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 breaking the rules at my leisure though but if I had have booked the Friday would look like one of the panic leavers, even if planned ages in advance. I’m moving home because I expect a very very long lockdown ahead nationally. You’re allowed to move home I think

@TimeFlysWhenYoureHavingRum

Either way, London is a city of 7 million people. This was a tiny minority in the grand scheme of things. The media is whipping up a North / South divide narrative and its not helpful.

Absolutely.

Do most people usually finish work a week before Christmas then?

Probably not. But if you work non essential retail, leisure or hospitality you had a sudden holiday.

So if you have family outside of London, SE Kent way etc and could travel to them rather than stay alone in a flat share I presume you would.

That's not to say I think it's a good idea and it's probably caused a lot of damage. But no one was breaking the rules.

Happily, they wouldn't have been on GWR trains to Penzance because they ran a restricted schedule. Too few staff to staff the full timetable. COVID in the network.

That's not to say I think it's a good idea and it's probably caused a lot of damage. But no one was breaking the rules.

Unless they are travelling from tier 1 to tier 1 they probably were breaking the rules as nobody in tier 2 or 3 is allowed to mix households indoors, so when they arrived at were going they weren't supposed to go inside their Xmas host's house until Xmas day.

I have no doubt some folks took off early from london who already had plans. I think given the massive increase in positive cases which I have seen myself at my DC schools it’s disappointing that people don’t understand that traveling between tiers is spreading the virus across different regions. We know there are now a large number of mutations too. There are those that are asymptomatic too.

Where I live in London I don’t know of anyone who is still traveling, my best friend had to cancel her plans to travel up north and she lives alone. She was due to travel tomorrow. Those that have travelled early are selfish and this behaviour will lead to further spikes and lockdowns

If public transport is your only option and that is about to be stopped or restricted for an unknown period of time potentially leaving you stranded/alone/nowhere to stay then I think you would be tempted to flee whilst you can.

A bit different but I was in London for a weekend when Storm Ciara hit one Sunday in February this year. Believe me when I heard that they were cancelling trains and buses I got to the station as soon as I could and got an earlier train whilst I could rather than find myself stuck a few hundred miles from home with no option than to find an overpriced hotel miles from the station (I was checking on my phone and anything under a couple of hundred pounds was already booked). The station was chaos, the train was overcrowded but my priority was to get home.

@Glamflimfloogety I realise that last response may come across as a little harsh, though I stand by the sentiment, so let me add to it.

As it happens, I was in Spain during their lockdown which started back in March. That was a lockdown far harsher than anything the UK has experienced so far, and lasted several months. It was an experience that will stay with me and my husband forever. Hospitals in Madrid and Catalonia were overwhelmed , with people of all ages lying dying in corridors, and older people being taken off ventilators to give a younger person a chance. Thankfully the UK has never experienced that level of stress on the system so far, and with the vaccine I trust we never will. (Bergamo in Italy was similarly affected.) Luckily the UK had a bit longer to prepare.

One of the things we experienced at the very start was when the schools in Madrid were closed due to the virus. Instead of staying at home many Madrid people (who mainly live in apartments) took this as a signal to go on holiday and fled to the coast.When they got there, instead of lying low and amusing themselves they wandered through the towns and the shops. They even turned up at the Town Hall demanding to know what activities they were laying on for their children. The worse case I heard of was an 87 year old man who was diagnosed positive in Madrid, who then took a train all the way down to the La Manga Club in Murcia to his second home there. When he got there he went to the supermarket and the bank. By the next morning he was in hospital taking up a precious ICU bed in that largely rural province. The local mayor put Murcia into lockdown two days earlier than the rest of Spain as a result of this, sealing its borders, and the police went from door to door, turfing them out and sending them back to Madrid. .

It happens, and it will have happened here.

Similarly there will have been a larger than usual number of others in London who elected to leave early and get home sooner for Christmas. It all adds up to very dangerous conditions on the train and an inevitable spread of the new variant into the rest of the country. It will happen eventually anyway, but if it could happen more slowly while the vaccine is rolled out, that would be massively helpful. It's really not good.☹️

Seeing at is was Saturday night, what on earth has "traveling after finishing work on Friday" got to do with it.

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.

Are you buying your last-minute ticket at your Midlands station? It costs a fortune to buy a ticket from London at the station to go out of London than to do it in reverse.

Luckily, my adult daughter had booked her train for Friday night, so she squeaked out the day before the announcement.

Anyway, to answer the OP, how is anyone to know when the Daily Mail prints offensive rubbish likening it to "the last days of Saigon"?

They completely contradict themselves too:- look at the difference between their opening lines, and then the descriptions of an eyewitness IN THE SAME ARTICLE :

'Mass exodus likened to the 'last train from Saigon' sees desperate families flee London ahead of Tier 4 misery – as PM's critics mockingly congratulate him for causing the city's 'first evacuation since 1939'

(...)

Miss Wood, who was travelling to her parents' home in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, with her brother and her boyfriend, said the station was 'surprisingly socially distanced but very sombre'. 'Everyone is just looking up at the screens quite longingly,' she added.
'It's not panicked at all – it's very calm.'

FFS

@BlueCheckedTeatowel

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.

Why do they have to tell their employers where they are working from, as long as they are fully online during their contracted hours?

I know so many people who bolted from London by train and car so don’t find it hard to believe at all

Unless they are travelling from tier 1 to tier 1 they probably were breaking the rules as nobody in tier 2 or 3 is allowed to mix households indoors, so when they arrived at were going they weren't supposed to go inside their Xmas host's house until Xmas day.

I thought single adults could form a support bubble? Is that not the grounds on which a young person would go to stay with their parents?

At this point I believe lots of selfish bell ends will do anything to bend the rules for their gain as they think they're somehow special.

I assumed most of these people were heading “home” so there was no need to find accommodation.

Whatever the reason they travelled, its done now. I dont like the North/South divide. We are all in this together at the end of the day.

@RichardMarxisinnocent

That's not to say I think it's a good idea and it's probably caused a lot of damage. But no one was breaking the rules.

Unless they are travelling from tier 1 to tier 1 they probably were breaking the rules as nobody in tier 2 or 3 is allowed to mix households indoors, so when they arrived at were going they weren't supposed to go inside their Xmas host's house until Xmas day.

If it's as reported lots of single adults or travelling to a sole adult household it's still within what's allowed.

Still very worried about consequences though

@CheetasOnFajitas

Unless they are travelling from tier 1 to tier 1 they probably were breaking the rules as nobody in tier 2 or 3 is allowed to mix households indoors, so when they arrived at were going they weren't supposed to go inside their Xmas host's house until Xmas day.

I thought single adults could form a support bubble? Is that not the grounds on which a young person would go to stay with their parents?

Think many looked like students and single people who are legitimately allowed to join another household as long as they stay put at their destination and there's only one extra person bubbling

@FoxyTheFox

When large parts of Northern England first went into tier 3 I remember reading comments on here about selfish Northerners spreading it around, stupid Northerners not sticking to the rules, and bitter Northerners whinging about the consequences of such.

Agreed.

Now it’s those stupid bloody southerners spreading their mutant virus around.

Well....yeah, I think a lot of people have done that

You can buy tickets at the station. People have plans to stay with family, and lots of people that are WFH can just pick and go.

Of course lots of people can’t. But London is the capital of England - there’s a lot of people there!

They were (happily) not on GWR to Penzanze which was running a very restricted service yesterday because of Covid related staff shortages.

It doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks because up until midnight on Saturday it was still legal to travel.

It doesn't matter where you think it was morally right or not because this strain of virus has been around since September! So since September you ahould also be blaming anyone travelling into and out of London and the Southeast.

Honestly threads like these are pointless.

Start a thread if its people fleeing London after Tier 4 started otherwise pipe down they didn't do anything illegal.

Oh and if London and the Southeast come out of Tier 4 first is that what you want us to tell you northerners - don't come down South.

I don't think the rail companies should be allowed to sell more tickets than is sufficient to ensure proper social distancing, like sports grounds and theatres have had to.

@XingMing

They were (happily) not on GWR to Penzanze which was running a very restricted service yesterday because of Covid related staff shortages.

That's the service we would ordinarily be taking. It's always chaotic from about the afternoon of the 15th and whilst everybody is waiting to be let through the gates at Paddington, it looks as though there are thousands waiting when there really isn't.