Great Western Coffee Shop

Took this picture tonight.  Being particularly pissed off when she hastily told several passengers the table was taken I made a point - to teach the old girl a lesson.  Insisted on sitting opposite and having half the table - the bags could sit in the luggage rack.  apparently she could not possibly be expected to be able to watch her bags from that distance.

So clearly she was blind and therefore should be registered disabled?  Or she bought four tickets?  No, when I insisted, she put the damn bags in the luggage rack and I got use of half the table.

Its actions like that which make people like me get a bee in their bonnet over tables.......

This is in lighter side because I - lets see if anyone can come up with a valid excuse for that!

As this is in the lighter side... All i can say is the elderly are a law under themselves... :P

I have to admit though... there is some seriousness to be had with that statement :o

Perhaps, like most pensioners seem to asume, a youth would come along and take them.

Well done FA!

Totally off topic F A but I can see your dongle (oo-er!)

What sort of mobile broadband signal do you get on that route? Is is consistent?

When out of 3 area it piggy backs on 02.    I have a dongle signal wherever I get a phone signal.  Its no worse than vodafone which I used to be with - just outs in different places

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago, pre-HST refurb anyway. A senior citizen (read "old bat") was travelling with her daughter and granddaughter in three seats of a table. They had piled their bags up on the fourth seat and also dumped an enormous bag at a table across the aisle from them, taking up two more seats.

This was a reasonably busy train. I asked the people sitting across the aisle if they minded me moving the bag into the luggage rack (having not twigged that said bag did not belong to them but the Old Bat). They said fine. I started to pick up the bag (which, incidentally, was not only vast but also hideous, with a two-foot-square picture of an ugly baby's face on it). Old Bat pipes up "Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?". "I'm moving this bag to a luggage rack so I can sit down". "You can't do that. It's my bag and I want it to stay there".

At this point, Old Bat's daughter and granddaughter were both looking at their feet, apparently willing the ground to open up and swallow them. Me: "This is a busy train, I would like to sit down and your bag is taking up two seats". Her: "I don't care. I want it to stay there. (Announcing to the rest of the carriage, by this point) It's not my fault that his @rse is too fat to sit down on that seat".

At this point, I should probably point out that I am 6'1" and barely 13 stone. I could legitimately be accused of many things, but being fat isn't one of them. Old Bat was blessed with, shall we say, a rather ample figure. Savour the irony folks. Especially since the Old Bag's ugly bag-based behemoth had left about 6 inches of seat width between it and the window. An anorexic stick insect with its jaw wired up would have struggled to fit in that seat.

Me: "I'm quite happy to put the bag in the rack for you, I'm not asking you to get up and move it". Old Bat: "No, my bag is staying there". This impasse was finally broken when I got slightly theatrical and growled loudly "Under the conditions of carriage you are not entitled to leave luggage on seats to the exclusion of a fare paying passenger unless you hold a ticket for that seat. Shall I go and get the conductor so he can charge you three extra fares for the seats your bags are currently occupying?".

Old Bat: "Mmmph".

I moved the bag (the Bag's bag...?). She finally shut up. Although every ten minutes all the way to Bath where she mercifully got off, she complained briefly but loudly to anyone in earshot who would listen (i.e. nobody) about the rank injustice of me moving her bag to the luggage rack.

Silly old witch. As an entirely incidental observation, I've never had any grief from shifty-looking yoofs ever. The rude passengers in my experience have always been recalcitrant pensioners. However, I wouldn't seek to make any such coarse generalizations...  ;)

Here endeth the lesson. If you're still reading, well done. A few glasses of wine seem to have made me rather verbose.

As we get older, we seem to get more extreme ... I have read it through / been there.  I could tell a similar story about the pensioners in Paignton who virtually pushed my stepson off the road and almost under the wheels of a lorry ... muttering about "modern youth" who in my view - at the age of 8 or 9 - was walking very nicely with his mother along the road / L and T had already split into single file to get past the pair of pensioners who felt it was their right to sweep along the pavement like a snowplough, brushing aside all in their way.

Written without the benefit of a few glasses of wine, and still steaming years later!

I'll remember that! It could come in useful.... ;D

Well, I'm not 100% sure that it is absolutely, technically true... But it had the desired effect. And I have heard conductors on busy trains threatening to charge passengers an extra fare unless they move their belongings off seats they're blocking.

Suspect it's all in the Accompanied Animals and Articles appendix to the CoC but have neither the time nor the inclination to check right now...

Edit now that I do have the time to check it...


(my emphasis)

So the NRCoC are pretty clear on that point.

If it was done primarily to piss you off, then that seems entirely reasonable to me  :-*

Reminds me of when I was travelling from Bristol Parkway - Swindon. Evening Rush Hour... First Class ticket was most definately the order of the day... :)

Board train to London Padd at Bristol Temple Meads (17:30 Service), Coach F, Train is full and standing... Pax are resorted to standing in the FC vestibules. Elderly Lady gets on (With SC Ticket), Takes a seat opposite me in F... Already annoyed that she didn't select one of the other 3 completely vacant tables...!

Train leaves BRI towards Bath Spa. "Tickets Please" Echoed down the carriage... Show ticket collector my ticket & railcard... all sorted... ;D Checks old ladies ticket:

RPI: "Sorry Madam but this is a standard class ticket, if you want to stay here i'm going to have to charge you the difference"
Old Lady: "Oh, tell be no need for that as there are no seats"
RPI: "I'm sorry about that madam but this is First Class, everyone in here has paid extra to sit here, if you want to stay, your more than welcome , but, your going to have to pay the difference"
Old Lady: "O.K. I'll move, but I want that youth moved as well (Old lady points sharply at me)... If he doesn't then I'm not moving!"
RPI: "I'm sorry Madam, a youth he may be, but he has a First Ticket"

Then went the "In my Day" Speech for about 5 minutes...

RPI: "He has a First Class, there is nothing I can do... I can ask him to move to Coach G or H but other than that, I can't do anything"
Me: "It's no trouble, I'll go down to H ;D"
Old Lady moves...
RPI locates trout in H and sincerly apologises for the pointless arguement that went on for 10 minutes...! >:(

I had to double check who posted this as I thought you were saying the old lady was moved to H!  ;D

Ha... lol... Sorry I didn't explain it very well did I...?? :P I have a habit of doing that...!

No, The old lady was moved to D and I moved to H to get out of a potentially nuclear arguement...! ;D

I think we've all encountered "the old dear" on a train at some point.

I was travelling back from Portsmouth to Bristol on a Sunday evening (reduced to 2 coaches) so a seat with a table was a luxury, which I had specifically reserved in order to get some work done.

When I boarded at Cosham, I quickly found my reserved seat, which surprise surprise was occupied by a huge suitcase with an old dear in the next seat.  I said to her politely "Excuse me, I have this seat reserved".  She just looked at me.  I then said "Would you like me to move your suitcase to the luggage rack".  "NO".  "Fair enough, would you like me to get the guard?"  She then agreed to have the suitcase in the aisle (fortunately there is no trolley service on a Sunday).

When the guard came past to check tickets, the old dear mentioned something about the suitcase.  His response was simply "do you want to buy a ticket for your suitcase?"  Which conveniently shut her up for at least 3 minutes.  Guard didn't bother checking either of our tickets (not entirely sure why?)

Guard was changed at Westbury and the new one wanted ALL tickets for inspection.  I deliberately waited until the guard was very close to get out my ticket to see what the old dear said.  "Bet he doesn't have a ticket" she announced to the guard.  My response "do you have a reservation to sit in that seat?" Having noted that the reservation label was for SOU-SAL she obviously didn't have one.  That shut her up for the rest of the journey!

I'd just like to point out that not all us passengers on that route bring trouble in our wake...

...unless, of course, Brucey encountered The Curse Of The Mother-In-Law (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4773.msg43019#msg43019)  ;D