not *my* worst experience, but I think I had a hand in it...
Seat reservations on trains - the dumbest idea since, well, privatisation.

Picture the scene, the minus-one-carriage commuter special between London Paddington and the South West. And it's rammed. Every seat taken, corridors full, vestibules full. We're only a few people short of thinking about using the roof.

At the front of our carriage, I sense a disturbance in the scrum. It's a middle-aged woman, fighting her way through the crowd. "scuse-me, sorry, scuse-me, sorry".

She slowly moves down the corridor, and gets to my seat.

"That's my seat" she says.

"How so?"

"I've a seat reservation"

(thinks - seat reservation, great, so you paid less for your ticket than me, and you got a seat reservation for free with it. Riiight. That's convinced me to stand for the rest of the journey.)

So I say. "No, sorry, the train is rammed, there's no seats anywhere. I made a point of getting to the station early so I could sit down."

"mutter-mutter-grumble-grumble-dreadful"

And she pushes on through the train.

"Ah, good." thinks I, problem solved.

I settle back and try to do some work.

Halfway to Reading, she's back. With the guard. Bewildered head shaking from around the carriage.

Poor guard is obviously embarrassed. But he's only trying to do his job so I close down my laptop and start to stand up.

"Can I just check your ticket?" he says to the by-now triumphantly beaming woman.

He frowns.

"Ah. This isn't your seat. This reservation refers to the next train. In fact this ticket isn't valid on a peak time train. So you need to pay £65 or get off at the next station, and let this gentleman sit back down."

Her face falls as she shells out the extra for a valid ticked. I retake my cherished seat. And then I suddenly have an evil thought.

"would you mind my seat while I go and get a coffee?"

(apologies for length, but it was missing a carriage...)
(nordelius, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:51, 3 replies)

Lifted from elsewhere
A few weeks ago we held the office table football championship. A keenly fought and widely attended competition.

Honour was upheld and a creditable quarter final exit seemed good enough for me. I stayed to watch the final and headed for Euston. On arrival, the 21.05 Virgin train was delayed slightly so I ran and caught it by the skin of my teeth. Only sometime after the train started moving did it occur to me that I hadn't actually checked the stops for it. We pulled into Watford Junction and only then did the LED board's show up the next destination.

Stoke on Trent.

If you were in the buffet car at about 9.25 on the Manchester train and were treated to the sight of a porky bloke charging through, leaking personal possessions and loudly yelling "cock", I apologise. Alas I was too late and I was off to Stoke on Trent. There was no prospect of a return that evening so I was up for the night. My fellow passengers were sympathetic (if amused) and the train manager did not charge me for my extra hour on board. It must be said that it is pretty dispiriting racing through your normal station and within 3 miles of your house before heading further north- 108 miles further north in fact.

I arrived at Stoke at 11.00pm and I'm thrilled to say that my cab driver found me a hotel with a room. It must be said that for £42, my room was actually really rather good. I've paid much more for much less.

I arrived back at the station the following morning and paid a princely £39.60 to get home again.

So in total, an evening that was supposed to be a cheap night out came in at about £100 all in, took 15 hours longer than anticipated and involved an extra 220 miles of travelling. I'm a shoe in for twat of the month award as well.

There are some odd silver linings to this. I have to say that all the Virgin staff were brilliant- helpful, sympathetic and friendly. I was allowed to get some work done in the first class lounge whilst I waited for my train. The duty hotel bloke was a star as well (The Plough motel in Stoke was the name of the place for the record).

Do I feel like a bellend though? You bet I do.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:47, Reply)

last night
on the last tube home, there was this awful gang of girls. there was a really loud welsh girl telling and re-telling her gay brother's boyfriend's double anal penetration joke at the top of her voice. there was a really obnoxious tall blonde who kept crossing and uncrossing legs that went up to her chin and moaning about how her size 8 jeans were too tight.

there was a fat ginger girl eating a kebab, getting a devil's goatee from the chilli sauce and stinking out the entire carriage.

there was an indian girl who kept Singing. dogtanian and the 3 muskehounds, over and over and over.

there was a mousy haired girl who waited until the train got really busy at victoria and then threw up noisily half out of the emergency window and half all over herself.

and there was a brunette in a lawyers suit who stuck out her stupid legs in boots and tripped up this poor unfortunate man just as he stood up. he ended up waltzing the spakkadance with his umbrella half way down the length of the carriage before falling over anyway...

it was everything you'd expect on the last train home. a nightmare.






so, to anyone else who saw us shambling home after 6 hours of drinking last night, i am so very very sorry.

apart from for the vomiter. she was nothing to do with us.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:43, 12 replies)

The closest I got to pubic transport
was driving around in an old corsair.



(sorry!)
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:36, Reply)

Sorry...
I wouldn't usually do this - but this one's not me, it's a friend.

(This really isn't funny, by the way.)

A friend of mine (we shall call him N, to save him embarrassment) had been out for the evening on Tuesday this week. One drink had turned to two, two to four and four to many. All of which led to him having to get the Night Bus home.

He clambered aboard, went up the stairs, and sat down.

This was his first mistake. He sat at the back of the bus.

A stop or so later, a group of young guys get on the bus, and take exception to the fact that N is sitting in what they deem to be 'their' seats.

It was now that N, in hindsight, made his second mistake. He tried to argue his way out of it. The only problem (in this situation) was that he is extremely camp, which only added to the ire of these knuckle-dragging cavemen.

According to reports, he then took a severe beating from these guys. They kicked and punched him around between them like some kind of grotesque hacky sack. Eventually he managed to get away, and escape down the stairs - running past the people who had just turned a blind eye to this horrific assault. The driver let him off the bus and, blood streaming in to his eyes, N ran in to the road.

And got hit by a car. Which was doing 30mph.

All things considered, he's lucky to be alive. He's having an operation to have a few metal plates put in to his face, and he'll need to have some false teeth to replace the ones he lost. He'll also have to wear a cast for some broken bones, and will be in hospital for a few weeks yet.

Now that is a nightmare journey home. :(

Cheers N, get well soon fella!
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:35, 6 replies)

Eurostar home from Paris
Ah, of course Mr. Baby-sat-behind-me, you're going to cry the entire journey... That's totally normal, and in fact, quite enjoyable to me. I wasn't trying to sleep. To be honest i never sleep anyway...Overrated.
(SniperJesus Listen to The Fall, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:31, Reply)

Siberian bus crash
Negotiating Russian cities is difficult in a right-hand-drive, clapped-out, nineteen-year-old VW Polo with no brakes. We had battled our way through rather deep flash floods to get into the city, we had got ourselves lost on traintracks on three occasions, we'd driven off the edge of the map and we couldn't find half of our very small convoy. No hotels would take us. We didn't speak Russian. We just wanted out of the place to a comfortable field, preferably one with slightly less Siberian mosquitoes than all the rest.

At teatime we gave up trying to find somewhere to sleep and decided to regroup with the rest of the convoy. My co-driver pulled out at the junction with no markings and no signs, trying to turn left past a traffic accident across one lane. As he gunned it across the road, broken exhaust roaring, I turned to look out of the passenger-side window.

Oh fuck. Bus. Oh fuck, oh fuck.

I yelled, he braked, we stopped, I braced, and there was a hideous and horrible BANG and a graunch of metal as our car slid sideways several metres along the middle of the junction. I remember him saying "that's our rally over, then", and then, silence.

Now, I say bus: it wasn't a a big bus, but it was a bus nonetheless, of a common type in Russia. It was bigger than our car and it held a lot of people. It might not have been a double-decker routemaster but it was not the most reassuring thing in the world to see hurtling towards your door.

We sat there. The bus doors opened and a steady stream of very pissed off passengers clambered out and began banging on my window (indeed, I would have been the driver had our car been left-hand-drive) and shouting angrily in Russian, though everything sounds angry in Russian, so I can't be sure if they were just asking if we were okay.

We waited. I wanted to laugh but thought it might look bad, so I concentrated on looking contrite instead. I remember having great difficult getting the cigarette lighter into the socket because my hands were shaking so much.

We got out to have a look. The wing was badly dented, the wheel arch was caved in, and there was a lot of oil and coolant on the road. The bus looked worse.

The bus driver wouldn't talk to us, not even in Russian. One of our convoy friends had a Russian girlfriend, and he phoned her in the UK and got her to contact the Russian police.

And so we waited for the police. For four frickin' hours, maybe more, while the mosquitoes circled. The accident beside us, the one we had driven past in order to turn, had been waiting for the police since midday.

The police arrived, took all our paperwork, looked at our car, pissed themselves laughing, told us to pay the driver the roubles equivalent of £65 and told us to feck off. We pulled out the dent over the wheelarch and drove away. The bus, it transpired, was completely bollixed. The coolant and oil came from it, not from us. We'd written off a bus for £65. It had to be towed off the road and as we turned away from the junction we saw the driver futily kicking the bodywork and reaching for the vodka.

We didn't make the escape we hoped though - we ended up dossing in a military barracks for $4 per person, with passed-out squaddies on the sofas, group sex with hookers going on next door, a dorm with beetles crawling up the walls and a grubby cold shower, but we were very, very pleased we weren't in jail for writing off a bus.

Here, have a picture. (That's me in the headscarf pretending to look concerned.)


My friend recently came home from Russia with a diecast model of the same type of bus. It has pride of place on my mantlepiece. If anyone can get a model of a Mk2 Polo, let me know and I'll build a re-enactment of the crash in my living room.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:28, 11 replies)

The 29 bus through Camden, drunk and late at night
Pickpocketed by a gang of Algerians, and relieved of my xda.

Two months later, exactly the same thing happened. This time, after I called Orange they neglected to block my phone, and they ran up £600 worth of calls, and I had to endure a bunch of calls (in Arabic) for someone called Tariq. And a bunch of texts telling me that I would be beheaded and killed. Yay.

I took taxis after that.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:22, Reply)

I Quit
Back in 2002, on my last day of work for national rail I was told to fix some track at Potters Bar. Instead I did a bunk and spent the afternoon down the pub, sure showed them (and those people that passed over it the next day)
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:21, 1 reply)

Stagecoach buses - a tale in three parts
Also known as two fires, a crash and an inconvenienced engineer.

For some bizarre reason I always seem to be around or on buses just as they give up the ghost, to the point that I do my best to avoid them at all costs. At the time though I was commuting between Huntingdon and Cambridge.

Incident 1 - FIRE!!!!

On my way to work, headphones in listening to Dire Straits (Money for Nothing album, if you're interested), everything is nice and calm, the gentle rocking of the bus is sending me to sleep (the fact that it was 6.30 in the morning and I'd been out on the lash the night before may have helped here).

About halfway into the journey, the bus starts to make a beeping sound, the driver pulls over and cuts the engine, sound stops. Tries to turn it over only to be met with more beeping and a grunting engine. Fucksticks, the engine has died and now I'm going to have to wait for the next bus to come along, at least I won't be late methinks.

Then the passengers from the back seat start to file forward, with some haste. Odd, says I in my internal monologue, must be getting off to stretch their legs and wait at the side of the road for the next bus. How wrong I was.

The back of the bus was on bloody fire, and they were scrabbling off so as not to be roasted alive. Time to get a move on myself, wait patiently for the aisle to clear (I sat in the middle of the bus, so far enough away from the fire to not be packing my pants with fresh fudge, good thing too as it would have been beer fudge, which is just awful, but I digest) then filed off with the other passengers.

End result, Fire truck, next bus shows up, file on, get to work just in time, fun story to tell in the break room at lunch.

Incident 2 - driving into the bus station, literally

No joke here. On my way back from work, two days after the fire incident, pulled into the bus station at the mid point of the journey (St. Ives). Passengers get off, chavs get on, bus goes to leave and just piles straight forward into the barrier.

Turns out that the steering had packed it in just as the driver pulled into the station. Fortunately there are buses that run very regularly on this route so was able to jump on the next one a long (5 minute delay to my journey at most).

Incident 3 - FIRE!!!!!! Yes, again, honest, nothing to do with me officer.

Living in Cambridge now, first day of walking to work (20 minutes in a straight line, nice place too). Along my route is the Drummond street bus station, about a minute out from there I hear the unmistakable sound of a fire engine attending an emergency, thinks I 'I bet there is a bus on fire at the station'.

I was only bloody right.

So there it is, I have the magical ability to set buses on fire, whether I'm on them or not apparently. I do my part to avoid these occurrences happening by walking everywhere I can, or bumming lifts off friends (no car or license, plus it's too bloody expensive to own such things).

I'd make a length joke here, but it seems pointless when I can set buses on fire from over a block away with an offhand remark.

Is that smoke I can smell.............
(UncleChuckles "Cthulhu fhtagn", Fri 30 May 2008, 10:21, 1 reply)

Constant trauma
I have to take the Waterloo and City line every day to get into work. Its packed. Constantly.

The vast majority of people who take that train, during the morning rush hour, are people who also take that train every single working day. When the train stops at Bank, about 2000 people run to the 10 ticket barriers to go up the travelator and get out of the station.

The process for getting out of the station should be as follows
1. Get ticket out BEFORE you get to the barrier
2. Get to the barrier
3. Swipe/insert ticket
4. walk through

Every day, the person directly in front of me in the queue does this;
1. Get to the barrier
2. Act surprised that the barrier is still there
3. Check every pocket for ticket
4. Check caravan sized bag for ticket
5. Find chewing gum, spend a few seconds getting one out of packet
6. Find ticket
7. Look around all smug because they have found their ticket
8. walk through…slowly…getting that fucking stupid laptop-trolley-bag-thing stuck as you go

Why are you wasting five minutes of my life because your too fucking stupid to plan ten seconds ahead of what your doing.

You may think that five minutes wasted is not a great deal, but, it works out to about (5 * 5 * 48) 1200 minutes a year. You time robbing cunts.

They are the same people that act all surprised when they are asked to pay for their food at the checkout in Sainsbury’s.

I think that the ticket barriers should be electrified. If you spend more than 30 seconds near them you get electrocuted. To death. Slowly. Then have your head removed and placed on a spike to warn any other idiots what will happen if they waste my time

*stands off soap box and lights a ciggie
( KISS.ME.WHERE.I.POO Signed the sex offenders register on, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:07, 7 replies)

Not really traumatic, and possibly a pea.
Our school bus was a bit rough. Actually, our school was a bit rough. The bus companies would send the shabbiest vehicles they could muster to ferry us all to & from school. You couldn't blame them though, our school and particularly the route I used had a reputation for damaging buses.

The 'merriment' began when some buck-toothed genius had a moment of clarity among the Regal Kingsize smog on the upper deck and opened the emergency exit (presumably in response to flatulence). Over the next couple of weeks this quickly progressed to pubescent boys hanging and jumping outside the bus as it travelled between stops at 20-30 mph. Another pikey epiphany revealed that many of the seats were not secured to their mountings, allowing them to be lifted and ejected from said exit, much to the chagrin of following motorists and nearby pedestrians.


Another amusing occurence was when we were assigned a new driver who didn't know the route. The poor naive soul depended on the guidance of the 'good kids' who sat at the front of the bus downstairs. A wily young chap, saw and grabbed his opportunity. Discreetly issuing a few wedgies, wet-willies and dead arms secured him position as sole directional advisor, in which he maintained the persona of helpful nerdy child to the feckless driver.

He then proceeded to direct the bus of about 40 kids and an increasingly lost driver directly to his front door. In a small (twisty entrance among parked cars) cul-de-sac. With no space to turn around and his 'helpful assistant' watching amusedly from his doorstep, the driver had to knock on about 10 doors and ask residents to move their cars so he could manouvre out of the street and return to the correct route.

Incidentally, I now live in that street. Delivery wagons don't like bringing building supplies to my house.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:50, Reply)

Not really traumatic....
Just finished a week long temping job in Oxford, they let me leave at lunchtime cos they were such nice people (they paid me till 4 and even gave me a bottle of Malibu!) so I catch a train to Banbury to do some friday night drinking with friends...

It's one of the hottest days of the year and i'm at on an air conditioned train looking out at bright blue skies and bright yellow fields of rape seed....while drinking Malibu.

The carriage was also empty which added to my enjoyment.

I had such a nice trip...not traumatic in the slightest.

Just thought I would share that!
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:48, 5 replies)

Long haul parisitic madness
You know that feeling, when you see a really huge guy getting on a plane and think "I pity the poor sucker he's sitting next to..."

I'd been on a trip to South America. Jolly lovely time I'd had too, full of adventure, pretty girls, the jungle, amazing sights and 'interesting' food. On the way back I'd decided to swing by New York and experience that city too.

So getting on that last long haul flight was sad enough, but then I saw Giant Haystack's long lost cousin get on-board. I was already in a middle seat. To my right was a typically large American, but nice, clean, friendly and careful to lean out a little away from me. I could handle it. As this giant's footsteps rumbled through the plane I kept thinking "please no, not me, anybody but me, I've led a good life, I don't deserve this...."

But no, he stopped alongside our row of seats, looks at the numbers, grunts and sits himself down.

At this point I realised that my shoulder was entirely enveloped by his sweating armpit. My face was right next to it even though I was now pressed hard against the other guy. I did my best to lean away, but in the other direction I had 120Kg of American beef and fat blocking me. I was like a cartoon berry, squeezed between two increasingly warm and moist buttocks.

I actually reached the point of asking a stewardess if there were any other seats but she told me the plane was full. I was going to spend the night in someone's enormously obsese armpit.

To make things worse, every time I stopped moving it felt like someone was jabbing a needle into my back. Hard. That's because a few weeks later I discovered this little fucker had been snacking on me:



Ultimately I gave up, apologised to the guy sweating on me (who just grunted - I don't think he did speaking) and wondered around the plane looking for somewhere I could doss down, eventually finding a broken, barely padded seat that was still managed to provide a more comfy place to spend 7hrs in than my armpit sandwich.

And to think, those airline gits try and charge me for going 5Kg over on my suitcase....

You can read more about my parasite at www.davesgonemental.com/giving-birth-to-a-baby-botfly/ if you enjoy tales of pain, fear and confusion...
(clopinettes, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:46, Reply)

fear of flying
I had about a year of being inexplicably terrified of flying.

My two favourite flights where:

1. Coming back from Vegas, when the hostess said to a woman sitting in front of me: "the pilot has just told me we are approaching some extreme turbulence". She then whispered "he's never said that before" and made a little whimpering noise.

2. An easyjet flight from Spain when three of the cheerful attentants stood at the front of the plane and organised the planeful of drunks to have a stamping competition.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:41, Reply)

Early Mornings
Back in the early days when I was a student I was a member of the Royal Naval Unit and this involved doing various officery type things (as we were potential officers for the forces) and also a number of dinners.

Anyone who's been to a forces dinner knows that these affairs usually start off well but soon degenerate as the drink flows.

On this one occasion I'd got myself tarted up (tux) and it turned into a 12 hour jobbie (6PM - 6AM). This was good because I had nowhere to stay that night so could jump a train straight home. Hurrah!

All was well, I'm on an early train home and the carriage is empty.

Then a series of unfortunate events occur:

1) A girl gets on the train and (in an empty carriage) sits in the seats just over from me (why oh why did she pick that seat), but it's ok, I must look super smooth in my tux (not the fact that I've gone for 24 hours without any sleep)

2) The driver decides that despite the fact it's summer that he will put the heating on

3) The natural swaying of Merseyrail trains is not conducive when a hangover is kicking in

These events all conspire to start making me feel a bit ill. I've been hungover on a train before, I can man this out...

I'm feeling rough and consider getting out at the next station but it subsides! Hurrah, I'll live to fight antoher day.

About half way to the next station the swaying, the heat and the amount of alcohol in my system all become prominent factors again...

'I'll make it to the next station, I'll make it to the next station, I'll make it to the next station...NO I WONT!!!

Bleeeeeuuuuuurrrrgh...

Shit...

Yep, not looking so suave now in my tux...

Oh my god I'm so ashamed, not just at being sick, but being sick on public transport at such an early hour.

I jumped out at the next stop (which came mercifully quickly)

So this wasn't a total public transport nightmare to me but if you travelled the Merseyrail Line between Liverpool and Hooton in the summer of 2001 and saw a bloke in a tux throw up then that was me and I'm really sorry!

Although as I got off she did appear to be laughing (possibly a B3tan back then)

Apologies for length but it was a 12 hour session!
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:34, 2 replies)

Aeroplane
Got on a plane for a long-haul flight. Middle seat on a 747. Aaaargh.

Got settled in, just ready for twelve hours of vegetative contemplation, when chap next to me leans over and says:

"Tell me, do you ever read The Bible?"
(Super Jet Shoes, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:28, 8 replies)

Northworst airlines
A few years ago I was on a work trip to Detroit. Outbound everything went fine: Edinburgh-Heathrow-Detroit with BA. No problem (save for the fact that the Alamo hire car shuttle doesn't stop at the BA terminal and I stood there like a prat for 40 minutes before getting a lift in a hotel bus to the main terminal).

However on checking in to come home again at the end of the week, I went to the desk and the cheery lady said, "Oh sorry, Dr K2k6, didn't you know? Your flight's been cancelled".

"Ah", said I, "So when's the next one?"

"Tomorrow".

Bugger. If you've ever been in Detroit you'll know it's not the sort of place you want to spend an extra day in, so I inquired about the availability of alternatives.

The woman tried loads of airlines, but although she could get me over to Europe, the final leg to 'Edinboro' was proving to be a problem as most flights were fully booked.

But eventually she got me on a Northwest flight to Gatwick. Sorted, or so I thought.

So I had 5 hours to kill, but at least I was in the fancy new NWA terminal, rather than the concrete monstrosity that is the BA terminal (which only served that one daily flight, it appeared).

American friends of mine refer to NWA as NorthWorst Airlines, and with good reason. The aircraft was a very old MD80.

To make things worse, I was in the middle seat of the 5 across the centre section. Between two young girls (and I mean annoying kids here, not nubile young ladies).

Shortly after takeoff, the lights and entertainment system in our section of the cabin failed. Every so often they'd flicker, but virtually all the way over the Atlantic we were in total darkness with no entertainment.

About an hour before reaching Gatwick, water started dripping alarmingly from an overhead panel. Unlike me, the crew didn't seem too perturbed by this, and so just placed a bucket below it to catch the drips.

And there was a shortage of food for some reason, so I didn't get my full breakfast.

Anyway, I disembarked (not 'deplaned', as I was back in the UK) at Gatwick, made my way to the domestic terminal and attempted to check in with BA for my flight to Edinburgh. Which was of course from Heathrow...

To cap this, NWA had taken all of my tickets from me at Detroit and I had no proof I was even booked on the Heathrow flight. Fortunately BA were efficient enough that I got a flight home OK, but I resolved never to fly NWA again.

Don't do it, people.

Standard excess length and missing humour-based disclaimers apply.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:27, Reply)

Save money!
When getting on a bus in London, put your wallet against the Oyster reader, say BEEP out loud then stroll past and take your seat as though it's the most natural thing in the world.
( ma0sm, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:26, Reply)

A huge Indian woman came and sat practically on me on the bus once
and proceded to remove her nail varnish - using her teeth.

She let the little bits fall on the floor and on me. I nearly hurled.
( Geoff the Clownfish You know Myra, some people might think you're cute, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:26, Reply)

Having teachers for parents, I often did music exams on my own.
One such day, I'd done the exam (and passed thank you very much), and was heading home by train. Pretty simple journey, half an hour tops. Getting up to the platform, I spotted a train waiting there, and asked the guard if it was headed to where I wanted to go.

"Oh yes" he says "hop on though, it's about to leave."

As the doors close I find myself on a fast train from Portsmouth to London, first stop - bloody miles away and in the opposite direction from home.

It didn't take too long to cotton on, so realising that I'd have a very long trip home, I decided to get comfortable while I waited for the first stop so I could change and actually go home. Fate, however, had different plans for me that day...

It was summer, and a pleasant tree lined route, which meant that the hitherto unrecognised epileptic woman opposite me suddenly started having a pretty bad fit. Managing to heroically miss catching her, my reward was being sprayed with blood as she hit the floor of the train (I still feel bad about that) and got some nasty mouth damage...

Being about 14, I wasn't entirely sure what to do, so I kind of helped pick her up while looking around for someone to tell me what to do... Eventually, someone got the guard who led the poor startled, barely recovered woman away when, lo and behold, first stop!

Trudged over to the other side of the station to finally go home, tired and blood spattered, still carrying the sheet music books like the geek I still am.

"Oh, there's no trains going that way tonight sonny, it's a replacement bus service just out the front there, just show them your ticket when you get on."

I got home three hours late, stinking of sweaty bus / train, spattered with blood, utterly exhausted. 12 years later and I don't think my mum's recovered from it yet...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Fri 30 May 2008, 9:25, Reply)

Keep going, everyone
You're doing a very good job of reminding me why I drive to work.

Oh, and the fact that it takes forty minutes instead of two and a half hours...
(patently Was somewhere else on, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:24, 3 replies)

Andrei and the Prostitutes
This story has to do with a bus and some whores.

It's 1994 and I'm on a school trip to Russia. Being a school trip, we have a bus and driver to ferry us around. We're only a small party, so the bus is nowhere near full; the back is curtained off, and that's where Andrei, the driver, sleeps. (We get hotels, obviously.)

We have a free afternoon and are accordingly driven to the centre of Moscow and told to fuck off and do our own thing for a few hours. The rendezvous was set for Arbatskoe Morya at whatever-o'clock in the afternoon. Amazingly, we all make it. The bus is there too, and the door is open... but Andrei is not to be seen.

Undaunted, we board. There's a shuffling from the curtained-off part of the bus. Andrei emerges. Somehow, he manages to look both sheepish and triumphant - like a triumphant sheep, if you will. He's followed by two women, each of whom is wearing more make-up than skirt. Andrei reaches into the compartment above the driver's seat, retrieves a cash box, and gives each a handful of notes before nonchalantly taking his place behind the wheel and gunning the engine.
"They're... um... his sisters," says our teacher, pleadingly. We grin.
"His sisters. Yes. We understand," we echo.

The next day, we have to get the train to St Petersburg. We are a bit late; Andrei takes a few liberties with the traffic control measures to get us to the station on time. It would appear that there are some red lights that he's happy to ignore after all...



(What is it with me and stories about foreign tarts?)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:23, 5 replies)

Spray that again?
So there I was, on my way home from work, changing trains at Winchester for the direct service to Weymouth.

A few seats away, and causing a bit of a scene was a office type, rather the worse for wear after a liquid lunch, which looked like it had lasted most of the afternoon. Even with the train standing at the station, he was swaying, and calling a repulsed middle-aged woman "me best mate, hic."

Soon, his body started to convulse in the manner we drinkers know only too well. He needed to puke. Quite urgently.

A sane, rational, dare I say sober, person might have bowked out of a window or into a rubbish bin. However, our hero was obviously none of these and instead made a dash for the toilet at the other end of the carriage. And he might have made it too, if it wasn't for the little old lady blocking the gangway, trying to get her case onto the luggage rack.

Newton's First Law of Chunder clearly states: "You Can't Hold Back Puke" but our hero tried his hardest, clamping his hand over his mouth. Newton's Second Law goes on to say "Great calamity befalls the person who tries to disprove the first law."

Rich brown vomit was bowked over a wide area - passengers, hideously expensive buffet snacks, up windows, and over some flash bastard pretending to work on his laptop.

Hell broke loose, as puke rained down over people who'd paid their season tickets not to have this kind of thing happen to them.

As the screaming subsided, the train pulled into Southampton Airport station.

"Errr... sorry," the Puke Bandit slurred, suddenly regaining his senses in the way that only a good hurl manages.

Laptop Man wasn't in the mood for apologies, and there was a second where it appeared blood would be spilled as he stood up, to face his tormentor, his face spattered with brown goo.

Our hero took his chance and legged it, grabbing his coat and case and jumping train miles from home. It is amazing, though, that even covered in vomit, only one person dared to complain; while others sat, reeking of chunder for nearly two hours as the train reached its destination.

Apologies for length: Full twelve-inch remix version HERE.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:17, Reply)

when i was in high school
a girl was expelled for having sex on the train with her boyfriend.
having sex on the train that was filled with rather a lot of people from the school of not only the girl, but also the boyfriend.
it was a very akward train trip at 7:30am i can tell you.
(charlottebronte stalking through the moors, Fri 30 May 2008, 8:49, Reply)

Not the worst, but probably the funniest.
I was on a train, late at night, going home after a reasonably booze filled evening. I was sitting on my own up the back of a carriage, this bloke comes in, obviously returning from an equally boozey evening. He grins broadly at me and says:
"Oi Che, howzit goin mate"
And shakes my hand, before stumbling off telling his mates he just met Che Guvera.
A little bit of a description may be needed here. I have long wavy black hair and a scraggy full beard and I wear a beret like hat. That was all good and well, but then, just as my long journey drew to a close this other pissed yobbo (Aussie version of a Chav) and his mates gets on. This fella is a little unhappy:
"AAAAh fucking bastards. I'm not fucking pissed, I've got money they should fucking give me what I'm paying for"
So he's been booted out of the pub.
"Fucking Panthers!"
His footy team lost...
"Fucking touchies that was fucking forward"
...and he's blaming the ref.
"Fucking Centerlink. fucking government"
His dole money had been cut or he had to look for a job.
Then he looks at me, only standing cause of the fat bird he was leaning on. First one eye focuses on me and then the other. He recognises me and points:
"And this guy is fucking Jesus! Fucking caused every fucking war on this fucking planet. Fucking millions of fucking people died."
This one obviously ticked off his bird who shoved him into a seat and said:
"Yeah sorry about him, he's heaps drunk"
How could I not say 'You're forgiven my son'?

Length: Mine was the next stop.
(k3b/-\b Peace man., Fri 30 May 2008, 8:47, 4 replies)

Seconds from Disaster: The last time I took a taxi
following this background information the last time I caught one of these was a few years back.
2 minutes from disaster: I was on my way to work and fortunate enough to sit in the front of the minibus. It was not overloaded for a change and I was very close to my stop.
As the driver was hurtling down the road he spotted a school-going commuter who wanted to board. The taxi driver then overtook a bus that was stationary in our lane and stopped in front of the bus, about 20m ahead of it where the young ladies were waiting.
30 seconds from disaster: The conductor opened the door and allowed the 2 girls in. at this same time the stationary bus is pulling off.
Disaster:? As the conductor is closing the door this bus rams us from behind.

I turned to see what was happening it was all slow motion;
The conductor was still clinging to the door as it dislodged and flopped off taking him with it.
One of the schoolgirls bailed out the door, her bag going one way and her another.
There were a few older woman on the bus who screamed like we were being attacked by killer tomatoes (?) and the guy sitting right at the back, probably had his life flash before his eyes. he must have had visions of money and lawsuits and maybe even a day off work.

With reckless disregard for the injured the passengers dragged this guy out of the window and dumped him on the pavement (not sure why, its not like they had to open the door anyway)

It was mayhem, there were people all over surveying the carnage that was this high speed accident in the suburbs.

How fast was the bus going? Between 10 and 15km/h.
Damage to the taxi? a dented back door and the window broke. The door was mounted again straight away.
Injuries? A bruise for the guy at the back and the ego of the conductor.
(Bluffboy South Africa! World Champions!!!, Fri 30 May 2008, 8:43, Reply)

Bogies.
DLR to Tower Gateway.
Normal looking bloke with a cold blows his nose.
Then he starts licking it off his handkerchief.
Literally, he's holding his hanky taut with both hands and licking the runny snot off with a flicking, lizard-like tongue.

Euugh.
(mudskipper, Fri 30 May 2008, 8:32, 4 replies)

Why are Virgin trains called Virgin?
'cos the don't give a fuck!

Stole that from a friend of mine so apologies to the wag who originally coined it if they read the forum.

A good few years ago I was staying at a mates and catching the end of the Edinburgh festival. A pleasant but tired journey from chester to edinburgh (well, pleaseant for me, I'd just met my ex the night before and she gave me a lift home to get my stuff and to the station. Bonus!) and then a great night out at the festival close was a good laugh.

This was tarnished by the journey on the way back, I was well recovered the next day from my hangover and was waiting at Haymarket station to head back home, and this is when disaster struck. The virgin train turns up and it's absolutely packed out. It could have been going to Auschwitz and no one would have been surprised. It was that full and they were still trying to jam people in there! Bastards, what made it worse was people had booked seats and couldn't even get on the train, never mind to their seat!

As a result a few of us were now stranded so we had a chat with the guy at the platform, who, after some persuasion started to make calls and got us shipped off to Waverley station in Edinburgh.

When we got there the nice people sorted out trains for us (we had to get to manc and sort ourselves form there) and they even gave us a meal voucher (for £5, what's that going to cover in a station food shop? A fucking donut?)

I'd decided to get the 2 o'clock train, it was now getting on for about 5 or 6 and I was still stuck in Edinburgh...

Anyways we fianlly get a train, and a first class coach (but no first class service despite the inconvenience virgin had put us through).

Fortunately one of my fellow refugees had brought a pack of beer and were extremely generous with offering it out so we all got nicely drunk. It was like something out a war film, all we needed was someone with a harmonica or some type of folksy instrument!

I've had numerous other train incidents which I shall try to remember (I only passed my test at 26 - left it far too late!)
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 30 May 2008, 8:24, 4 replies)