Strains of the train in times of cold and stress
You might think that the railways would make things easy for themselves and their passengers in the BigFreeze.
The Huntly ticket office was closed and I bought the wrong kind of return ticket from the machine by mistake. My train returning from the south was late and there was not a lot of time to change to the Huntly train.
I have missed plenty of trains before and just got the next one; but this time I was on the way to do a job that I thought was important.
There was a queue in the ticket office in Aberdeen, and I came back to the turnstile and asked to pay on the train, as I have done a dozen times in the last few years.
The mannie told me to go back to the office, I repeated my proposal to pay on the train, he repeated his stance.
I said without raising my voice that the train is just leaving and I have the money to pay, and stepped over the turnstile, (it is just waist-height) with as much dignity as I could while carrying luggage, and walked briskly towards the train.
Seems like an easy commercial decision: I had already paid and the railway still had my money and I was offering to pay a second time and the train was going where I wanted to go, with an empty seat.
But the mannie left his post and the queue of folk who were clamouring for his help, to pech past me and tell the guard to not let me on the train. He then fetched the railway cops who put me in an arm-lock (not sore, just enough to let me know who’s boss) and quizzed me in a wee room about my criminal record, my address, my job and my tattoos.
They then gave me a lecture, saying I should know better at my age, and issuing me an order to pay a £40 fine for Breach of the Peace.
I suppose it is good for my Woody Guthrie credentials, having had a brush with the railroad cops, but what other good did it do?
Jake Williams,
Bogancloch, Rhynie