Going the 'wrong way'

[nitten_travell]

A few years ago I was travelling from Newcastle to Edinburgh, I think it was East Coast back then. Unusually, the train was arriving/departing from Platform 3. If you don't know Newcastle well, Platform 3 is the usual platform for services towards London, rather than away from it. Train arrived, passengers disembark/board, get settled... train starts to move northwards and, pretty much instantly, the lady across the aisle from me burst into tears. In a moment her brain processed it as "wrong way = ticket not valid = some sort of fine plus a jolly expensive anytime ticket in the right direction". Handily the refreshment trolley (this will tell you it was not recent!) was one set of seats behind, so the guard was quickly summoned. The next stop was Alnmouth. The guard spent what seemed like a lot of time, 20 mins or so, preparing paperwork and charting out a new itinerary to get her to London with something to show the guards on successive trains so she was not further penalised. Handled very professionally.

Another was not the wrong direction per se, but I was seated at a table opposite a couple who'd been sold I think an Edinburgh-Manchester via Carlisle ticket but the accompanying itinearary was via York (or the other way around, they were mutually exclusive) and the guard was just as concerned that the passengers had overpaid for the route travelled as that the ticket office had given incorrect information about which route to take.