Elecs has a great post on falling out of trains, and I’m probably the last to read it – sorry about that… (http://electro-kevin-electrokevin.blogspot.com/2008/03/hitch-spotted-on-cctv-at-bedford-rail.html)
Just to keep the yarn going a bit longer; here’s an anecdote which has kept me in the odd sherbert for many an evening!
An old chum used the Victoria to Crawley train regularly, and often stayed late for a few beers to save his feet during rush hour. One evening, a few people, including my chum who vaguely recognised the others – as you do when you’re stuffed together for an hour each morning and evening, were sitting in one of the older carriages, where there were two slam doors – one on each side. As everyone seemed to be showing signs of excessive flavour, one man actually fell asleep, but nobody minded of course.
As the train approached Crawley, it slowed and eventually stopped short of the platform with a bit of a jolt. My chum and the wakeful guys watched helplessly as the over-flavoured chap suddenly woke up, yelped, leapt to his feet and dived straight out of the carriage door on the nearside, to land somewhat painfully on the track. After a few seconds bewildered staring at each other, the rest of the carriage all shot over to see how he was.
The unfortunate bloke eventually scrambled to his feet, and was hauled back up into the carriage by the assembled white knights. On arriving inside the carriage, covered in mud and dust, he blinked a couple of times, muttered ‘Bugger, wrong platform…’, and shot straight out the door on the other side to repeat the painful experience!He was of course dragged back yet again, and sat on while it was explained to him what exactly what had happened. This explaining of course took more than several minutes, as there were tears of mirth everywhere, but it still makes me hoot every time a yarn like Elecs’ starts me off…
13 comments:
A fine story, scrobs, one that I have told many times.
I heard a tale about a fellow who lived about fifty yards the London side of Horsham station, and had a garden that backed onto the tracks. He bought himself a samsonite briefcase (presumably when those ads were running that included a chap waterskiing on one), and had a party piece of hurling it out of the window into his back garden, as the train slowed to enter the station "to save me carrying it home"
Er...your right Idle, it is an old yarn and so funny - you can really string it out like the poor bloke hitting the 6.15 coming the otherway etc etc...
I also promise not to re-write the yarn about the bloke buying a new house in South Africa...
I really do mean it...
Or maybe...
Excellent, scrobs, and don't be put off by that idle chap's withering comment!
Reminds me of a couple of commuter stories which I will post on later this week.
Thanks
tusks!
This is
the first
commen
t from a
train
near t
wells....
It worked; it worked!!!
Newphone WIFI does silly things like pick up signals from outer space (or outside pubs and hotels in London at least) and whizzes them all over the place. Tuscs was the guinea pig - in the nicest possible way of course - and I was going to send him a post until I looked at some meter or other.
How many Kb????
I then panicked as it seemed that my one message would cost about eighty quid, so I shut down, and pretended to be asleep!
Pity it gives you about half a centimetre to type in though, and format goes out of the window...
Still this is one giant step for Scrobkind...
You jes keep em coming Scrobs, Poetic licence rules in the Bloggosphere. I like your tales.xx
Trubes!
How the devil are you these days?
Lovely to see your name on the guest list - and very welcome!
Yarns are for spinning...
Scrobbles welcome to the late 20th century!!!!
Serikously, br careful workikng this mobile wonder away frm your patch - did you see the story in the sillygraph the other day of some bird who had been givena phone by hubby, who had set it up to downlaod the latest episodes of Friends for her? She went to Germany for a couple of days and he got a monthly data bill of about £10k !!!!
Moral of this tale is - don't send messages from the queue at Sainsburys Calais!
Tuscs; thanks for the tip! Yes, I did see the item, and thought that anyone who is such an avid fan of Friends deserved to pay that much...
Yer right about calls of course; when we were at MIPIM a few years ago, we regularly strolled into the bunker, headache in full bash, and rang round everyone to see where they were in the vast hall, also full of other headaches.
We only realised when we got home that the bill was astronomical for these calls, as they were routed back to UK, then back to Cannes! I think the cost of each quick 'Where are yer....aaaaargh my head...', was about £5 - each in those days!!!
when we lived in japan...we took the train to a festival and i had not slept a great deal the night before...i feel asleep on the train and have a bad habit of talking/walking in my sleep when overly tired...apparently i stood up and said "this is the magic bus...everyone dance." thankfully they didn't speak english and my husband was the only one to laugh at me as he sat me back down in my chair...
One of our ticket collecters was asked, "Can I have a cheap day return please ?"
"Certainly, Sir. Where to ?"
"Back here of course !"
Great story, btw.
I can't report this on my own blog.
Crapulant callamities !
My train (a two set formation) hauled up with a full brake application just outside our biggest station. Luckily (or unluckily as it may be) there were fitters travelling home on this rush hour service. The brake had applied of its own accord because of a fault - as it happens the numpty of a train guard had knocked the brake lever in the rear cab into "emergency" as he was doing a passenger announcement.
The fault finding drill included pressing the uncouple button in between the two units and as this was being done the guard buzzed up to say, "Oh bugger ! It was me. I knocked the brake lever by accident". Never mind - as faults go we were delayed by only ten, minutes which isn't bad in rectifying something which could be anything out of about thirty likely causes. But in the chaos I'd forgotten to reset the 'uncouple' button !
The fitters had been more hindrence than help as it was a case of too many cooks.
I returned to the front cab ready to go as the brake had been released successfully. As I drove off it was lucky that I was looking backwards out of the window to check the train. (I always do this after a problem has occurred) - but because of the curvature of the track it wasn't until two train lengths of movement that I could see the back half of my train left behind mid section with the guard gesticulating wildly (I could have sworn he was crying)
The fitters were shitting themselves with laughter but I was more than a little irrate with myself as this sort of thing can be a bother once managers find out. Anyways - I recouple without further ado and the fitters say, "Don't worry, ***** - we, er, needed a running brake test on the front unit ... didn't we ? THAT's what we asked you for and it was all done by the book."
Phew ! It pays to be a helpful type when working with the engineers on the depot sometimes - what goes round comes round as they say.
Many thanks Anon!
I really am toying with the idea of some train driving software; as may have been noticed last year, my Daughter gave me a Meccano set, and I'm reverting to my childhood extremely well...
I once had a go on her 'Roller coaster Tycoon' (some years ago now), and finished up with a theme park which was making squillions! She was furious because I'd let it run all day, just racking up the dosh!
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