Yes, it is highly likely.

Before he left the train, though, he advised us of his intentions. For clarity, let’s call him “Jolly Chap” as I observed his jolly, florid complexion and his ever so slight slurring and wobbliness. He was either on medication or a little bit tipsy or something else or all of them. It is Christmas afterall. I surmised that Jolly Chap, leader or not, had a growing personal reason for leaving the train. (See my ponderings about toilets in the original post.)

I proposed that Jolly Chap might reconsider as the driver may have to reset the doors manually after the emergency release had been activated and potentially cause further delay to us all. Jolly Chap considered this momentarily and without a great deal of response left our coach heading towards coach 3 and away from Sydenham station. That was the end of our very short interaction and within minutes we were informed, by the driver’s announcement, of an “idiot” who had just left the train. Oh, well.

Anyway added to this we had more information to consider to help us on our way to a more informed decision…

At this point another person, coming from coaches 3 to 8, moved through our coach announcing that they were going to speak to the driver. Much like Jolly Chap he had things on his mind but he wasn’t as jolly. I’ll call him “Less Than Jolly Chap”. He then came back through our coach after having a “chit-chat” with the driver and said that the driver had stopped communication with them through the door.

Judging by the subsequent tone of the driver’s announcements I felt that some people, including Less Than Jolly Chap were attempting to negotiate solutions with the driver while our small adhoc group was still formulating proposals.

These people just outside the driver's door in the next coach sound like further examples of flash groups forming that davidwhiting described earlier. (Very interesting post davidwhiting, I’ve had a spin around your publishing website. Lovely website to negotiate around. I never knew such an interesting business like yours existed in London’s Glittering Forest Hill.)

It was pretty much then that the train lurched forward. I then happily exclaimed that we were now all moving together in the right direction and then stole off into the night to ride/ski with my bicycle back to The Hill.

hillsideresident, this is all good food to chew on. Our small flash group considered the risk of leaving the train and discussed the location of live rails. I observed that there were some non-English speaking tourists on the train so any evacuation including live rail information might have to be communicated to them. A very minor skill that I have from a former career in Asia is some intercultural communication training. And to back up my training I’ve played charades, too!

Or at the very least someone responsible should walk with them the short distant. That’s local knowledge to know that the extreme left hand side is safe. Your assessment of the risk being so small is also what I and others had concluded. Some appeared to be happy to sit and relax. Unexpected time away from the kids before Christmas, maybe? For myself, I was intensely enjoying the later stage developments on the train to consider getting off at that point. But it was just a matter of time before the next one jumped. I now wonder at what time of the morning that myself and my bicycle would have joined them?

And then there was the lady with her little dog. The lady was of a vintage that was finer and greater than mine so assistance would be highly likely. And the little dog looked like Benji from the movies when I was growing up in the 1970’s.




I certainly wasn’t going to be going anywhere without them.