Great Western Coffee Shop

Tonight had the misfortune of being on the delayed 1930 picadily to cardiff service which was a two car 158.  At Crewe a possee of drunken liverpool fans got on.

Queue anti social singing, throwing of beer cans around the train, and generally unruly behaviour.  I complained to the TM who basically said there was nothing she could do but call BTP at Shrewsbury but they may or may not o anything - I had to hunt her out in the cab.

On my way back to the front car one of the "Fans" started singing in my face as I walked past so I lost it and yelled words to the effect of "shut the ****** up you ******  drunken morons some people are trying to think".

Queue half an hour of abuse all the way to shrewsbury.  Called fat, a lesbian (not that there is anything wrong with that if thats what floats your boat in case of causing offence), - and numerous insults I cant even type because it would all be ******* so no onw woud know what I meant.

Needless to say, nothing happened at Shrewsbury - change of TM.  Abuse got worse - drunks started a conga in the aisle - nearly broke my laptop when one fell on it.  Mentioned behaviour to new TM who at least came out of his cab.  Got basically told "I'd brought it on myself and should have just moved to the other car like the rest of the passengers had".

Why should I have............they should not have been allowed on at Crewe since they staggering on the platform.

Note - the repeated only sensible accusation what they'd paid the same as me so could enjoy themselves as much as I wanted at least the opportunity to think

And..I know I'm going to have to run a gauntlet of them taking the piss when I get off at Ludlow

Well I survived the gauntlet at Ludlow but I don't think passengers should be put in that situation.  A choice of:

a. drunken yobs

or

b. an over crowded carriage with no room to work because everyone had taken refuge

Bring back Foot-Ex's and get all the scum you had to endure tonight, FA, on their own segregated and policed trains.

Yes, it's probably a minority of a club's fans that act like this, but put them together in club organised transport with the genuine fans who cause no bother and you'll soon see the problem sorted.

Does that sound a bit too 'Richard Littlejohn'?

Don't get me wrong - I have been a season ticket holder at Everton for 30 years, an ever present at home games for 15 and went to most away games for 10 - I understand football fans.  I am one - but if I ever get into that mode I'm usually on the supporters bus so it doesnt affect anyone else.

And I don't actually call for foot-exes -and in this case it would not have helped.  Liverpool vs Bolton but some fans returning to Hereford?  No foot ex there

What  I do think is that there should be some policing of that behaviour.  I'm thick skinned what they called me didnt bother me.  But I recorded it on my iphone (ha ha) and I will call BTP tomorrow (they wont do anything I know) - I played it to my mother (who burst into tears because she couldnt believe I put up with it) and my other half (and he knows I can give as good as I get but even he was shocked).

My vocabulary has been widened n a bad way and my respect for arriva guards has gone down hill

Ah, it's now clear you were dealing with ex-pat fans. A whole different kettle of fish.

No

If they had been everton fans behaving the same I would have just told them they were embarrassing  me and other fans!

ok- I may have been able to play to their fan side but only because I am one

ANY group (remove football from the equation) cannot behave like that

By ludlow there was me and one other couple who had ipods on who remained in the carriage - 80% of seats free - every one else in the rear carriage - 100% seat occupancy


not right

No, FallenAngel, it's not right.  >:(

Seriously: make a formal complaint to Arriva - http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/Contact_Us3.aspx - because if nobody reports such incidents, nothing will be done about them.

Just tell the yobs to shut the f*** up!

Then make a formal complaint to Arriva, as it is clear they didn't take the appropriate action to deal with the yobs. >:(

I would have phoned police myself and/or pulled passcom at a station if on my train !!

I'm with Chris on this one. A formal complaint explaining that it's not in Arriva's interests that passengers would prefer to travel by car so as to avoid these type of passengers. That hurts their revenue, always a more important issue than mere passenger or staff welfare. If you don't get anything positive back from them within 48 hours, then I'd've thought that your next call was to your local paper.

A while ago I had recourse to 'phone the BTP from Digby & Sowton station to report vandalism 'in progress' (a small group of local scrotes got off the same train as me and started trying to dismantle the waiting shelter). The BTP called me back the following day, admitted they had not responded because it was a busy Friday night, and advised that in future I should call the national police if it was obvious they (the BTP) would not be able to attend.
My question is: could you call the national police and expect them to turn up at the next stop to deal with drunk/disorderly behaviour on a train, which is after all still a public place, in the absence of the BTP ?

Assuming you mean the local civvie plod the answer is yes and they're a lot less fluffy than the BTP. The one occasion I had to call them in my ScotRail days it was bags off, scrotes off and then bye bye. By that point with the BTP they'd have just got round to a bit of a telling off.

This is a tricky one, in my opinion. Of course as a passenger you'd like to see the guard come sweeping through the train, dealing swiftly and decisively with the nuisance to restore law and order. However, in the real world the guard really doesn't have much ammunition (literal or metaphorical) at their disposal to deal with a significant number of unruly passengers. I honestly don't know how I would have handled that situation in their position: it's always nice to think that we'd have the guts to stand up to the anti-social passengers but remember that that also has the potential to leave you open to all kinds of abuse, verbal or physical (as you found out, FA).

On the other hand, it does seem strange that neither apparently attempted to summon BTP or county police to meet the train at a station en route - even if BTP weren't available, as has been said above, the country constabulary should be able to assist. The guard could also simply refuse to work the train forward, although depending on the back-up that's actually available to them that course of action could simply exacerbate the problem. Or course this will to delay the service but I would hope in that situation that safety-critical staff would not be penalized for making that kind of judgement call.

I think the problem was - until requested to shut up, they were just very noisy and boisterous and apparently harmless.

I got the impression they thought I was out of order for wanting them to "shut the f**k up" and wanting to be able to think on a train on a saturday night was unreasonable.

To be fair, until I did yell at them to shut up they were just noisy and throwing beer cans around and probably not harming anyone other than being "loud, uncouth and generally obnoxius "- maybe I am being a bit too exacting  in my expectations and maybe I'm a closet snob with no ability to have fun.


It was AFTER I told them to shut up that they got abusive to me and I think that was why the guard from Shrewsbury thought I'd brought it on myself.
 

Basically, to echo inspector_blakey's points: That's probably the reason why the lonesome train crew didn't want to get involved themselves, and why Btline's brave 'tell them to shut the f*** up' would probably have not happened had he been on the train on his own - or he'd have risked ending up on the wrong end of a punch up - as a woman you would more likely just get the verbals than the physicals!  It's a sad thing to say, but it's sometimes better to just put up with it at the time and report it after the event.

You'd have thought in this day and age the BTP could arrange for whatever regional constabulary was relevant to attend, without you having to do all the legwork yourselves!