Drinking on the Saturday night train?

[Trainbrainpain]

Just took a train home. Absolutely crammed 3 hour journey north. It seems that Saturday night trains have just become a giant travelling pub. Loads of drunk stumbling men (football fans) with bags and bags of alcohol and takeaway food.
People vaping, playing music on speakers, shouting in the aisles , arguing, singing, and everything else you’d expect from a crowded pub on a Saturday night.
But really not a safe or pleasant situation for the families with young children , or people just wanting to travel in peace.
For the price of the ticket, aibu to expect a more regulated experience? I wish they’d ban alcohol consumption on trains.

Whist to some degree it’s expected yes, I don’t like it. A few times I’ve gotten trains to a local town and forgotten that it’s a march day. Those journeys are always awful. Last time the train was absolutely packed and more and more loud drunk men kept trying to pile on. I would have expected staff to intervene, but no.

Not just night trains. Happened in the middle of the afternoon going from York to Scarborough a few years ago

The last train back to home from London when I was a teenager was affectionately called the vomit comet. That was 20 years ago, so I don't think this is new or surprising!

Banning alcohol is not the answer.
Banning prissy karens with kids might be.

Was coming on to say this!! Have had some fabulous times on that journey.

Not so much in Glasgow itself though which is really grim 😬

Thank goodness alcohol is now banned on the London Underground.

Sounds about right. If I’m setting a date for something that requires train travel to London, I always check the football fixtures first - if any of my city’s teams are playing in London, I avoid that weekend, or pay a little extra for first class if it’s not too unreasonable.

Its not new at all but I loathe it. Find it intimidating and irritating in equal measure.

Hate the menace and entitlement of drunk men at the best of times. Hate being in an enclosed space where you can’t get out, being made to feel like a killjoy because I don’t want some pissed up arsehole yelling football songs in my ear. Being made to feel boring for wanting to read a book or listen to music.

I can’t think of an obvious solution: drunk men gonna drunk men. But I do avoid like the plague.

I once got the first train to London from Cumbria on a Saturday which leaves at 6.40am. There was a group of guys already on the beers who must have got on in Glasgow where the train starts at 4.40am. They weren't actually very disruptive but I did wonder how the rest of their day went when we arrived at Euston...

I was not travelling with kids fyi, many people were as it was 7pm so not particularly late.
otherwise, odd comment.

Very rude & misogynist comment.

Love a party train EXCEPT when it's one with football fans.

So many fond memories of the Shoreditch to New Cross party line, and love to see that it's still the same now as the overground.

Yeah, I went to a bar or a club, I didn't expect public transport to be the party venue. Why should peopel have to cut short their plans cos you want to party on a train?

Yanbu op. I come back from Liverpool late o na Saturday occasionally and just accept that it's gonna be full of drunk men. It's normally good natured but it only takes ones idiot, and I'm quite good at ignoring it all with my head in a book. But then I'm mid 40s and overweight so I don't get hit on thank god. I wouldn't want to be 20 years younger and hotter and shyer.

But it isn't just Sat night. If we time our holiday wrong, the train to Chester Races is the same, any train even going TO the footie so any time of day is the same.

Just drink at home and then when you get there.

So it's ok if my husband objects to drunkards swearing and shouting all over the train, stumbling about into tables, and middle aged drunk women coming on to young lads? But if women don't like it, we're the the problem?
. If you can't control your drinking, you are the problem. If you choose to be anti, you are the problem. See a theme?

I get it, it’s annoying. But the trains sell alcohol so it’s not banned. The vapes you should report as they can be arrested.

I no longer drink at all and it really highlights the issues this nation has with drunkenness and alcohol. It’s disgusting.

No, it really isn't. I've never caught a train full of commuters shouting, swearing, forcing their unwanted attention on women, vomiting, using the vestibule as a urinal, playing their crappy music at top volume and bellowing raucous and often sexist/racist chants. People who moan about commuter trains being busy are unreasonably moaning about the existence of other people on the train. People moaning about the Saturday trains are reasonably complaining about the behaviour of other people on the train.

I don’t think it should be banned but I do think there should be a presence of conductors or similar on the train. Just do that people know it isn’t entirely “anything goes”. Someone with a direct quick line to police at the next station if anyone kicks off or is aggressive.

I think that’s the issue - the potential for people to turn aggressive and nothing you can do about it.

I enjoy those trains. The sports fans have always amused my DS10.

This sort of thing has become normalised as evidenced by many of the comments on here. It shouldn’t be but trains and town centres have been surrendered to drunks. Was in Lisbon last year lots of people out and about late at night having a great time. No drunks, no violence, lovely safe atmosphere for everybody. We’ve lost it here and it’s never coming back.

And when those conductors are harmed by the drunken louts shouting and being rowdy? What then? Banning alcohol at least removes some of the risk

Which is lovely if the entertainment you chose for your primary aged child is profanity, the potential for violence and sexual harassment I guess 🙄🤨

Except it doesn't cos how do yo u think you'll enforce tvat ban? You'll need conductors on the train doors refusing entry to people or removing alcohol once on the train or removing people from the train

Part of the reason I love holidays abroad is that you can go out late without dealing with antisocial behaviour. I don't want to be tucked up in bed at 9:30 because I want to be out myself - I just don't want to deal with screeching, yelling and threatening, intrusive behaviour.

The comments on here prove your last point. It's all seen as part of the 'fun', despite the fact it's fun that excludes a lot of us.

Having been humiliated and threatened by a group of drunk men on a train years ago, I'm not really seeing the 'jollity'.

I don’t entirely disagree with you but I wouldn’t pick Lisbon as my utopia either. Endless stag parties and offered drugs more times than I ever have in the UK on both occasions I’ve been and I’m pretty sure I don’t look the type.

Perhaps I’m not so relaxed about this because I lived for years in European countries where there wasn’t a real binge drinking culture , nor one of putting children away at 6pm. I really valued and miss the quality of life which allowed family meals late at night, or to use public services freely without having to worry about my safety as a female travelling alone. I don’t equate socialising with having to be heavily drunk, so I don’t understand the assumptions on this thread that because I don’t want to join in with a load of slobbering men , I must be unsociable? I just think if your intention is to get ridiculously drunk, go to a bar or club , and when you’ve finished, take the train home by all means, but without bringing your booze with you.