Page 6 | Sick of train driver just passing me

gypsytrampandthief · 2023-02-25T23:25:10+00:00

Twice this week the driver "hasn't seen me" (despite today standing as close to the track as is reasonably safe and waving) Yesterday morning he didn't stop and I drove to the next station, passing the train, and got to the platform where he had pulled in for a group of teenage female students going to college. I was so furious I spoke to the ticket inspector and explained that this is the second time the driver has gone right by me. For complete transparency, the first time I was looking at my phone and late to wave, but ffs, why else would anyone be standing on an empty platform at 7.10 in the morning! Yesterday I was 100% looking up and arm out. AIBU to think that a dumpy middle aged woman is not as "visible" as a teenage student?

PaperwhiteTheGhost · 26/02/2023 08:15

missb10 · 26/02/2023 01:12

I know about these request stops. There are a couple along the track to North Wales that stops at my very busy town station. You have to ask for them to stop if you want to get off, or wave your hand if you want to get on. There are also some in Cumbria, I don't know where else, but that list posted earlier is not comprehensive. It's not the best of places to be getting on or off a train. Personally I'd hate it.

It's not the best place to be getting on or off a train.

Umm... well it is if that's where you live!!

OP I'm not sure if the driver can see what age you are from the point they'd need to start to brake- not saying that middle age invisibility isn't a thing, just thinking that it takes trains ages to stop as they're heavy so I'm wondering if its more that you were alone in dark clothing? If so I second using your mobile torch and maybe wearing something hi viz

Soontobe60 · 26/02/2023 08:16

Destiny123 · 26/02/2023 08:02

I've had it twice (definitely not a request stop) where the 5.40am train has driven past me, so I've had to run home get my bike and cycle to the next stop asap and still be late for work (anaesthetist), I complained and just got told it's a shame but they had to make up time as late so didn't (it's only the 3rd stop on the schedule n don't really see how it can be that beyond at crazy morning time!

Sounds like a scene from The Railway Children!

EsmeSusanOgg · 26/02/2023 08:17

SpinningFloppa · 25/02/2023 23:28

What? Trains stop at every station? It’s not a bus.

Even in the UK, some rural stops are request only stops. They only stop if someone is at the platform/ getting off.

HarlanPepper · 26/02/2023 08:18

Cantstandbullshitanymore · 26/02/2023 01:05

This will be avoided if OPs provide context rather than limited information then disappear while posters argue back and forth.

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Even given the limited information in the OP, it's clear that the she had an expectation that the train would stop, as it has done every day for her until last week. The fact that it didn't stop, twice, is what has annoyed the OP.

Is it likely that the OP has somehow imagined that she had the power to make the train stop until this week - perhaps some sort of extended psychotic episode? Or is it more likely that request stops are really a thing on some train lines in the UK, despite some MNers being hitherto unaware of this fact.

EsmeSusanOgg · 26/02/2023 08:19

There's a few request stops on the Cardiff to Manchester line operated by TFW.

MargaretThursday · 26/02/2023 08:19

A single person is not going to be as visible as a group and you're admitted the first time you were looking down at your phone, so I don't think you can read anything in to it.

Why don't you just go to the busier station and wait there.

TrishM80 · 26/02/2023 08:21

PriamFarrl · 25/02/2023 23:29

Some very small train stations are request stops. I grew up near a couple. You literally flag the train down, like a bus.

Yeah, but what about people on the train who want to get off at that station? How do they inform the driver?! I've never heard of a stop bell on a train unless I'm wrong!

HarlanPepper · 26/02/2023 08:23

@TrishM80 you ask the guard.

LynetteScavo · 26/02/2023 08:26

My mind is boggling that you can get in your car, overtake a train and be at the next station ready to jump on, having had time to speak to the ticket inspector. Where I live it's would take forever to even find a parking space at a station.

blameless · 26/02/2023 08:29

Destiny123 · 26/02/2023 08:02

I've had it twice (definitely not a request stop) where the 5.40am train has driven past me, so I've had to run home get my bike and cycle to the next stop asap and still be late for work (anaesthetist), I complained and just got told it's a shame but they had to make up time as late so didn't (it's only the 3rd stop on the schedule n don't really see how it can be that beyond at crazy morning time!

@Destiny123 You have my sympathy, thirty years ago, I arrived on the platform at Elephant & Castle overground train station in central London to see the 6:30am already leaving the station. I asked the man who had just waved it off why it had left five minutes early, only to be told that "nobody every catches that train and it gives the driver a better chance of keeping to the timetable".
Bloody passengers, without them the trains would run beautifully.

butterpuffed · 26/02/2023 08:31

I'd have loved to see you , OP, getting back on your bike and pedalling furiously to get to the next station before the train . It sounds like part of a film ! Glad you made it !

Olios · 26/02/2023 08:31

You need to wave a big red flag

ancientgran · 26/02/2023 08:36

Mariposa26 · 25/02/2023 23:51

Why do people automatically assume you’re wrong just because they’ve not heard of something? Infuriating. Anyway YANBU.

Yes, it's quite funny when they are so confidently telling the OP she is wrong. As if she doesn't know she's catching a train.

MsJD · 26/02/2023 08:38

You need those big foam hands that football fans wer.

DdraigGoch · 26/02/2023 08:39

StreamingCervix · 25/02/2023 23:40

You tend to find the request stations are clustered at the more rural point of a journey, so trains will be travelling more slowly before picking up some pace after a certain point in the journey.

I know some stations close to me have a sort of bell button system that you can press to alert the driver that you request a pick up, I’m not sure if it puts a light on ahead of the platform to alert the driver.

I'd be interested to know where that is. I know that Scotrail were implementing a system on the Far North Line where a button on the platform would send a message to the RETB instrument in the cab. I've also travelled to Switzerland and Austria where pressing a button illuminates a flashing light.

DdraigGoch · 26/02/2023 08:43

AdventFridgeOfShame · 25/02/2023 23:56

That list is incomplete. If you want to get a train from Avoncliffe, you have to wave.

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Deganwy shouldn't be on there any more. It's been a booked stop since the December timetable change.

WarningToTheCurious · 26/02/2023 08:45

HarlanPepper · 26/02/2023 08:23

@TrishM80 you ask the guard.

And hope s/he remembers!

xJoy · 26/02/2023 08:46

I'm sure this has been suggested but buy a big white flag. You shouldn't have to but omg I get the invisibility thing.

A bus driver once sailed passed me (only person at the stop) and I was furious, I ran after the bus, pointless and futile and only exhausting myself I know but what do you know, a person in a wheelchair got on at the next stop so by the time he'd lowered the ramp and so on, I'd caught up.

I got on the bus and he looked at me with an OH SHIT expression on his face. He knew he'd been a dickhead sailing past me and he was surprised a middle aged 50 year old had run 800 metres and caught up with his shit. I tapped on and told him that I would be logging it

DdraigGoch · 26/02/2023 08:48

LikeTearsInRain · 26/02/2023 00:06

Never heard of this in my life. What line or area of the country is this?

You get them all over the UK. Very rural areas such as Anglesey, Conwy, Gwynedd, Powys, Pembrokeshire, Cornwall, Devon, the Scottish Highlands, Cumbria, Dorset etc.

BluebellBlueballs · 26/02/2023 08:49

OntarioBagnet · 26/02/2023 07:05

I can beat the train which goes from my local city to Sheffield, so quite a main route. The road is more direct than the train line which seems to take a very bendy route, I guess because it goes via various towns and villages to the train stations there. It’s a 40 mile journey and quicker by car.

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Yeah but OP had to presumably run back to where her car was parked get in, drive to the next station, park get out and get on the platform all in a matter of minutes.

If the train was going that slow that she could do this it surely must have seen her at the first station.

ancientgran · 26/02/2023 08:51

DeathBy1000PipeCleaners · 26/02/2023 07:41

Not just you OP! Since becoming an invisible middle-aged woman, I've noticed the same thing at request bus stops. I once ended up walking into the road to stop a bus after waving my arm did nothing to slow it down. The driver shouted at me; I shouted at him that he should stop if someone sticks their arm out. As well as becoming invisible, I've also become capable of shouting at people, when needed, and overall I think I prefer it to being young and worth stopping a bus for :)

You can live in hope. I've gone past the invisible stage and got to the stage of people being nice because they think you're like their granny. I get more offers of help with bags or suitcases now than I did as a teenager in mini skirts in the 60s. Well there has to be something positive about aging.

There's also people letting you go in front of them in a queue, I assume they don't want me having a heart attack and falling on them as I did.

Strangely it is nearly always young men, women obviously don't care as much about their grannies.

ancientgran · 26/02/2023 08:54

LynetteScavo · 26/02/2023 08:26

My mind is boggling that you can get in your car, overtake a train and be at the next station ready to jump on, having had time to speak to the ticket inspector. Where I live it's would take forever to even find a parking space at a station.

Sometimes the slow local trains have to pull off the main line to let fast trains through. It can cause quite a hold up as it isn't everywhere that there is somewhere they can do this so you might have to sit there for ten minutes. Don't know if that is the case for OP but it has happened to me several times.

Aprilx · 26/02/2023 08:58

SuperCallousedFragileMystic · 25/02/2023 23:32

Why is it some MNetters can never grasp the concept that not everywhere does things the same? This entire thread will now go off on a tangent of ‘well that doesn’t happen here’.

Meanwhile OP, YANBU. Invisibility seems to be a common side effect of becoming a middle aged woman.

Perhaps they have just never heard of this before. I am in my 50s and until this thread had truly never heard of request stops for trains, even though I am aware that “not everywhere does things the same”.

ProfYaffle · 26/02/2023 08:58

YYY to the invisibility of middle age. I was only complaining about this to dh the other day when a barman (middle aged himself) resolutely and inexplicably couldn't see me when I was the only person at the bar and standing right in front of him.

What did the ticket inspector say when you complained? I'd put something in writing to the company.

bigbluebus · 26/02/2023 08:58

I love how all these people don't believe you have to flag down a train. I've lived in village with a request stop for 30 years. When I first moved here I had to do a placement in a city office for 4 weeks. The easiest way to get there was by train. I still remember telling the chap I was sitting opposite about the request stop and him laughing so much he nearly fell off his chair.

In all the years I've lived here I've never had a train not stop for me at the station - although it can be a little worrying when the guard doesn't come round on the homeward journey and you're left wondering if the train will stop at your station.
The train did stop once for DH who was on the platform waiting for our nephew to arrive (who it turned out wasn't on the train and had a flat battery on his phone so couldn't be contacted). We also had DS's girlfriend in a total panic the 1st time she came to visit. She knew she had to tell the guard she wanted to get off. The train actually stopped at the station. But the poor girl stood waiting for the doors to open, not realising she had to push the button (there's always a delay whilst the guard unlocks at the main panel). Consequently I think the guard must have assumed she'd changed her mind and the train pulled out of the station with GF still on it. She had no idea how far it was to the next station as she'd only looked for details as far as ours! Fortunately it was only 5 miles away and DS was able to tell her (she rang in a panic) he'd be there in 10 mins to pick her up.

Anyway OP, I'd send a complaint letter to the train company. They'll have CCTV on the platform so will be able to investigate.