Idiots piling onto packed trains out of London

[User158340]

By doing this they're putting whatever family or friends they're staying with at huge risk, not to mention the wider communities.

Also, the mindset of "it's within the rules because it's not midnight yet". It's not within the rules to breach social distancing. For goodness sake the trains are still running tomorrow so if you're going to break or bend the rules do it then when you won't be stood on a carriage with scores of other people.

We're in tier 2. Elderly friend who is on her own has son living in shared accommodation in London. Works in hospitality so now likely to be on furlough for however long. He had a train ticket booked for 9 am tomorrow.

What would you do in those circumstances? Stay in one room, with no work or friends nearby for the foreseeable future? Or try and get home to your elderly parent where you could support each other?

So easy to judge when it isn't you.

Am sick to death with this abject flailing of arms in the air, it's no ones business and Christmas is nigh. My in-laws are coming, four generations of family and none of us are being separated by this. Merry Christmas everyone.

@texascactus

Doubt it OP.

Lner only let you travel with seat reservations and the carriages are holding barely any passengers. Much like buses at the moment. Some seats aren’t in use. Have travelled twice in the past few weeks and this has been the case both times.

Don’t be so dramatic.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9071155/Huge-queues-train-stations-desperate-Londoners-flee-capital-ahead-Tier-4.html

[quote Todayisgood2]@User158340 I agree- Liverpool was absolutely villified- a lot of the partying were students from other places too but now that Londoners/southerners are acting irresponsibly and selfishly it's ok and actually not news..... the north south divide is alive and well. Stay in London.[/quote]
Yes, I remember Liverpudlians being called all the names under the sun.

I don’t blame them. I would of done the same thing if I was in London.

@user1471448866

People have had to make sacrifices all year. Since March I have seen my parents three times in their garden due to my mum and dad being vulnerable(dad undergoing chemo delayed due to Covid). When a couple of hundred people (mainly students ) partied for 10 minutes before we were the only city to initially enter tier3 (Liverpool) the abuse on mumsnet was absolutely shocking. In contrast Londoners have been told to stay in their own households and not travel and there is an outcry about how inhumane it is. We have been living this for months and other areas have had it far worse in that they have not seen restrictions lifted as we luckily have. I loathe Boris Johnson with a passion but truly believe he absolutely would not have done this if there was any other choice. Everyone who travels out of London tonight does so knowing they may pass a more virulent version of this disease throughout the country. They can then return to the better funded and resourced Southern NHS system but where does that leave the rest of us ?

Believe me the 'Southern' (South is rather big you know, and not just London) NHS is not better funded or resourced. My family live in an area of Kent that has the worst GP:patient ratio in the whole of England. Masses of new housing estates and a chronic shortage of hospital beds compared to population. People need to stop assuming the whole South is well-off. Chronic deprivation in some coastal areas especially, much like parts of Northern England. Just stop this blame game.

@frumpety

Imaging you're early 20s, been living in London alone all through lockdown. Your one light at the end of the tunnel was seeing family at Christmas.

If you can afford to live in London alone in your early 20's you are minted. Other than that, Christmas day spent in your jimjams eating takeaway and watching crap telly versus travelling in a human soup to eat a roast dinner with people who you moved 200 miles away from given the first opportunity

There’s always a voice of reason on Mumsnet.

Quite a lot of Londoners will be working up to Christmas Eve too. You can’t just evacuate at a moments notice.

Anyway I’m looking forward to seeing the M25 roadblocks stopping people leaving the capital

Every year , just before, on & day after the last working day before Christmas, the trains out of London going long distance up North are sold out in advance, jammed packed with people standing in the aisles.

This year, the working day pattern over Christmas makes for many taking the four week days up to the 25th off on leave, so from Friday 18th & today, the trains heading north were going to be busy.

If COVID norms are that you cannot travel without an advance ticket, then the stations were busy with people who already had pre-booked tickets...as usual.

Twitter don’t impress me much.

• Would be interested in stats on this

I reckon a high proportion of second homers will have legged it*

Ah, watch out for me at the next Downing Street press conference.

"Next slide please.... as you can see, it's bleddy rammed in ASDA Bodmin and Newquay, those bastard second homers are flooding Cornwall!!"

And this is why we are where we are. Because many people do not care about the risk of viral spread, as long as they get what they want.

@Leflic whatever floats your boat re the M25 roadblocks , I am sure the main breakdown recovery services will be able to keep you updated via an App should the urge take you

Fontella

Interesting the photos don’t actually show any huge queues or packed stations. Usually much worse at Christmas.

@StopGo

I'm not a rule breaker. My family and I have spent the last nine months following the rules, guidance and lockdown. During that time my DH was diagnosed as terminally ill, treatment was hard to obtain and we weren't allowed to visit. Can someone please explain why my DH died scared, alone and the DC and I were denied time with him?

We've followed the rules and things have got worse. Why? I can understand why people need to go home.

I am so sorry for the pain your and your children have suffered. So sorry.

We live in the north and have cancelled seeing family in London. Up until a few days ago Londoners could socialise in bars restaurants etc and I’ve seen countless friends doing so. I haven’t met any friends since October as there’s nowhere for us to go! Really annoys us seeing this mass exodus with the ‘loneliness’ excuse when the majority of young people I know in London have socialised all month.

What a bunch of dickheads people are proving to be.

1. There is NO REASON OR EXCUSE for anyone to go Christmas shopping in London as a jolly. There have lots of non-Londoners doing this and it's disgraceful

1. If you live in London or any Tier 4 area, you should be bloody staying there. Not going away to family. For fuck's sake.

1. Yes, it's Christmas. But - so what? Get a bloody grip. Do it over Zoom and help get this damn pandemic under control then we can all move on with our lives. Idiots who run off on crowded trains will only make this worse.

@Fontella. Those photos hardly show stations packed to the rafters - there’s 8 people in one of them and they’re taken at angles that make the pictures look much more dramatic than they are.

The train video shows one person in the aisle and two people in the vestibule section?

frumpety

Sorry. My comment came out less sarky than intended !

I liked your comment and agree with the sentiment. I was just making the point that many Londoners have to stay for work anyway and if they wanted to go home they’d just drive out.

What did you think would happen when travel restrictions are coming in?

Same with the packed out shopping streets after 3 weeks of closed shops in the month before Christmas. And the pubs in cities the nights before restrictions kicked in.

Its not rocket science that people will do what they can when they can.

Oh - and those people who are commenting along the lines of:

'It's my family, my decision. No one is stopping Christmas'

You're very selfish.
You could make a family member very very ill. Or they could make you ill.
Do you honestly want to deal with that?

Having had a family member due of this - this isn't something to mess around with.

Chloworm
The blame game was alive and kicking when it was Northerners and in particular Liverpool being called for everything on here a couple of months ago. Possibly you were one of the (very few) non Northeners on here who were supportive of this area but the abuse was vitriolic so I really don’t think asking people in tier 4 to abide by rules that are not that far off what others have been living under for months is playing the ‘blame game’

@PhilCornwall1 Bodmin and Nequay ? Tsk ! lightweights ! Asda Hayle or Penzance Morrisons, if they make it that far you should adopt the buggers

If you live in London or any Tier 4 area, you should be bloody staying there.

Tell that to the areas of Berkshire with lower rates than tier 1 areas.

@turnthebiglightoff

Good for you, OP, good for you. I'm glad you can feel so nice and smug. I'm also really glad you don't face Christmas alone. A lot of people do. If I was faced with Christmas alone or a packed train, I'd choose the train every time.

Really? It's just a day.

@Leflic mine wasn't meant to be so sarky, but not got as many people to share the Christmas booze stash with given the new tiers so ....