A passenger

Last saturday (13th) while I was guarding the santa's at nrm Shildon (aka Locomotion) I was putting some coal onto the stove in the guards van. As I shut the flap, a women said to me 'Oh can you leave that on please we're freezing' to which her husband just burst out laughing.

 

I was at NYMR for their Spring Steam Gala in 2006, it was the time when City of Truro had failed the previous night. Anyway, I overheard a conversation between a wife and her husband and she said I want to go home, even when she had bought a ticket. I am lead to believe that this was all to do with 3440 failing. Her husband was not having any of it and said, "We have driven 200 miles for this, we are bloody staying if you like it or not." I mean she had the choice of seeing 34028, 49395 and about seven residents. What the hell was she complaning about. Some people are just not satisfied.

 

well he had a point, cant you guys make it a bit more presentable with a bit of breeze block from B and Q or something [-X

 

A few years ago, I had a few people on who, on recognising their accents, got talking about the West Midlands. After a bit of football conversation (all of us were West Brom fans) I asked them how they were finding their holiday:

"Arr, it ay bad mate"

"So what did you think of the castle then?"

"It were alright, but it ay as good as Dudley castle..."

 

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The sea is over there................it's between the land and the sky

 

[smilie=to funny.gif] One of my favourite lines from the best comedy ever!!!!

 

I've has passengers ask me to turn the Air con' on in the Pullman vehicles. Well, we should have that in a few years apparently. \/ \/ \/ \/ \/

 

This is a bus story rather than a train one, but it qualifies as it involves a PASSENGER. I was riding on a very early Leyland National bus that was being trialled on a route in east London. Suddenly the bus lost drive and the driver was helpless, in the middle of the road, between two rows of parked cars, rolling to a standstill with the engine running. The driver fiddled about with the little gear selector and various other things but still the bus didn't want to go.

Soon, an elderly gentleman passenger walked up to the driver and started offering helpful advice. "I reckon it's the clutch, the clutch is slipping", to which the driver replied "there ain't no bloody clutch, mate, it's automatic!" I refrained from opening up a discussion about whether a brake-band in an automatic gearbox constitutes a form of clutch or not! Anyway, the bus did get going again before long.

I've also shown a bit of embarrassing ignorance myself too - on very rare occasions (!). I'm fairly mechanically minded and generally know a bit about the vehicles we own. But one car, a VW Golf Mk 3, never needed much attention under the bonnet, so I never really studied it in detail. One day I took it to the garage explaining that it had been suffering from misfiring and stalling while cold. I'd checked the plugs etc. but could they look at the carburettor. The mechanic was surprised, since, to the best of his knowledge, all petrol Mk 3 Golfs had fuel injection. I replied that mine had a carburettor and we left it at that. When I got home I looked in the Haynes manual and what my car had was a single-point fuel injector in a thing called a 'throttle body' - but it looks a bit like a carburettor of some sort - possibly.....slightly......maybe???!

 

haha oh dear.. A friend of mine was told he needed to adjust his pushrods.... on his 1999 Nissan Almera!

 

i had a V4 Corsair many years ago and a guy appeared beside me under the bonnet and said" Oh is it two cylinder then?"

 

I had one of those too with the 2000e grearbox.

Far better in my opinion than a early Cortina,s.

Regards
Chris

 

Waking this thread up again, a little gem regarding a passenger...

At Arley station, SVR. Down platform, LMS set is in, with about 5 minutes before it's due off. Tearing down the ramp onto the platform at approximately 126mph (as so many of our punters insist, no matter how long it is until the train is due out) comes a normal looking gentleman, mid-30s, snapshot camera in hand. The usual type.

He turns to me, points at the door nearest to us both, and asks 'I need to get on, is that a door?'

I should stress at this point that the door in question was your average carriage door. Person-width, person-height, large polished door handle, socking great big '3' on it. It's not like he was asking if he could get on at the Guard's door, or suchlike. It was a bog-standard door.

So I replied 'No Sir, that one is purely decorative. Try the next one along'. (I pointed at an identical door about 15' further along the same carriage).

He smiled, went to the door, opened it gracefully (he clearly knew about slam-doors), climbed in, leant out the window with a cheery wave to me and said 'thanks for your help!' before disappearing into the train. Now I'm guessing that at some point over the course of his journey he realised what a damn-fool question he'd asked me. Thankfully I didn't see him again, so I was never reprimanded for my facetiousness!

 

Ford used to make a 2000E gearbox, with a single rail gearchange. They also made a 2821 gearbox, with a 3-rail gear selection. It had exactly the same ratios, and I used one in a Dutton that I built with a friend, many years ago. When we cut the gearstick down to match the driving position, we had quite a snappy & positive gearchnge. Just a different arrangment with the selection rails & detent springs, thats all.

Regards,
Ian

 

At the Nene Valley, the coach we work on (Wagon lits sleeping car) is positioned on the OOU siding, nearest the workshops, about a third of the way along the coach is a fence, that cuts the pathway down to our coach, alonside the locos 'on display' off, to prevent the public trying to go into the sheds. This large, metal gate, has a big red sign saying 'no public access' If I had a pound for every time someone asked if they could go past it....

 

Some years ago whilst working in a booking office, a suited gentleman came up to the window and enquired when the next train was due. I told him it was due in about seven minutes, to which he replied "Oh. Is there one before that?"
"Is there a train between now and the next one?" I asked, just to clarify the situation, "No, sir. There isn't."

 

At Kidderminster town, being a termius, Passenger asks, 'which way will the train be moving?' 'Well hopeful forwards otherwise it will have a slight arguement with the bufferstops'

 

Strange coincidence, but I too was at Kidderminster station, on what is only the third time I have ever visited the SVR, last week. The loco having brought its train in from Bridgnorth had pulled forward off the train and was standing in close proximity to the buffers. A passenger, upon seeing a member of staff asked (pointing to the LOCOMOTIVE) "does the train go on the front end?"