Great Western Coffee Shop

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3178507/The-perils-summertime-drinking-Six-million-people-year-miss-train-home-quarter-sleeping-railway-platforms-using-office-hotel-night.html


So what are the figures for our group?   Please complete the poll - this one is just for fun - I think.  But I suppose it might turn out to be revealing.

Slept passed your station & had to get a cab home from depot/last stop?

Yup, in my student days on the milk/paper train

Missed the last train home, Friday 26th June 2015. Work outing. Fortunately I was with 3 colleagues and we shared a taxi that came in at ^30 between us rather than ^4 each for a single train ticket. As we missed the last train we stayed out even later and ended in a nightclub!

In all my years of train travel (far too many!) I've only ever fallen asleep on the train and missed my station - this was in my morning journey from Reading to Reigate. I awoke and thought "why don't I recognise this scenery when I have done this journey about 200 times before?"...maybe because this was the stretch between Reigate an Redhill..

Out of curiosity in such a case should I have tracked down the TM and asked for an excess between Reigate an Redhill?

Just a few days ago I confidently boarded the train arriving from Avonmouth on Platform 1 at Temple Meads and took my seat. Someone got on shortly after me and asked if this train went to Parkway. 'Yes', said one of the other passengers, with some confidence; 'No' said I, equally confidently, 'it's a different line'. At that point the driver got on, so we asked him: Oops! The train was going to Great Malvern. Meekly, and with apologies for any confusion I may have caused, I got off - and watched as my train left from Platform 5.

The really stupid and embarrassing facts are that:
a) I do know that Platform 1 is used by other services;
b) I do know that Severn Beach trains often leave from Platform 5;
c) I had checked the departure board which clearly said my train was leaving from Platform 5.

I did once end up in a depot, though not through falling asleep. I was heading to Hereford from Reading in the front of a 5/6 car turbo, we departed Oxford and ended up in the siding and we assumed that for some reason we were being held to allow an XC to overtake us. A few minutes later the driver came through and was puzzled to see us, asking why we hadn't got off at Oxford whilst we were just as puzzled as to why he was asking us that. Turns out the station staff at Oxford were suppose to turf us out on to the rear 3 coaches but must have missed our coach. By these days the driver could no longer walk the 2 of us back to the station under safety laws and therefore had to arrange with the signallers to route the train back into the Bicester platform to let us off before heading back to the sidings again. Needless to say I never did make it to Hereford.

What about being on the last train home and missing your stop?

Done that in the recent past. It's not much fun being woken by cleaners, looking out the window and realising that platform you see isn't P3 at Bristol Temple Meads, but P8 at Birmingham New St.

Hotel for the night and throwing myself on the mercy of CrossCountry the following morning. Thankfully they passed me back to Bristol TM without me needing to buy another ticket.

My own 'Something else not listed' moment of embarrassment has appeared elsewhere (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=6742.msg67229#msg67229) on this forum.  I took some comfort then from subsequent posts, which reassured me that I was not alone in having such inattention to detail ...  :P ::) :o

Summer 2001.....been on a "headwetting" expedition around Baker St and was working in Stevenage at the time so headed back to Kings X around 10pm...........woke up in a silent, pitch black carriage in some sidings near Peterborough around 0130.......having extricated myself I finally got back to Stevenage around 0600 having been offered a lift in the cab of a freight train but finally got the first Peterborough-London service and damn near fell asleep on that one too!  :-[

Ummm. Certainly missed the last train home once or twice. Also got on the wrong train, eg Stapleton Rd to Filton AW when I really wanted the Avonmouth train. And I once almost had a stupid argument with another passenger because I was adamant I had reserved that seat, it said on my ticket, look! Oh, no, it's that number but carriage C ^ the A is meant to indicate "airline style seating" not the carriage. (Why do we even need to have this on the ticket? And, FTR, I'm not really bothered about sitting in a seat I've reserved, unless, perhaps, the alternative is standing ^ which it wasn't.)

But I've never slept at a station or been sick on a train (or station).

I also have an example of someone laying claim to a seat that they hadn't in fact reserved - posted previously on the Coffee Shop forum, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3616.msg27969#msg27969  ;) :D ;D