Afternoon
Here's a few personal experiences. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin as they used to say on Listen with Mother. Younger readers may want to Google this.
A friend of mine used to organise minibus trips out to pubs / beer festivals in the N West, Yorkshire or Derbyshire on Saturdays. There was a pick up at Piccadilly station in Manchester at around 9am, returning by 9pm to allow people from all over the area to catch the train home in good time, as some travelled some distance (eg from Frodsham and Blackpool) to come along.
The return time was good as I had the 2104 Crewe stopper to get me home. On most occasions we had 5-10 minutes to catch it or occasionally were too late and had to wait a bit for the Macc stopper instead, or blag a ride back to the minibus depot in Stockport and await a train or bus from there. Having an old fart's bus pass helps.
Can't remember where we had been, but we arrived one night at 2101. Two of us made a bid for the 2104, but got delayed crossing the road and arrived on the platform just in time to see the tail lights disappearing. In a flash of inspiration, I said to my mate, let's run round and catch the 2107 XC Birmingham as far as Stockport as we may be lucky and overtake the stopper. We leapt on the XC just as the doors were closing and set off. Just after Heaton Norris Junction, we caught up with the stopper and moved to the door to make a quick cross-platform transfer. As we approached Stockport, I sensed something was wrong - the train was accelerating and we shot straight through the station. Oh dear...
Just then the guard came through - tickets please. But we only had our Greater Manchester bus passes. I told him what happened and he said he had made announcements prior to departure that the first stop was Stoke (not even Macclesfield!). I told him that we had jumped on seconds before the doors closed and I thought that all the XC stopped at Stockport; he noted that this was the only one that didn't! He also remarked that we weren't the first to have done this and wouldn't be the last.
Anyway, he was very understanding and after checking, told us the next one back to Stockport from Stoke was also XC and that we should check with the guard on that one before boarding. It wasn't a problem, but we did arrive back in Cheadle Hulme two hours later than planned - not what was wanted after a day on the pop!
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Several years earlier, a party of about 10 of us was heading back from Manchester to Cheadle Hulme on a 323 after a convivial evening at the Manchester Beer Festival. At the time the Crewe line was closed for engineering works and so they were running a couple of extra trains before midnight which came to Cheadle Hulme and then ran non-stop to Macclesfield. We were on the last one of the night After arrival at C/H, we waited for the door light to come on; it didn't. Several people tried pressing the button but to no avail. Other doors were working, so someone ran off to hold one open but was too late by seconds. As the train set off someone "pulled the cord", but the train continued. There were about 20 of us being overcarried in total. The guard came up to find out who had pulled the handle and why and we told him what happened. Unfortunately one of our group, being tired and emotional, started f'ing and jeffing at the guard, so we had one of our group remove him to the next carriage whilst a civilised conversation took place. The train eventually stopped in Poynton station , having run through Bramhall and the driver came back to find out what was going on. Poynton was no good for getting home.
After some discussion, the guard said he would ring control to see if Cheadle Hulme passengers could be dropped off on the empty stock move back to Stockport. This was agreed and so we travelled back to CHU where the guard came down to the centre coach (where we had all been asked to travel) to ensure we all got off and left with a cheery wave.
But now there was another problem. P3 (and P2) at Cheadle Hulme could only be accessed at that time by the main station entrance and the doors were locked as the last train had gone. So we had to cross the Crewe line using the platform ramps to exit to street level via the steps from P1..The line was shut anyway and visibility is at least a mile in each direction.
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Returning south from the Newcastle Beer Festival the other year, I caught an evening KX service for some 91/Mk4 action, intending to change at York for Manchester. I was aware that after York this train was non-stop to KX; nevertheless I fell asleep. I woke up with a jerk just as the train set off from a stop, looked out of the window and with a sinking feeling saw an overall roof. It took me several seconds to realise that the station was Darlington, not York. Cue great relief and I sat bolt upright until we arrived at York. There were no other dramas on the way home!
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I was once on a lightly loaded Voyager from Stockport to Brum, no doubt going on a pub research trip. Sitting on the opposite table was a young lady engrossed on her phone. As we approached Stoke, announcements were made and we stopped. After a couple of minutes she looked up, saw the platform signs and suddenly tried to pack her stuff away and get off, but it was too late. Next stop on this one was Wolverhampton rather than Stafford, so she was rather late for her business appointment and the rest of the journey was spent on her phone rearranging her day.
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In the bad winter of 1962/3, I returned with my mother from Bath to Manchester after spending the festive period with relatives. The snow lay deep and crisp and even - in fact some of it remained in the shadows in my uncle's garden 2 months later. This journey required catching a train to Temple Meads and then a train coming up from Plymouth to Liverpool to make a connection at Crewe. In those days the trains were routed via the Marches line due to the WCML electrification works.
Temple Meads was in some state of chaos with the snow and no one was quite sure whether the Liverpool was running and if so where it was! Eventually it was announced running rather late and with a platform change. My mother, who had travelled frequently through Temple Meads during the War, said this was a regular occurrence in those days. The train eventually arrived with a Castle up front and we departed north. In our compartment was a smart city gent with his rolled up brolly who was engrossed in his newspaper. The train went through the Severn Tunnel, round the east side of the Maindee triangle and headed north for a stop at Pontypool Road which in those days was a big station, not the island platform and shelter of today.
Here we had a longer stop than usual I seem to remember as there was some doubt as to whether we could continue because of the snow. After a few minutes the city gent looked up from his paper and noting an unfamiliar location, asked us "This is the Paddington train isn't it?" He was a bit put out to discover it wasn't. It appears had just jumped on our train as "the Paddington trains always went from there at that time of day"... He got off and was aiming to get back to Newport or Bristol for onward to London if anything was running at all! Meanwhile, we eventually got to Crewe and changed to a blue electric hauled train to take us to Stockport Having been looking at very snowy landscapes all the way up, Stockport only had a light dusting of snow.
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A regular at Beer Festivals years ago was a bloke we knew as "Desperate Dave" who lived in Wolverhampton. Apparently he ended up in Oxley sidings quite frequently, but one day, coming back from the Tamworth Beer Festival, he found himself sleeping through New Street and Cheltenham and pitching up in Bristol. His other half had insisted he was home that night and as the last train had gone, he had to fork out £85 to get a taxi home to maintain his married bliss.
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And finally (you will be pleased to know!), there have been several examples in the thread about people going back and forth on trains continually missing their stop. Best one I heard concerned someone from the City returning home to St Albans on the "Bedpan" service after an evening out. He was annoyed to wake up in Bedford, but checked that the same train formed the next service calling at St Albans and settled back. He woke up back at St Pancras again! This time he decided to stick a piece of paper on his chest which said "Please wake me up for St Albans". Next thing he knew was he was back at Bedford and someone had written "Tee-hee-he" on his note! He eventually managed to get off at St Albans on the next southbound journey.
And that's all Folks! Stay positive, test negative!
