today I was stood on the platform and along came the busy 7:56 East Croydon to London Victoria.

As I boarded, along with many others, I notice that the whole carriage I was entering was first class. It was too late to back out now. So now I'm technically breaking my ticket conditions by standing here, along with all the others. I doubt any if them have a first class ticket. The platform staff didn't stop us entering. I think they even told us to use all the avilable doors! I doubt an RPI could get through the train. Perhaps they could meet everyone at Victoria. No one has said the train is declassified due to over crowding either.

There again they haven even said why we were just being held at a junction for what seemed to be several minutes.

In my mind, standing here this makes a mockery of not being allowed to stand in first class. Perhaps pep people should be allowed to stand in first class.

 

[Muzer]

I'd rather risk being tutted at by platform staff then entering a First Class vestibule and encountering a Revenue Protection Officer!

Boarding in first class in order to walk through to standard isn't even forbidden! The rules specifically talk about "remaining" in first class, rather than just passing through.

 

[James Wake]

Today I was stood on the platform and along came the busy 7:56 East Croydon to London Victoria.

As I boarded, along with many others, I notice that the whole carriage I was entering was first class. It was too late to back out now. So now I'm technically breaking my ticket conditions by standing here, along with all the others. I doubt any if them have a first class ticket. The platform staff didn't stop us entering. I think they even told us to use all the avilable doors! I doubt an RPI could get through the train. Perhaps they could meet everyone at Victoria. No one has said the train is declassified due to over crowding either.

There again they haven even said why we were just being held at a junction for what seemed to be several minutes.

In my mind, standing here this makes a mockery of not being allowed to stand in first class. Perhaps pep people should be allowed to stand in first class.

The 0756 on platform 4 comes from Tattenham Corner and Caterham, so is declassified anyway. The 0800 on platform 1, which is the 0741 from Three Bridges normally has a double figure number of passengers standing in the first coach before it even gets to East Croydon, even seen first class full on that train. I have seen someone kicked out of first class who was standing there on one of the units that has no dividing door. In fact on the /1, /2 and /3 sub-classes the first 4 seats behind the cab have such poor legroom for anyone taller than 6 foot and the seats are identical to the ones in standard anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Boarding in first class in order to walk through to standard isn't even forbidden! The rules specifically talk about "remaining" in first class, rather than just passing through.

You do occasionally hear of people being PFed because they got out from 1st, but that is because people walk forwards before the train has stopped which near by definition requires them to have remained there.

 

[mallard]

East Midlands Trains have signage in vestibules of First Class, which clearly state that Standard Class customers are not allowed.

EMT have also had multiple HST sets running around for over a month with first class carriages in place of standard (I've seen them in the 'B' and 'D' positions).

Only twice (out of the half-dozen or more time's I've travelled on the sets) have I seen any attempt at signage to indicate that it's declassified (staff do seem to be aware at least). In one case that was a poorly photocopied A4-sized poster at one end of the saloon, in the other it was a handwritten note in the window which wasn't readable from inside the train. The lack of signage has the obvious effect; most standard class passengers don't use the carriage even when the train is otherwise crowded, first class passengers sit there and wonder why their complimentaries never turn up.

It's bad enough that EMT's inability to field enough standard carriages (are they're still loaning them out to VTEC on a daily basis?) that they have to lose ~30 seats (nearly 10% of standard seating) on a set, but without proper signage they're effectively taking away ~20% of the standard class capacity!

So let's not pretend that EMT makes the class distinction perfectly clear, shall we?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It'd be so, so easy to stick stripey tape over the big 1 to cross it out that it's amazing they don't. Or is black-and-yella purely a GWR thing?

Mind you it would also be easy for Thameslink to fit posters saying "if this First Class is at the rear of the train, it is available for Standard passengers at no extra charge", but they instead rely on "need to know" and a PIS message that displays only inside the 1st area and only about once every 2 minutes.

 

[infobleep]

The 0756 on platform 4 comes from Tattenham Corner and Caterham, so is declassified anyway. The 0800 on platform 1, which is the 0741 from Three Bridges normally has a double figure number of passengers standing in the first coach before it even gets to East Croydon, even seen first class full on that train. I have seen someone kicked out of first class who was standing there on one of the units that has no dividing door. In fact on the /1, /2 and /3 sub-classes the first 4 seats behind the cab have such poor legroom for anyone taller than 6 foot and the seats are identical to the ones in standard anyway.

I didn't know that. I was going to check the of timetable but on my mobile is rather small so I didn't.

So in fact everyone was entitled to be there. I'm sure I heard someone comment about not wanting to pay x amount for first class but perhaps they thought it was first class, given all the signs.

Maybe the station PIS(s) or announcements, they could say this train has no first class. Similar to what they seem to say at the Sutton loop stations.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

When the WCML first had it's trains painted bright red the doors would be locked to stop the nasty oiks from shuffling up from pleb class through first to alight at Euston.