Getting on the wrong service

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

A couple were placed on the wrong flight for their family holiday in the sun, and instead ended up 1,500 miles away from their intended destination.

The trip to the Costa Brava was for Andrew Gore's 47th birthday, but while the rest of the party arrived in Barcelona airport, Andrew and wife Victoria found themselves in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas.

[JayMac]

11th August 1996.

Left Knebworth Park after Oasis gig. Two mile walk to Stevenage station to get a train back to Enfield Chase where we were staying overnight before heading home to Somerset. Crowd control and huge queues along the closed dual carriageway to Stevenage station where it took us over 90 minutes to get into the station.

We, along with a few other folk, were directed to what we thought was a train toward London. I say 'directed' but it may have been confusion on our part, being very tired after 11 hours stood in a field. It wasn't a Moorgate bound train, it was a northbound service. Got off at Hitchin and discovered we'd just missed the last southbound train from there. We had to get a taxi back to Stevenage and the cabbie could only get us to a point at the back of the queue for the London bound 'extras'. One side of the road was cordoned off for emergency vehicles only. The other side was a queue of several thousand. We pleaded with the police manning the cordon to let us skip queueing again. After hearing our tale of wrong train woe they let us walk down the cordoned off side of the dual carriageway.

All told probably two hours later into Enfield than we would've been had we not been misdirected/confused. We did wonder why the train we boarded was quiet, but convinced ourselves the crowd control had let too few people onto the station for this train.

[bobm]

Don’t look back in anger.

[bobm]

A few years back I was on a train at Paddington waiting to leave when the train manager came on the public address “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is the service for Great Malvern”.  Cue mass panic as people on board thought the train was for Bristol Temple Meads. 

Short pause. 

“Apologies ladies and gentlemen. I’m on the wrong train”.

[PhilWakely]

It would have been October 1977. I was returning to Bath University from Exeter. I had a 10 minute connection at Temple Meads. On arrival and checking the destination boards, there were two trains in for London Paddington - one via Badminton, the other via Bath. Both HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train).

Obviously, I headed for the 'via Bath' service, but in my haste got the platform numbers wrong and boarded the 'via Badminton' service. I only realised this when the train passed Stapleton Road!  I sought out the Guard, who quite happily endorsed my ticket and allowed me to pass back to Bath from Swindon.

    

[Surrey 455]

Some time in the 90s or 00s after a Friday night work do I turned up at Paddington Station about 1am. Nothing showing on the departure boards but a lot of people standing around a Thames Turbo on one of the lower numbered platforms. I was intending to go to either Hayes & Harlington or West Drayton and decided this must be my train. (At the time there was a overnight stopping service to Reading that ran every hour or two).

When the doors opened I got on, the internal displays were not showing any information but still I was sure I was on the right train.
The doors close and the train leaves Paddington, whooshes past Ealing Broadway. Ahh that's not good I decided. Will it stop at Hayes or West Drayton? No it didn't. Oh well I'll get off at Slough and wait for the next train back. It didn't stop at Slough either. Eventually I asked another passenger where was the train going? Bristol was the answer. It was a very late running service. Reading was the first stop and I had about an hours wait for the return journey.

It was about this time that Thames Trains were lending some of their turbos to Great Western for long distance journeys. But I did not know that at the time of the journey.

[Red Squirrel]

After the December 2021 timetable change I confidently got on a 166 on Platform 1 at Temple Meads assuming it was the Severn Beach train. It was only when someone else got on and asked if it was going to Great Malvern, and was told that it was, that I realised my error.

Pre-2021, if there was a train at Platform 1 you could be confident it was heading for CNX. These days its actually quite uncommon.

[grahame]

Connectings at Frankfurt to Dresden one afternoon in February, we were late into Frakfurt and missed the onward train I had planned to take which ran via Fulda and and Erfurt to Berlin, with a change at either of those for Dresden.  Never mind - there was another Berlin train about half an hour behind and I joined that instead.

Fulda came, and rather than change there I stayed on for Erfurt.  Which was unfortuate because this train didn't run via Erfurt at all, and I only realised this after we had called at Kassel ... and I got my maps out.  Ooops.

Ended up spending that night in Berlin rather than Dresden ...

Not exactly catching the wrong train, but ...

Me thinks this story would be better with a map.

P.S. Every Cloud.  Berlin turned out to be a memorable and thought provoking experience, and I am so glad that I spent two days there rather than Dresden.

[johnneyw]

The closest that I can recall to taking the "wrong" train was at Cardiff where my advanced ticket train back to Bristol was too full to get on.  It was the 2006 FA Cup final before the new Wembley was finished and I went to watch the match in a bar along with hundreds of other West Ham fans who went there for the "day out".  On my return, the queue at Cardiff Central was enormous and I finally got onto a Bristol service well over a hour after my designated service had left.  It was so busy that there were no ticket checks anyway.

[eightonedee]

I started off thinking (rather smugly) that in about 25 years commuting I'd done well not to do this, and (so far!) not on any other leisure trip. Then I realised that if you catch an "up" train at Tilehurst or Goring, you are bound to get to Reading, and if you catch a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) (or its previous incarnations, Thames, First GW^▸ (Great Western) Link/First GW) going from what are now platforms 4,5 & 6, you end up in Guildford sooner or later, and vice versa if you catch a GWR train at Guildford heading north/west.

I suspect that commuters are conditioned to ask if something's out of the ordinary, like a departure from an unusual platform, whereas someone less used to travel or in an unfamiliar place is more likely to misunderstand or make an incorrect assumption. I guess that I must have helped passengers finding themselves on a wrong train at least once a year during my commuting days. It helps if you have a sense of direction, although not if the service reverses - how many times have I seen someone on a Cross Country service look up in panic after leaving Reading, suddenly realising that the train is going "the wrong way"!

I wonder if the introduction of in-train route signage and announcements has reduced this? I don't know if there are any figures, but my impression was that quite a high (20% plus?) of onboard signage on Turbos was wrong. Sometimes it was just a station or two "out", but I also experienced the display going in the wrong direction, and a few times giving an entirely different journey. As for announcements, it seemed that a high proportion (the majority?) were inaudible. Train operators really need to appreciate the stress it causes the casual traveller if there are repeated announcements that they simply cannot hear. The signs on Electrostars seem better, with only a tendency to be behind or ahead of themselves at around the time of each stop, and the quality/sound level seems better too.

Perhaps it would be an idea to have a campaign "Don't be afraid to ask, and do help others" to encourage passengers to ask and help one another.  

[Worcester_Passenger]

Perhaps it would be an idea to have a campaign "Don't be afraid to ask, and do help others" to encourage passengers to ask and help one another.  

Some years ago, on a whizzy-whizzy Swiss train out of northern Italy into Switzerland, there were automated announcements in four languages - Italian, French, German and English. But when it all broke down (Which it does from time to time. And is not a good sight because Swiss Railways never have a plan B.), we went back to the Train Manager making announcements over the PA^▸ (Public Address). In what must have been the local dialect.

We ended up with a group of locals round the table opposite translating the dialect into clean Italian for us, and then us relaying the information to a Spanish group, round the table behind, in English.

Since when we have always looked around when this happens to make certain that any non-English speakers have understood what's going on.

[PrestburyRoad]

Late 1970s.  Cheltenham to Leeds, with a change at Birmingham New Street.  Train from Cheltenham early at New Street slightly early, I went to the correct platform for the Leeds-bound train, saw a train in the platform and boarded it.  Then it left, eastward as usual, but ten minutes early.  That's odd, I thought.  Then it turned towards the south not the north.  That's even odder, I thought.  Its first stop was Birmingham International, and it was going nowhere near Leeds.  Oh well, get off at International and next train back to New Street, and a later train to Leeds.  No real harm done in this case.

[grahame]

Reading back comments here and looking at the poll - most of us have (but only very rarely) found ourselves on the wrong train, and yet it seems far more frequent that people report having to help out others who have caught the wrong service.

"It's my regular run - trains from this platform always go to ...." is right for regular passengers, but those vital occasional and first time users seem to get into trouble and need help far too often. 

Just on Sunday, on our way to Southampton, our train was boarded by a lady and her guest from the USA, headed for London to see a baseball (?) match at the London Stadium.  They reported waiting on the platform at Warminster for a very long time, and indeed letting a train (probably the right one for them) go because it came in and left unannounced at a time that didn't tie in with the time they had been given.

Someone told them that their best way to get to Paddington now was to get on our train and change at Salisbury and Reading - and I smell a help point response in that.  So there they were headed toward Salisbury ... and our train a few minutes late, such that the Salisbury to Basingstoke and Reading train would have set off just before we arrived in Salisbury.  Oh dear ... and I took a look at their ticket - it wasn't an advance one and it was to London terminals via Newbury. Oops;  I suggested they take the Waterloo train from Salisbury - "Same platform we arrive on" having checked online, then use the Jubilee line to get to Stratford - they should have made the match with perhaps 30 minutes before it started ...

We (regular travellers) here can be a bit smug and say we only get it wrong occasionally, but it can be a nightmare for the occasional traveller.   Witness a hen night party, clearly already happy with alcohol, headed for Bath who descended from the Swindon-bound train at Melksham, having boarded it at Trowbridge on the assumption that "all trains from this platform go to Bath"

[Clan Line]

Pre-2021, if there was a train at Platform 1 you could be confident it was heading for CNX.

In the "good old days" you went to Platform 1 for the Waterloo train   

[grahame]

Pre-2021, if there was a train at Platform 1 you could be confident it was heading for CNX.

In the "good old days" you went to Platform 1 for the Waterloo train   

Ah, yes ... from 10th December 2021, the very last SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) service from Bristol Temple Meads



As the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) would have you consider - a nearly empty platform with just a handful of "anoraks" taking picture ...


... but look inside and you'll see the real picture of a very busy train indeed ...

... and it left Bath Spa full and standing.

Oops - "wrong service" thread.  I am not aware of anyone on the wrong service that evening - except that it was the wrong service for three or four of us who should not have had to come out to say "goodbye".