(Again.)

I went down to London this afternoon. I had a reserved seat, because I’d booked a cheap advance ticket. This is not unusual. However, when the train arrived in Derby, I discovered that the rear half of the train was not in use until the train reached Leicester because Long Eaton and Loughborough don’t have long enough platforms to accommodate more than four carriages. My seat was, predictably, in the unavailable half of the train.
I’m told by one of the platform staff that the train manager had obviously lettered the carriages incorrectly as they usually have my coach towards the front of the train, and that I can sit in any seat as long as it isn’t reserved.
Fair enough, I think, I’ll just move when we get to Leicester, and board a different carriage, occupy an unreserved seat and settle down with my book.

“Tickets and passes, please!”
I hand over my ticket and Railcard.
“This ticket isn’t valid.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re not supposed to be in this carriage; you’re supposed to be in Coach L.”
“Oh, yes, I know. I can’t sit there though, because L is one of the closed carriages.”
“I’m sorry, your ticket is invalid. If your seat isn’t available you have to stand. As you aren’t doing, I’ll have to ask you to leave the train.”

…what? I have to get off the only train my ticket is valid on because the train manager is too thick to letter his carriages properly, meaning I had to sit in another (free, unreserved) seat? I don’t think so.
The next station was Leicester. I did leave the train, but simply moved to Coach L and settled down again with my book just as I’d planned. Later on in the journey, he checked my ticket again, but said nothing to me other than the customary “thanks” - whether he didn’t realise it was me or just didn’t care I don’t know, although I suspect the latter.

In less grumpy form, today’s Best Tannoy Announcement goes to the bloke running the buffet car on the journey down:

“Ladies and gentleman, the buffet car is now serving. I would like to apologise sincerely for our late opening today on behalf of the incompetent staff member on the service prior to this, who left the kitchen in an absolutely appalling state meaning that I had to spend the last 30 minutes cleaning up after him.”

Running a close second was the train manager on my return journey:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the approach to Loughborough station, where we are anticipating being assigned the short platform. That is, the really short platform. I mean, they’re all short anyway, but this one is particularly short. It only accomodates two carriages. Why they’re putting a ten carriage train on a two carriage platform, we don’t really know, but we’ll put it down to them being a bit sleepy, since it is nearly quarter to midnight. Please only try to alight from Coaches A and B; the doors won’t open on the others and the window is probably a bit small for you.”

Oh, and on the topic of silly things, the vending machines at Leicester station have a sign hanging over them which read “Autobuffet” - pardon? What exactly was wrong with “Vending Machines”?

I had fun in London. I didn’t get anywhere near as many photos as I’d have liked due to a serious lack of people actually protesting; even Brian Haw was nowhere to be seen, perhaps wisely hiding from the cold. It was all made up for, though, by a nice (albeit brief) walk along the South Bank and sushi in Piccadilly with Fish <3