When I was a train guard for GNER, I lost count of the number of passengers I’d find with Peterborough tickets when doing a check after leaving KX, when we were first stop York !
People also got overcarried on the 373 White Rose services that I worked because they could never work out how to open the doors. You had to push the door plunger quite hard to make it open, and then there would be a delay while the exterior steps were deployed before the door opened. Meanwhile the passengers would panic and run to find another door and get overcarried.
Also, one time we departed Peterborough heading north on an HST, next stop York. I had a female passenger come up to me and ask me to confirm that it was the Stansted airport service. She went into shock when I told her it was not. She was the leader of a hen party heading to Prague and she held all the airline tickets. The rest of the group were waiting for her at Stansted.
I got on the phone to Control, and explained the situation. They surprisingly gave authorisation for a stop at Grantham to let her off. However, we were just going through Stoke tunnel at the time at line speed. I quickly gave six to the driver and asked if there was any chance we could stop at Grantham. In a deep Geordie accent, he replied “Bloody hell mate, you’ve left it late but I’ll give it a go”.
I felt the brakes go in sharply like in a full service, and as we approached Grantham, we still seemed to be going too fast. If we overshot, it would be game over and we’d have to carry on. We roared into Grantham and came to a stop with the TGS door adjacent to the downward slope of the platform, accompanied by the nice aroma of burning brake blocks, and I could see station staff running over the footbridge from their office on the southbound platform to find out why an HST that they weren’t expecting had suddenly come to a stop.
I helped the lady down and she gave me a grateful kiss on the cheek, and waved to the driver who was hanging out of his cab door. The TGS door was slammed shut, I gave two on the buzzer, and the Valentas screamed as we headed north again in under 60 seconds from stop to start.
I heard later that Grantham staff got her heading southbound again 11 minutes later, and that she made the next Stansted service at Perterborough, though not sure if she made the flight?
Good old days on GNER, I miss em’ !
Great read!