Picture the scene
I'm in Bristol, on a training course with a couple of colleagues. Now, Bristol's a fair way from Newcastle, and so we got the train down the day before and stayed overnight in a nice hotel next to the Clifton suspension bridge. Food is eaten, and much beer quaffed, we retire to our rooms and the next day attend the course, which lasted all of 3 hours... Oh, and I nearly got roped into auditions for Big Brother 3, which were being held at the hotel. I declined, naturally.

The train back was possibly the worst journey I've ever endured. I like train travel, I find it a nice way to unwind, unlike buses. But this time was just awful.

The train was a Virgin Cross Country service, but before the shiny new trains were rolled out. So we were sat on an old Intercity 125 model, in a carriage with no air con - because it was broken. The journey should have taken 5 hours. Instead, it took 7, due to various stoppages en route due to freight trains breaking down further up the track. Then at Birmingham, HE got on. A sloppy mess of a human being, wearing shabby clothes and utterly stinking of booze. He staggered up the carriage and plonked himself down a few seats behind us, then proceeded to mumble incoherently to himself for a bit.

After about an hour, the combination of the gentle rocking and swaying of the carriage, plus the god knows how much alcohol he had on board, conspired to join forces and we heard retching, followed by the dull, wet, pitter-pattering splosh of a man vomiting the entire contents of his body, including, I wouldn't be surprised, some of his major internal organs.

The lack of air con and the overpowering heat of a crammed carriage did their bit after about 90 seconds, and the smell of fresh sick suddenly punched me in the nose. It was all I could do to keep my own bile down. Moving carriages wasn't an option, as the train was completely packed out, even the vestibule areas. And so I tried my best to ignore the smell as best I could - without a lot of success.

The train staff's solution to this was to cover the steaming pile of sick with a towel. The perpetrator got off not long afterwards, a feat he achieved by falling out of the train door, rolling across the platform and down a flight of stairs. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he hadn't got a bloody clue where he was...

Some four hours later we finally pulled into Newcastle, with the smell of by now stale sick still invading our olfactory senses.

Quite the worst train journey, ever.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 29 May 2008, 16:18, 1 reply)

ive done that trip before
i made sure i got first class tickets (it was cheaper then standard anyway) so that i wouldnt have to be stuck in a overcrowded train with a hangover

and my god its brill after a festival!
(das1joker, Sat 31 May 2008, 0:41, closed)