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Weird Things You See People Do on the Railway

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RSimons

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Not seen on the railway, but from the railway: I was travelling to Norwich when the well-filled train I was on had to be taken out of service because of a brake problem. We all joined the next train, which was also well-filled. Somewhere around Oakham we passed a lone man standing in a field, wearing not a stitch of clothing and looking very embarrassed. I never did work out what he might have been doing - it was a cool day and there was nothing to swim in nearby.
 
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221129

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VTEC staff on HSTs to Leeds sticking their heads out of the droplights on approach to Leeds. Really sticking their heads right out.

I think they’re trying to see which platform they’re arriving into for some reason.

I can’t believe this is an approved practice (although what do I know? More than happy to be proved wrong)

If it's the guard then they are fine and it makes it quicker to release the doors.
 

221129

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Modern doors that autoclose don't help this. The train is sat there minding its own business when suddenly 'beep, beep, beep' and the doors shut. As far as I can tell, there is no difference in sound between 'doors are closing so we can depart, stand back please' and 'doors are closing to keep the warmth in but you are welcome to open them again'.
Is the fact it is 10mins prior to departure not a giveaway?
 

Chris M

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Is the fact it is 10mins prior to departure not a giveaway?
10 minutes out, experienced travellers will be fine but not those who are not regular travellers on non-metro services.
2-3 minutes out or less is a different matter. Unless you know exactly how far in advance the TOC concerned lock the doors at this particular station and exactly how much time there is to departure, then it could be an autoclose or it could be the last close prior to dispatch - there is no way of telling.
 

_toommm_

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VTEC staff on HSTs to Leeds sticking their heads out of the droplights on approach to Leeds. Really sticking their heads right out.

I think they’re trying to see which platform they’re arriving into for some reason.

I can’t believe this is an approved practice (although what do I know? More than happy to be proved wrong)

But that's one of the best things about any droplight stock! As long as you look ahead to make sure there's no hazards of course.
 

shredder1

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Flooded toilets on trains for me, I went in one once and it was like the ballroom of the Titanic, another gripe is people cutting nails on trains.
 

Highlandspring

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Somewhere around Oakham we passed a lone man standing in a field, wearing not a stitch of clothing and looking very embarrassed. I never did work out what he might have been doing - it was a cool day and there was nothing to swim in nearby.
For a while there was a flasher in the Abington area on the West Coast Main Line. He’d be seen bollock naked in a field next to the line typically mid morning on a Tuesday or Thursday every couple of weeks and Far from being embarrassed it was clearly being done for the ‘benefit’ of the passengers. He kept being reported for about 18 months and BTP did attempt to catch him but they never managed. It stopped just as suddenly as it started. The last report was around 3 years ago now and I sometimes wonder what happened to make him stop.
 

ChiefPlanner

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For a while there was a flasher in the Abington area on the West Coast Main Line. He’d be seen bollock naked in a field next to the line typically mid morning on a Tuesday or Thursday every couple of weeks and Far from being embarrassed it was clearly being done for the ‘benefit’ of the passengers. He kept being reported for about 18 months and BTP did attempt to catch him but they never managed. It stopped just as suddenly as it started. The last report was around 3 years ago now and I sometimes wonder what happened to make him stop.


These people have been around seemingly for ever ....there was a certain lady at Camden which disrupted the am peak as the 310' sslowed down for a good look as she had post showered, showed her in an uncurtained window , - there were "flashers" on the LT+S in the 1950's ...

Human nature...?
 

deltic1989

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One that I saw from a train that made me think that I needed more context before I decided if it was appropriate to laugh or not.
On leaving Newark Castle the railway passes by a Waitrose.
One afternoon as I was passing, a Phesant was legging it down the car park at high speed, closely persued by a member of staff with a shovel.
Make of that what you will, but I was just very puzzled.
 

Peter Mugridge

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These people have been around seemingly for ever ....there was a certain lady at Camden which disrupted the am peak as the 310s slowed down for a good look as she had post showered, showed her in an uncurtained window

Do you mean the one in that ugly block of flats that looks like an upside down staircase? If so, she would often be just standing there late night as well...


Edited to add: I seem to recall one other forum member caught an eyefull of her once on the morning when he was travelling on the Sleeper with me and we were both looking out of the window for the last few miles in to Euston...
 
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duffield

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One that I saw from a train that made me think that I needed more context before I decided if it was appropriate to laugh or not.
On leaving Newark Castle the railway passes by a Waitrose.
One afternoon as I was passing, a Phesant was legging it down the car park at high speed, closely persued by a member of staff with a shovel.
Make of that what you will, but I was just very puzzled.

It's Waitrose. Obviously he was pursuing it with a shovel in case it pooped in the car park, so he could clean it up before one of their posh customers stepped in it. :E
 

randyrippley

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It's Waitrose. Obviously he was pursuing it with a shovel in case it pooped in the car park, so he could clean it up before one of their posh customers stepped in it. :E

Waitrose? Surely then he was shooing out a peasant not a pheasant
 

Lucan

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I was an engineer on a London Underground test train run, in a tunnel, and one of the other guys needed a piss. He did like we all did, standing astride between two coach end doors aiming into the 4 ft (avoiding the juice rail). Trouble is, he misjudged the distance to the next station and found himself pissing towards waiting passengers on the platform as we passed majestically through at 10mph . It was Finsbury Park AFAIR.
 

shap summit

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..... And I remember the occasional flasher, both male and female, when traveling along the sea front when travelling between Dawlish and Exeter, mostly in the summer months.
 

pt_mad

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Then when the doors are released and the button lights they just stand there gormlessly waiting. I see this all the time and it drives me mad.

Press the door open button as soon as the train comes to a stand.

Stare at the dispatch staff with annoyance or confusion when doors don't open straight away or the button doesn't open the doors straight away after the train has stopped.

Keep running for a departing train which has started to move.

Attempt to press a door open button when the train is about to pull away and staff have instructed them doors are locked.
 

yorksrob

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How about on a sweltering hot day on a train, when the train enters a tunnel, those lunatics who suddenly develop an urgent need to shut all the hopper windows.

I've had to stop myself from shouting "Get a grip, it's only a tunnel".

Perhaps they think our pacer/153 has just entered the Chunnel !
 

61653 HTAFC

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The mention of flashers and the like reminds me of a story from around 1999/2000. Apparently passengers on a Yorkshire Coast service (Hull-Scarborough) were alarmed to see a bloke in an allotment near the line who was expressing the love he felt for his goat... not sure if the goat felt the same way though!
 

duffield

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The mention of flashers and the like reminds me of a story from around 1999/2000. Apparently passengers on a Yorkshire Coast service (Hull-Scarborough) were alarmed to see a bloke in an allotment near the line who was expressing the love he felt for his goat... not sure if the goat felt the same way though!

I would have thought a typically goat could make it very obvious if it had serious objections!
 

trash80

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The mention of flashers and the like reminds me of a story from around 1999/2000. Apparently passengers on a Yorkshire Coast service (Hull-Scarborough) were alarmed to see a bloke in an allotment near the line who was expressing the love he felt for his goat... not sure if the goat felt the same way though!

A few years ago i was on a train from Birmingham to Banbury, just after the tunnel between LMS and BAN the train was still travelling slowly, i noticed a man in the field next to the line, he was naked and advancing up to a group of sheep. Lets just say he was pleased to see them, luckily the train began accelerating...
 

Matt_pool

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How about on a sweltering hot day on a train, when the train enters a tunnel, those lunatics who suddenly develop an urgent need to shut all the hopper windows.

I've had to stop myself from shouting "Get a grip, it's only a tunnel".

Perhaps they think our pacer/153 has just entered the Chunnel !

I've seen that happen loads of times on Merseyrail and in the Edge Hill Tunnels. I just open the window again and give them the evil eye!
 

Pseudonym

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The mention of flashers and the like reminds me of a story from around 1999/2000. Apparently passengers on a Yorkshire Coast service (Hull-Scarborough) were alarmed to see a bloke in an allotment near the line who was expressing the love he felt for his goat... not sure if the goat felt the same way though!

Is this serious? Suggestions of beastiality on publicly overlooked fields of England?

The East Yorks Coast goat appreciator ended up in court!
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/judge-sceptical-of-help-plea-for-goat-sex-man-1-2404595
 

ASharpe

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Wallies who turn up late and expect the train to wait for them. Also platform brain where 95% of the people wanting to get on a specific train crowding into just 10% of the platform when you have an empty area the size of the Russian steppes free on the rest of the platform.

Conversely - on the 0717 from Shipley where 95% of the people queue up in the correct place to board the SDO lacking train and the odd straggler walks the length of the platform trying each and every locked door on their way to join the rest of us.

If you ever want to see orderly boarding of a train and people moving right down inside the carriage you would be in for a treat with this service.
 
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I used to regularly take the 1918 Motherwell to Carluke (ex 1850 Glasgow Central to Lanark) local after work, when I lived in the latter town. Immediately before it, the 1916 XC to Newcastle (or latterly York) would call at the same platform.

Big Class 220 Diesel, with XC branding, a display at every door showing a final destination that wasn’t Lanark and a next station as Haymarket. Yet, every night, someone would ask... “is that the Lanark train?”.

I’ll admit to having some inside knowledge, but I’d have thought even the finest of the local idiots could tell the difference between a ScotRail EMU and an XC InterCity DMU (which, like all DMUs, are banned from the Lanark branch, so have never, ever been down there).
 

xotGD

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Conversely - on the 0717 from Shipley where 95% of the people queue up in the correct place to board the SDO lacking train and the odd straggler walks the length of the platform trying each and every locked door on their way to join the rest of us.

If you ever want to see orderly boarding of a train and people moving right down inside the carriage you would be in for a treat with this service.
And the 1st Class Shipleyites have to walk through us plebs before they reach the sanctity of their 1st Class Carriage.
 

ChiefPlanner

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A splendid one , was on the 0002 Waterloo - Guildford in the pre Xmas drinks and party season. Circa 1978.

A very jolly train - 2 young men had won a jigsaw puzzle at their works function , and decided to start it , - tipping out the contents in the door stand back area , and eagerly joined by some of the other well lubricated passengers to do it - keen shouts of "I have got the corner bits etc"....some progress made to good effect. All good fun.

We arrive at Clapham - where the doors on the 455 opened - a huge gale swept in - along with about 25 passengers (also drunk) - many pieces swept out onto the cold platfrom and disappeared ....I left them to it at Wimbeldon , desperately trying to find various key pieces. Guess the cleaners found the remains hours later ....
 

Dr Hoo

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How about on a sweltering hot day on a train, when the train enters a tunnel, those lunatics who suddenly develop an urgent need to shut all the hopper windows.

I've had to stop myself from shouting "Get a grip, it's only a tunnel".

Perhaps they think our pacer/153 has just entered the Chunnel !

Recognise that one. It is very common on the Hope Valley Line at Totley and Cowburn (which do take several minutes to traverse, in fairness).

What is really weird is that it usually seems to be associated with mobile phone calls:

"Hello. Hello. I can't hear you, we're in a tunnel with all the windows open. [slam windows] Hello. Hello. Are you there? Are you there? Hello. Hello. [repeat in progressively louder voice for the entire passage of the tunnel as fellow passengers curl up with laughter.]"
 

yorksrob

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Recognise that one. It is very common on the Hope Valley Line at Totley and Cowburn (which do take several minutes to traverse, in fairness).

What is really weird is that it usually seems to be associated with mobile phone calls:

"Hello. Hello. I can't hear you, we're in a tunnel with all the windows open. [slam windows] Hello. Hello. Are you there? Are you there? Hello. Hello. [repeat in progressively louder voice for the entire passage of the tunnel as fellow passengers curl up with laughter.]"

Yes, Cowburn was one of the locations where I've encountered this.
 
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