Saturdays on the railway in general

[43066]

Stag and hen dos, maybe? Mind you they often travel up Friday and back Sunday; the latter being a considerably quieter day for the majority!

They can certainly be rowdy (hens often worse than stags!) but typically are independent smallish groups, not scores or hundreds on a single train.

 

[kels430]

Stag and hen dos, maybe? Mind you they often travel up Friday and back Sunday; the latter being a considerably quieter day for the majority!

For me on the transpennine route between Newcastle and Liverpool these are by far the most disruptive groups, they also get on/off at York, Leeds and Manchester so at the end of the journey you can have 3 groups of cans and bottles all over the train. They seem to have no problem being sick on a train and don’t realise that the train isn’t their personal taxi. I’m surprised the railways haven’t considered running dry trains on Saturdays.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

For me its not football fans per se that are the general problem on Saturdays. Yes the large predominantly male crowds behaving like neanderthals chanting anthems that can be interpreted as racial, homophobic and abusive (even tho their intent isn't necessarily so) can be intimidating others and cause a lot of overcrowding on board. But they arent the only people travelling. Horse race goers are far worse in their drunken behaviour especially on their return from the races and you get a far more even mix of men and women drinking a far more variety mix of alcoholic beverages which has a far higher toxifying effect. Daytrippers out on the drink tend to already be drunk before they get to their destination as they have consumed a significant amount on board which snowballs the problems to morning trains which tend also to be the most overcrowded as everyone goes out en masse but then drip back home. However the “last of the day” trains then see mass overcrowding as the remaining stragglers try and avoid expensive taxi fares and these trains often run late with significant overcrowding and are the most disruptive in terms of passcoms triggered, arguements and fights on board, loud conversations, singing, people vomiting and using cab doors as toilets, smoking and drug taking on board. Football fans unfairly get the blame i think as they often stick to their groups and can handle the booze far better than the race goers and the day trippers. In fact I have had football fans help me and stick up for me when proverbial has hit in the past.

I avoid saturdays where i can, simply because I have a second job running a business that gets its most work on Friday Saturday and sunday nights, fitting these in with my rostered shifts is a challenge as it is so i will only cover Saturdays as a RDW if my business isn’t booked and I'm not likely going to pick up any cover work

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Stag and hen dos, maybe? Mind you they often travel up Friday and back Sunday; the latter being a considerably quieter day for the majority!

I find them more respectful when asked to calm down or mind language due to families onboard. And Sundays are never quieter than Fridays on my routes! Everyone seems to go out on the Friday and Saturday and all come back on the Sunday.

 

[43066]

They seem to have no problem being sick on a train and don’t realise that the train isn’t their personal taxi.

I’m not sure being sick in a taxi goes down any better than on a train!

I doubt I’m the only person on the thread who has personal experience of both (not recently, and not when at work, I hasten to add).

 

[Runningaround]

We are all talking about our personal experiences regarding ASB o the railway, you might not agree with it but if that's what the posters are saying they have observed then you should agree to disagree.

My personal experience has already been said, but I've had issues with drunks on a Friday/Saturday night but only on stations.
I've had many trains full of rugby fans being rather loud but never any bother other than banter.
I've had many occasions of football fans pulling egress handles and forcing out of use toilet doors open and peeing in sight of everyone. Not to mention the cases at my depot of uncontrolled evacuations being done by fans of midlands clubs.

You may say, but how do I know they are/aren't football fans? The vast majority wear club colours either as the top or scarf from my experience so it's very easy to spot the football/rugby fans. Though possibly there are incidents where they aren't wearing club colours that I've put down as not football related of course.

If the West Midlands is your patch, then you'll be aware of the Food and Drink event and other shows at the NEC that involve plenty of samples of wine and beer what about the scrum and nuisance of trainspotters crowding platforms when a lump of steel blowing smoke is passing, put a real ale festival in the vicinity and you get more drunks and idiots then at a football match and these don't want to leave the railway premises whereas most football supporters cannot wait to get from it. But then most won't be or should we just lump them all into one group.
Most of the fans are making the most of a rubbish railway service, packed like sardines into the trains that aren't cancelled but running late and costs an arm and a leg.
You'll be happy to know that more are turning to coaches and driving to games and possibly the biggest income the railway makes off one group, will see weekend services cut to make up the difference. A lot that drove to a station on the city's outskirts are now heading straight to the grounds now as even the short hop on the train is getting unbearable. And in turn that doesn't impact the railway income but hammers the pub and cafe trade between station and ground too, if WFH hasn't finished them off first

 

[crablab]

My personal experience (as a travelling member of the public) is that football fans can be extremely intimidating. The screaming/shouting/chanting/stamping/banging/etc. can actually be very scary - you don't know where it's going next. It doesn't surprise me to hear in this thread of people being so intimidated that they've got off trains and caught the next one.

It's not just British football fans, I've also experienced it in the Netherlands and Germany, but (unsurprisingly) British fans are the ones I've interacted most with.

It's by no means all of them but, in my experience, enough to make it really, really unpleasant on occasions.

I think it's regrettable that some people not understand the impact this behaviour has on other members of the public. As other posters have said, I cannot think of another group that causes so much ill feeling and has such a poor reputation. Perhaps those who feel this is unfair might like to reflect on how 'guilt by association' tends to work.

 

[greyman42]

In which case perhaps you need to accept that your experience isn’t reflective, and that those of us who have spent years working on the operational railway have seen a lot of terrible behaviour. Indeed it has reached the point where staff at my TOC were openly dismayed recently about a team in the midlands being promoted into some league or other due to the increase in away matches they will play.

I would take that with a pinch of salt as teams that get promoted do not play more away matches. If anything, it would be less.

Horse race goers are far worse in their drunken behaviour especially on their return from the races and you get a far more even mix of men and women drinking a far more variety mix of alcoholic beverages which has a far higher toxifying effect.

Mixing of drinks has no effect on the toxifying effect. It is down to how much alcohol has been consumed, mixed or not.

 

[gazzaa2]

They can certainly be rowdy (hens often worse than stags!) but typically are independent smallish groups, not scores or hundreds on a single train.

There used to be football specials that took fans to games. The problem is there just isn't the capacity anymore to accommodate a lot of football fans when even without big football games on the trains are rammed solid.

The rail industry just can't accommodate these large groups of people anymore and people going to large events in general (at least outside of London).

 

[Craig1122]

20+ years in customer facing or operations roles in the South and I can definitely say football fans are the single worst group for their potential to cause trouble/general unpleasantness. That's far from saying they're the only group that causes issues.

By contrast very few problems with rugby fans. The one event I hope never to work again though is at a station post horse racing. Some of the most unpleasant people I've ever encountered, not helped by a good percentage being so paralytic they can hardly stand.

 

[Iskra]

I don't think there really needs to be a discussion about "is there a problem culture around football"; if you prefer not to acknowledge it then that's entirely your choice of course. Don't take it personally, nobody is accusing you! But you aren't going to be persuading any time served rail staff that football fans don't cause issues on trains, I'm afraid.

As for the wider society point, yep there are issues there too, without a doubt. But not in the concentrated, institutionalised way that the problems centred around football tend to present themselves. Two different discussions there.

The problem is with alcohol consumption, not football.

 

[SussexSeagull]

The experience I have is that football fans are disproportionately ignorant relative to other groups.

Like feeling they have a God-given right to pull a sickie when there’s an apparently important fixture on

Or being abusive to the point of threatening towards those who aren’t interested

Or like the person at my work on Friday who thought it was acceptable to come and use the hot desk in my office to watch the match in the evening (and who found that by the time he’d had to go somewhere else he’d sadly now missed half of it, what a shame).

On top, of course, of all the trouble they cause on trains.

These are all real-life experiences, lest one be accused of picking on this particular group, and experiences which don’t seem to happen with other followings.

Not entirely sure the work habits of football fans are entirely relevant to a rail forum.

There is a widely known, globally recognised problem culture around football which has existed for generations. It isn't a surprise that fans travelling en masse, contained within train carriages, is a common flashpoint for problem behaviour occuring. That some fans get so sensitive about it being called out is rather odd, to be honest. I fully appreciate that the majority of fans probably aren't part of it, but sadly the proportion who are cause significant issues; it's hardly discrete. The wider football community being in denial about some of the utterly toxic cultures that have plagued the sport for decades, is never going to help address the issues.

The reason football fans tend to travel en masse is because we need to be at the same place at the same time.

I would concede football fans can be disruptive but would challenge strongly anyone saying no one else does. I used to get a Friday afternoon train back home from Peterborough to Kings Cross and fairly regularly there would be a stag or hen do coming down from the north to London who had long lost the volume switch. As I said the worst incident I have seen on a train in years - funnily enough on the way back from a football match - was two groups of youths getting stuck into each other after getting on at Three Bridges station.

 

[crablab]

I would concede football fans can be disruptive but would challenge strongly anyone saying no one else does

Is anyone saying that? My reading of the posts (and do correct me if I'm wrong) that people generally feel that football fans are the 'worst offenders' (perhaps by combination of frequency and impact), but by no means the only ones.

 

[ARIC]

Travelling en masse isn't unique to football, neither is alcohol consumption. And whereas poor behaviour also isn't unique to the fans of the sport, it takes only a few weeks working on the railway to see the disruption and discomfort they cause when they invade public space.

Anyone given a finite budget for station security, asked to divide that budget between events with equal numbers of participants - say, a rock concert, a football match, and a rugby match - would be a fool to divide it equally.

 

[SussexSeagull]

Is anyone saying that? My reading of the posts (and do correct me if I'm wrong) that people generally feel that football fans are the 'worst offenders' (perhaps by combination of frequency and impact), but by no means the only ones.

Some people have suggested that they have never seen any other group cause trouble. I know we can only speak from personal experience but that certainly isn't mine.

Plus trains must be absolutely wonderful in June and July as there won't be any travelling football fans on them.

 

[ashkeba]

Plus trains must be absolutely wonderful in June and July as there won't be any travelling football fans on them.

When were summer tournaments and pre season "friendlies" banned?

 

[O L Leigh]

Some people have suggested that they have never seen any other group cause trouble.

Really? Can you quote them, please?

 

[SussexSeagull]

I'm out. Some views on here bear no resemblance to my experience.

TBH if the railways think they can pick an choose customers then it deserves all that is coming to it.

 

[E27007]

You are aware that the clubs via fans tickets are paying the police and don't have any choice on the amounts of officer's present or cost of policing? Are your local clubs, and pubs or CAMRA festival asked/told to pay x amount of extra on the door to be allowed to run so cover the extra policing needed for events involve alcohol.
Will you be escorted to and from the venue and told that you cannot enter a pub of your choice, you can't stop to use the toilet, or you will have to remain in the venue even if your trains about to leave?
The rail industry earns a significant amount of income off travelling football fans and even sponsor clubs and offer deals on tickets for ticket holders. But it's making it so hard to use many are opting for the supporters coach or driving. If it was bothered by the alcohol itself why sell beer at stations and off trolleys first thing in the morning?
In Germany travel by public transport is encouraged so much so it's free in the locality hours before and after the game and the Germans drink far more than us at games. Queues of trains, trams and buses ready to take you home an ability to lengthen trains during big games with a rail network that's not so spilt up and limited it's not ''caught out'' by fixtures arranged over four years ago or has been played at the same time of year almost since the railways began.

Trains can be designated alcohol-free, where it is an offence to carry alcohol, a power used for services on match days. In my London locality, several Pubs take the precautiuon of not opening until kick-off time of the local team, and close early to avoid the supporters post-match , they prefer to lose trade rather risk the flare ups which can (and have) happened in the past.

 

[Towers]

Trains can be designated alcohol-free, where it is an offence to carry alcohol, a power used for services on match days. In my London locality, several Pubs take the precautiuon of not opening until kick-off time of the local team, and close early to avoid the supporters post-match , they prefer to lose trade rather risk the flare ups which can (and have) happened in the past.

Unfortunately any such measure requires a huge enforcement presence or is otherwise routinely ignored. It also doesn't prevent people from arriving drunk at the station and still boarding.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm afraid it's all rather a moot point deciding which group of passengers is the worst behaved on a Saturday evening, at least until the industry can string together a service worthy of the name on Saturdays.

 

[John Bishop]

I'm out. Some views on here bear no resemblance to my experience.

TBH if the railways think they can pick an choose customers then it deserves all that is coming to it.

Ok bye then.

so everyone else is wrong and your right, is that it?! Keep that head of yours firmly in the sand if that makes things better with you.

until you’ve worked on the railway, I don’t think your in a credible position to comment on the issue, nor certainly question and/ or dismiss other rail workers experiences when it comes to football fans.

 

[O L Leigh]

I'm out. Some views on here bear no resemblance to my experience.

TBH if the railways think they can pick an choose customers then it deserves all that is coming to it.

I wasn’t expecting that. I only asked for you to quote because I thought you might have seen something I’d missed.

Having looked back through the thread I don’t think anyone had suggested that only football fans and no other groups cause trouble.

 

[greyman42]

Trains can be designated alcohol-free, where it is an offence to carry alcohol, a power used for services on match days.

Pre-covid there used to be a ban on a LNER Aberdeen departure due to raucous oil workers. I don't know if it still stands.

Unfortunately any such measure requires a huge enforcement presence or is otherwise routinely ignored. It also doesn't prevent people from arriving drunk at the station and still boarding.

Pre-covid trains back to the Northeast for Newcastle supporters, after playing in London, were dry and it was enforced.

 

[gazzaa2]

I'm afraid it's all rather a moot point deciding which group of passengers is the worst behaved on a Saturday evening, at least until the industry can string together a service worthy of the name on Saturdays.

The two things are linked though. It's the bad/inadequate service that causes a lot of the issues. You wouldn't treat animals the way rail passengers are treated at weekends in the UK at the moment on a lot of platforms/services. I say weekends because the loadings on Sundays are horrendous.

When the trains are civilised (everyone gets a seat, the services actually run as advertised with minimal delays, adequate rolling stock etc) you get much less behavioural related issues.

 

[bramling]

Perhaps, but personally I’ve never experienced any problems with them.

The thing with a stag or hen do is there is likely to be more chance of being able to move elsewhere (I realise by no means always). You’re probably going to be unlikely to do that if you’re stuck on something like a Manchester to London train that’s going south just after a match.

 

[al78]

From what has been said on here it sounds like there is an issue with alcohol abuse in the UK. I enjoy a drink occasionally but I cannot relate to the desire to get paralytic to the point of losing control. Could it be linked to mental health issues?

 

[bramling]

From what has been said on here it sounds like there is an issue with alcohol abuse in the UK. I enjoy a drink occasionally but I cannot relate to the desire to get paralytic to the point of losing control. Could it be linked to mental health issues?

Definitely. For some reason people don’t seem to be particularly happy in this country. There’s likely to be a very long list of potential reasons for that, especially at the current time!

 

[greyman42]

Definitely. For some reason people don’t seem to be particularly happy in this country. There’s likely to be a very long list of potential reasons for that, especially at the current time!

People see happy enough to me.

 

[bramling]

People see happy enough to me.

I know what you mean, however I think at least some of this is superficial. The amount of alcohol and substance abuse which goes on - in certain towns it’s not uncommon to find the air reeks of cannabis in the evening - doesn’t exactly point to everything being rosy.