SNIFFING DOG
What a rotten picture but I only took one! This is Aberdeen railway station and behind the blue suitcase a police sniffer dog is giving all arriving travellers - including me - a canine check-out for drugs. I had quite a few problems getting this far that I half expected to be pulled over to assist the dog with his enquiries! but no sweat at all... earlier however...
I had arranged to pick up my tickets from the machine at Carlisle Railway station. My Newcastle bus was a few minutes late in arriving in Carlisle so I ran with a full sac to the station, got in with about seven minutes to spare got to the ticket machine but it would not dispense the sodding tickets. BR staff said "Oh we are having a bit of an intermittent problem" Him, "Do you know your booking ref number" me "yes" him " right just use that the on-train ticket collectors have been advised" I ran up and over the stairs of the bridge to the waiting train but as the doors had been closed the guard wouldn't open them and refused to let me on the train, explaining about the ticket machine, cut no ice at all, and we stood arguing beside the stationary train. So off the train went leaving me on the platform with over an hour to wait for the next one. The staff apologised for that! Of course when I got on the next train the ticket collector knew nothing of the Carlisle ticket machine problem and gave me the "this piece of paper means nothing" routine all rather embarrassing if predictable, but he eventually said he was "prepared to believe me" and left me stewing in my juices. I had a change at Haymarket Station and another at Aberdeen and could see the whole thing being repeated to think nothing of the return journey. So I approached staff at Haymarket and asked if they had a machine, they had. Me "will you look after this rucsack while I run to it and see if I can get my tickets there"? Him "no, I can't do that" so with less than five minutes to the connection I then ran up another flight of stairs over another bridge to get to the ticket hall where I got my tickets at the fist attempt, and pelted back to the platform just as the Aberdeen train drew up to the platform, phew! So you see being busted for drugs would have been par for the course today. When things go wrong with their systems they left me completely on my own, but what can you do?
SNIFFING DOG
What a rotten picture but I only took one! This is Aberdeen railway station and behind the blue suitcase a police sniffer dog is giving all arriving travellers - including me - a canine check-out for drugs. I had quite a few problems getting this far that I half expected to be pulled over to assist the dog with his enquiries! but no sweat at all... earlier however...
I had arranged to pick up my tickets from the machine at Carlisle Railway station. My Newcastle bus was a few minutes late in arriving in Carlisle so I ran with a full sac to the station, got in with about seven minutes to spare got to the ticket machine but it would not dispense the sodding tickets. BR staff said "Oh we are having a bit of an intermittent problem" Him, "Do you know your booking ref number" me "yes" him " right just use that the on-train ticket collectors have been advised" I ran up and over the stairs of the bridge to the waiting train but as the doors had been closed the guard wouldn't open them and refused to let me on the train, explaining about the ticket machine, cut no ice at all, and we stood arguing beside the stationary train. So off the train went leaving me on the platform with over an hour to wait for the next one. The staff apologised for that! Of course when I got on the next train the ticket collector knew nothing of the Carlisle ticket machine problem and gave me the "this piece of paper means nothing" routine all rather embarrassing if predictable, but he eventually said he was "prepared to believe me" and left me stewing in my juices. I had a change at Haymarket Station and another at Aberdeen and could see the whole thing being repeated to think nothing of the return journey. So I approached staff at Haymarket and asked if they had a machine, they had. Me "will you look after this rucsack while I run to it and see if I can get my tickets there"? Him "no, I can't do that" so with less than five minutes to the connection I then ran up another flight of stairs over another bridge to get to the ticket hall where I got my tickets at the fist attempt, and pelted back to the platform just as the Aberdeen train drew up to the platform, phew! So you see being busted for drugs would have been par for the course today. When things go wrong with their systems they left me completely on my own, but what can you do?