Do people really believe thousands of people ran to the station without a pre-booked ticket yesterday as soon as they heard about the new restrictions?

[Tellmetruth4]

Just that really. I keep seeing pictures on the news of busy London train stations yesterday. Does anyone truly believe that after hearing the news at 4pm, people managed to pack all of their stuff, turn up to the station without a ticket and find accommodation on the last Saturday before Christmas? Or do they think the people at the train station booked it some time ago to leave and stay with family after finishing work on Friday?

YABU - Yes they ‘fled’ when they heard the news
YANBU- No they’d booked trains when they thought households were allowed to mix and the news and government are trying to make it look like these people on trains yesterday were trying to get around the new rules.

I’m more perturbed by the moralising frothing going on about what is human nature. Understand the defence southerners are making about it not being them and northerners going back home. I’m a London based person from the north heading back myself. For the foreseeable too rather than a quick Christmas visit. This new strain will already be everywhere by now given it’s been circulating for at least a month

I haven’t brought my plans forward off the back of the new announcement. I had made them before and didn’t see the point of rushing to clear an arbitrary date. Just makes things worse with people cramming. It’s the same as when a lockdown ends and there are huge queues to get into somewhere shit like Primark. Why? Leave it a day and it will be less mad but in the meantime you’ve infected each other in the ridiculous queue and then from there well beyond

It was not legal unless it was an essential journey as London was in tier 3 yesterday.
I don't think any of them cared , but yeah your right it's no more legal today than yesterday .
Not sure what logic they were applying , perhaps they thought that they would be stopped if they left it to today , but I doubt that would be able to be policed .
People are odd what goes through their heads .
A friend of mine travelled from tier 3 to tier 2 last night for a night out she didn't even know it wasn't allowed .
A colleague of mine was having a get together with a few friends she claims she didn't know it wasn't allowed. It's not been allowed since the summer where we live . It's baffling!

@Tellmetruth4

Anyone who thinks you can just rock up to a London train station as a family to buy long distance train tickets on the last weekend before Christmas without selling a kidney or taking out a second mortgage (that’s if you can even get a ticket let alone more than one) have never tried.

The pictures I saw looked like 20 somethings going home to their parents. They would’ve booked them in advance.

Stop falling for this divide and rule BS. Ordinary people who live in London with their families did not decide to ‘flee’ from their homes after Boris’s announcement to spread mutant Covid around the North.

A year ago I would've agreed with you but people have behaved very strangely this year . But you are right to question it .

If people finished work on Friday for Christmas why would so many be travelling home on Saturday night? Wouldn't people go home Friday night or during the day on Saturday?

Anyone who thinks you can just rock up to a London train station as a family to buy long distance train tickets on the last weekend before Christmas without selling a kidney or taking out a second mortgage (that’s if you can even get a ticket let alone more than one) have never tried. I read somewhere that people were buying tickets on line and they were all sold out by 6 or 7 pm. Surely all the Christmas travelling was due to happen on the 23rd?

@Tellmetruth4

Anyone who thinks you can just rock up to a London train station as a family to buy long distance train tickets on the last weekend before Christmas without selling a kidney or taking out a second mortgage (that’s if you can even get a ticket let alone more than one) have never tried.

The pictures I saw looked like 20 somethings going home to their parents. They would’ve booked them in advance.

Stop falling for this divide and rule BS. Ordinary people who live in London with their families did not decide to ‘flee’ from their homes after Boris’s announcement to spread mutant Covid around the North.

I only know one person who did it and she did it because she lives in London, was supposed to be going to her parents in the north on Wednesday. Bought a ticket yesterday and got the hell out of Dodge. I don't see why it's so unbelievable. It's also happening in Italy which has announced similar measures. My two nephews were due home on Tuesday, they flew home yesterday instead. It happened in Italy when the lockdown on 9/3 was leaked to the media on the 7th. It's understandably what people do.

I think the majority had probably pre-booked, decided to go despite tier 4 at midnight and don't give a shit if they are taking the mutated virus with them all over the country as long as they get to enjoy their christmas.

It was probably a mixture of both, plus people who had visited central London for the day and people who needed to travel via a London main line station.

What it wasn't was families going to second homes because they don't tend to travel on crowded trains, and most people don't have a second home.

Perhaps some of these people should have been travelling within the 5 day window, but encouraging everyone to travel on the 23rd and 27th wasn't a great idea either.

Im sure lots of them did have tickets. But my employer has an office in London and I know that so far out of the 9 staff 4 are working from "home" from tomorrow after last minute travelling last night to stay with parents and family outside London. They are only due to finish work 24th and this was not pre-planned (unsure if they planned to go on 24th or not). I expect more will email tonight and tomorrow to say they left, but so far I know of 4.

@Glamflimfloogety

I'm also getting sick of them being referred to as "Londoners" on SM and in the media. If they are able to flee to elsewhere, they aren't Londoners, as by definition they are returning to what they consider home.

Actual Londoners, the ones that grew up here, and their whole families still live in London are still here as we have nowhere else to go. So it's not "Londoners" being selfish and spreading it, it's northerners returning home - and a very few rich wankers escaping to second homes. Either way, not true Londoners!

You don't get to define what a true Londoner is.

How will they get back in the new year? If we r still tier 4 they can't travel TO us. How will their employers react. I have UK go into work Tuesday & Thursday this week and next no running away for me, selfish people

@Binglebong

A lot of people work monday - Friday and stay over for that so they would be hoping home as usual then.

On a Saturday evening?

@Tellmetruth4

Anyone who thinks you can just rock up to a London train station as a family to buy long distance train tickets on the last weekend before Christmas without selling a kidney or taking out a second mortgage (that’s if you can even get a ticket let alone more than one) have never tried.

The pictures I saw looked like 20 somethings going home to their parents. They would’ve booked them in advance.

Stop falling for this divide and rule BS. Ordinary people who live in London with their families did not decide to ‘flee’ from their homes after Boris’s announcement to spread mutant Covid around the North.

Are you serious?!. I live in the Midlands and have bought a ticket at the station on a Saturday evening many times. It costs a bit more than booking in advance but certainly not a huge fortune. You are a bit naïve if you think no one can afford it! There are a lot more people in the pictures than I normally see on a Saturday even pre-Covid too.

You don't get to define what a true Londoner is.

No - but somebody going back home to Leeds isn’t ‘not a northerner’ either.

[quote Glamflimfloogety]@Hopeisnotastrategy

There's already another thread on here blaming Londoners and southerners for spreading the new strain up north -www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4111277-Mass-evacuation-of-London?pg=1

So not that ridiculous really?

The only people spreading it up north, are people going back home. Southerners haven't suddenly hopped on a train just to cough on a few northerners. Neither have they gone up north with nowhere to spend Christmas.[/quote]
@Glamflimfloogety

I hadn't seen that, but it's irrelevant. You seriously think the best way to deal with ridiculous assertions is to fire equally ridiculous ones back in the opposite direction?

You might want to rethink that.

The truth will lie somewhere in between..

A lot of people may have finished work Friday as people have not be able to use holiday so easily as many were cancelled, unless you have to use it for childcare of course So they may have had tickets

I don't understand the rush. You can't go inside someone else's home in either tiers 2,3 or 4 so it makes no sense to me why people thought they had to leave last night while they 'could' and before it 'wasn't allowed' - for Londoners it has been illegal since October?

I get why people have broken the rules (I don't agree with it and it makes me so angry but I get it). I just think they might as well have broken them at their leisure and spread out rather than rush in cramped conditions to do something that was equally illegal yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The pictures I saw looked like 20 somethings going home to their parents. They would’ve booked them in advance.

I never bothered to get an advanced ticket when travelling home from London in my 20s. If you depart before 4.30pm or after 7pm then it’s off peak anyway. You’re not talking about poor students but young, working people with jobs and money.

Doesn’t make any difference when/if they booked tickets, they are all a bunch of selfish idiots.

In a similar vein I’ve noticed we’re on the naughty list regarding our European neighbours with flight bans being enacted. As if it started in Kent, the closest place in the UK to Continental Europe.

I know a couple of students who were planning on staying in London until early next week but left yesterday instead.

It's not a choice I would have made in my 20s but understand why those who live in flat shares and alone may have decided to go and spend it with their families (I'm a nurse anyway so would have been working over Christmas anyway so it's not a position I would have been in).

Not by train but yes some will have left by car anticipating the lock down.

Not solely by train I should say

I know someone who was on that train. Their ticket had been pre-booked with socially distanced seat for days. They had isolated the whole week before they went to the station, left their student rented room, and then they didn't know what to do. The train should have been 8 carriages but was reduced to 5. They are now self isolating, and absolutely miserable.

They could have gone back, I suppose, but they had outstayed their welcome with the landlady to self isolate, builders were coming in as soon as they were gone. It was a very difficult situation.