Unscheduled stops at passenger request

[Bletchleyite]

I once stopped a full and standing train at Dore due to a mass punch up breaking out but you can't get away with stopping in the middle of nowhere to kick fare evaders out anymore (sadly). Marchington old station between Uttoxeter and Derby was always a favourite for that. Abandoning 'not paying, what are you going to do about it?' merchants in the middle of nowhere was a railway sport at one time.

Who needs Penalty Fares when you could offer a long walk instead?

 

[3rd rail land]

Impossible. Arrived Liverpool Street at 10 to 9 and he needed to be at school for quarter past.
I guess he'll have to either plead with the university, or defer his application to next year and sit the exam in the interim.

I once was staying in London the day before an A level exam at school in Middlesex. The train terminated short, I can't remember why, so I rang the school and they said I could start up to 1 hour late without any time penalty. I waited for the next train and made it to the exam room less than 1 hour late.

 

[PHILIPE]

Station Comfort stop when toilet/s on the train out of order

 

[Typhoon]

I hope his exam was not in railway timetable reading.

Don't be silly, that's a practical skill that might be useful. More likely Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, History of Art or Theatre Studies.

 

[Antman]

About 20 years or so ago me and a parent were trying to travel back from Charing Cross towards Croydon at about 10pm at night, and the platform staff hurried us onto a Connex South Eastern that it turned out was fast to Tumbridge Wells. After watching it head straight through London Bridge and checking with other passengers, we went and found the guard ho contacted the driver, and because of a combination of me being quite young, that we would end up stranded in Tunbridge Wells late at night, and that it was platform staff that had caused the problem, they agreed to stop the train at a station where we could get another back towards either London or Croydon. It was one of the old slam door stock, so the guard hurried us out as soon as the train came to a stop. They gave the distinct impression they didn’t have permission to stop the train - I don’t know if that kind of thing was just less detectable by management back then? Either way we greatly appreciated it

Was this a late running train skipping stops? There are peak hour trains fast from London Bridge to High Brooms but I've never heard of trains running fast to Tunbridge Wells at that time of night.

 

[[.n]]

Don't be silly, that's a practical skill that might be useful. More likely Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, History of Art or Theatre Studies.

Biblical Hebrew at at the very least is way more important than timetable reading - perhaps you should take a course

 

[whoosh]

I was driving a train once and the train manager knocked on the door and came and asked if I'd make an additional stop. It had been cleared with control. Someone had got on the wrong train - two trains were both in the same platform and departed five minutes apart, and they'd sat in the wrong one. They had a job interview to go to.
I didn't mind stopping, and despite it we were back on time by our next booked stop.

 

[306024]

It's an easy mistake to make to be fair and it might have helped if there was an announcement emphasising the fact that the train does not call at Colchester. I just hope no attempt was made to charge him for the trip to London that he obviously intend to make? In fairness most staff tend to be understanding in such circumstances.

Or it might not have helped. Announcing where a train doesn't stop can serve to confuse too, especially in today's headphone society where some may only pick up half a message, however much emphasis is applied.

 

[londonbridge]

Sunderland had been playing an away game at Portsmouth, I can't remember the exact disruption or delay but the train made an unscheduled stop at Vauxhall to allow everyone heading north to hop the Victoria line up to Kings X and make their connection.

 

[jamesst]

Have you ever stopped specially to drop off 'undesirable' passengers ?

I wish!

 

[GarethC]

How would the board moderate the grade of a very small number of people who took the alternative paper, it is impossible to make 2 different paper in the same subject to mark identically? Hence why i believe this isnt the case

I am a teacher and had a discussion with a student who had missed an exam (they mis-read their exam timetable). The exams officer confirmed that you can't just resit a public exam in the same series in those circumstances. If you are late due to public transport you could sit your paper and make a statement to the exam board as to why you are late. It is up to the exam board if they accept the paper or not. The "1 hour rule" is generally the time where no students would normally have been let out of an exam room so the information in the exam is still "secure". The nationally agreed timetable has all subjects at each level in the same session (so all exam boards in England, Wales & NI had Geography this morning - provided they had three papers).

Linking back to transport, there is a national contingency day (next Wednesday this year) should a national or local disruption e.g preventing all candidates from taking the exam in one or more centres, which could be used if there was a widespread transport issue - but that would be at the exam board's discretion.

Talking about extra stops, I've been on an Ipswich-Lowestoft service which had an unscheduled stop at Westerfield to allow two passengers to alight and get the next Felixstowe-Ipswich service back to Ipswich as they had boarded the wrong train at Ipswich and they wouldn't have otherwise made any other connection.

 

[30907]

vulnerable persons - I do think the child going to Colchester seems to fall into that category so surprised that the Colchester additional was apparently denied.

Neither being upset nor being on the wrong train of itself make him vulnerable (indeed, an A-level student is probably already an adult) and the option of travel to London and back at that time of day is sufficient in terms of duty of care.

 

[pnepaul]

In the days when the 16.30 Euston to Glasgow was first stop Preston and despite several announcements that the first stop was Preston, a guy sat down opposite me. The train set off and on came Automated Annie "Welcome to this Virgin train to Glasgow we will be calling at ...). The guy said to me so its not stopping at Warrington then lol. He had a word with the train manager, who basically said he would have to go to Preston. At least the guy was honest and said to the train manager - "that will teach me not to be on my mobile and ignore train announcements lol.

 

[trebor79]

Done it myself years ago as a 16 year old. Going home from Newcastle to Durham and only realised something wasn't quite right when we started descending the cutting towards Dunston.
Felt like a right Wally and took me ages to get home by the time I'd caught a train from MetroCentre to Newcastle.

 

[bramling]

Marchington old station between Uttoxeter and Derby was always a favourite for that. Abandoning 'not paying, what are you going to do about it?' merchants in the middle of nowhere was a railway sport at one time.

I like that one. Presumably this was before the days of things like CCTV/OTMR, or was this with management’s unspoken blessing? Sadly nowadays it would probably be all over social media within minutes, and probably headline local news.

 

[big all]

a very interesting thread this one
i think i will start another one tomorrow to inform off the general "what would happen" pre privitisation 1994 with unofficial platform level decitions to make extra stops

 

[RailWonderer]

Upset commuters at Liverpool Street ask reception to make a faster train make additional stops if their stopper was cancelled, if the service gap is too large. Never an intercity service in my experience.

*Boards a Virgin Train at Euston, first stop Warrington BQ.*
Me: Terribly sorry sir, but I need Hemel Hempstead. I have a small child at home that will explode into pieces if I'm not there in half an hour's time (or any other valid excuse.)
Guard: Erm, I can try. But no guarantees. (just being polite)
Wouldn't it be such an arbitrary system if it worked this way?
Point is, a slightly faster service, if several passengers request it, may make additional stops in disruption but intercity trains will seldom do so, unless disruption to other intercity trains is affected too.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Not on National Rail, but I was rushing to the Victoria Line at Kings Cross, hoping to make a tight connection to a London Overground train at Euston. Got to the bottom of the escalators, heard the sound of an arriving tube train, so turned to my right and jumped on. Brilliant, thinks me! As the train moved off in the opposite direction to what I expected, an old memory dawned on me, that the southbound tunnel rolls over the northbound one somewhere between Highbury and Kings Cross, so trains are ‘driving on the right’ at the latter. Cue an unplanned LO journey from Highbury & Islington to Willesden Junction for me ...

 

[sw1ller]

Had a few requests granted this last year with TfW. Always on the North wHales (sorry, trump joke) Coast. It’s the only place we miss out stations to be fair. Seems like our control is a bit more sympathetic than others.

 

[CEN60]

As a young Engineer back in BR days - orange jacket standing waiting to get of at Connel Ferry Station (West Highland Line) to walk along the track after the train had left towards Oban to look at a landslip - guard asks what I was doing and where I was going - takes me into the cab to speak to the driver and suggests that they could "drop me off" - Class 156 stops in the middle of nowhere I get dropped off - even offered to pick me up on the way back!

 

[Mathew S]

Shortly after last years May timetable debacle, there was a student who had arrived at Wigan NW to travel for an exam in Bolton. His train had been cancelled and he would have missed the exam because of it. Northern staff arranged for a taxi to get him there on time (I believe that, exceptionally, use of a taxi from the taxi rank outside the station was authorised because of the urgency).

Back when I was doing my A-Levels, the stopping train I would usually have caught to college was cancelled. When I spoke to staff, they arranged for the next fast service to make an additional stop for me so that I could make the exam (stopping services on the route being only hourly).

In both cases, I would suggest that the train company had no obligation at all to do what they did; but it was simple good customer service.

 

[Howardh]

R/e exams; in the mid 70's when I was taking either my "A" or "O"'s (can't remember) when we started the exam hall was short of pupils, I found out after the exam that a school bus hadn't turned up and those scheduled to sit the exam and late were ferried to another room where they started late but got the full time in. Presumably there had been contact with the exam boards to approve this - which seemed an entirely acceptable compromise, although I wonder why they couldn't be allowed to join the exam hall late and simply over-run (as happened when two different subjects were being done in the same hall).
I suppose students on a late running train could start the exam separately even just before time was up as they couldn't contact those taking the exam; even in a different room?

 

[molecrochip]

Sunderland had been playing an away game at Portsmouth, I can't remember the exact disruption or delay but the train made an unscheduled stop at Vauxhall to allow everyone heading north to hop the Victoria line up to Kings X and make their connection.

In the days of slam door stock, it wasn't unusual for a fast service to Waterloo to stop fully in the Vauxhall platform. The doors of the VEPs would open and many take advantage of the unintended stop. Guard would then authorise driver to proceed.

 

[mirodo]

Not national rail, but LU and not so much an unscheduled stop as an unscheduled service...

A few years ago, I boarded a southbound Northern Line tube at Balham. I was only supposed to be going two stops to Tooting Broadway, but having had a few drinks, I fell soundly asleep as soon as my bum hit the moquette. Through Broadway, all the way to Morden where the train began its northbound journey with me still on board. Back through Tooting, back through Balham, all the way through Central London, ending up at Mill Hill East where I woke up.

I got off the train and seeing my befuddled state someone (driver? station staff? I don't recall) asked where I was meant to be. My response got a hearty chuckle... There were no night buses serving the station which were any use to me, so I was taken pity upon, and given a lift back to Finchley Central (where there were night buses back to Central London), on the train which was out of passenger service running back to the depot.

 

[smsm1]

I've seen several occasions where a Cambridge-Ipswich train is cancelled, so passengers are sent to Ely, and the Peterborough-Ipswich train is turned into a stopper everywhere except Needham Market. (Dullingham and Newmarket passengers either have to wait for the next train, get a bus/taxi organised for them, sometimes from Cambridge North, or double back at Kennet or Bury St Edmunds via Ely).

 

[neilmc]

Only happened to me once, was back in the late 1960s. I was going from Cross Gates to Church Fenton on a summer Saturday, with the intended train being a through train to Scarborough. A DMU duly appeared and was announced as "Scarborough Train" by the station staff. You've guessed it, it was an excursion extra which wasn't going to stop until York, running a couple of minutes ahead of the stopper. If it had been loco-hauled and not a DMU I'd probably have figured it out, but as it was they did an unscheduled stop at Church Fenton.

 

[LewFinnis]

I used to travel to work on the one train from Wolverhampton that runs non-stop from New street to Sutton Coldfield (amazingly still does now, nearly 14 years after I retired!). Most days there would be people wanting to get off at Aston, not having paid attention to the announcements. The best, though, was a chap who thought it was the Leicester train that was the next train due on Platform 1!
Many years previously, when I worked in Smethwick, I had a message from my daughter's school saying that she needed to be picked up as she was unwell. (my car was at Stourbridge Junction, by the way). I got to Smethwick West to be told that the next train had been cancelled, but the chap in the ticket office rang New Street to get them to stop the fast train to pick me up. As you can imagine, a very grateful letter of thanks went to the district office.

 

[Ianno87]

Former Preston-Euston non stop runs often had unplanned stops at Crewe to let off Wiganers who'd mistakenly got on at Preston...

 

[Ianno87]

In the days of slam door stock, it wasn't unusual for a fast service to Waterloo to stop fully in the Vauxhall platform. The doors of the VEPs would open and many take advantage of the unintended stop. Guard would then authorise driver to proceed.

I had an incident at Cambridge North with one of the morning trains that attaches at Cambridge - one part from King's Lynn, the other from Ely. The former runs first from Ely, skipping Cambridge North, whilst the second stops.

Except one morning the driver got confused and stopped the Lynn portion in error...which nicely cleared the platform leaving me to join the suddenly very empty Ely portion behind to arrive Kings Cross at exactly the same time!

 

[muz379]

But are there ever extenuating circumstances other than life threatening illness or other dangerous circumstance that would count?

Ive argued for authority for an unscheduled stop in the past when its the last train of the day and a passenger has missed a stop or boarded the incorrect train . Especially if the alternative is taking and stranding the passenger miles from home .

Ive also had instances when instructed to run express or divert via a different route for some reason and I have queried if it would be possible to stop at some station which I know would be convenient for passengers . Sometimes its a yay , sometimes its a nay . Largely depends on the scale of any ongoing disruption and time of day .

Generally with the last train of the day though there is less risk of holding up other services and causing delay minutes . There is however another element of risk which is that depending on the station you are stopping at if there are no more scheduled trains that day platform lighting may be off .