Vignettes of life on a train amidst a storm

February 20, 2022 7:02 AM

Eunice, the cyclone which set an all-time wind speed record in the UK on Saturday and has caused fatalities and extensive damage (throughout Northern Europe), left TikTok user aishaxkhann stuck on a train somewhere along the East Coast Main Line connecting London to Edinburgh. While her train was moving, she filmed through a window and accidentally created what might as well be an advert for London North Eastern Railway (video may autoplay). Via Dan Barker’s reupload on Twitter.
posted by wachhundfisch (17 comments total)

In case anyone is wondering, LNER doesn't require -- and can't enforce -- mask wearing (unlike the TFL network) but they do ask passengers to wear them if they can.

Not that you'd know that, watching the video.
posted by fight or flight at 7:08 AM on February 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

Fight or flight; thanks. I had to double check the date to make sure this wasn’t an old video. Eesh. And the one or two people unmasked on a crowded subway train gives me anxiety. I’d have to to jump off and brave the storm.

Otherwise I love these kind of MeFi posts. A general, rounded story told through multiple links.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 7:18 AM on February 20, 2022

In the Irish Midlands we are even at this moment being drubbed by Storm Franklin. I just nipped out in a lull to "batten down some hatches" before dark with my cordless screw-driver. At Peak Eunice, noon local time on Friday, a big lump [30cm = 1 ft in the base and 14m = 40ft to the last twigs] of ash tree Fraxinus excelsior came down in our garden: tucking ever so neatly inside, and parallel to, the fence. Franklin seems at least as feisty as Eunice, so take it handy on the mainland.
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:18 AM on February 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

That bloke scratching his belly!
posted by ambrosen at 8:20 AM on February 20, 2022 [7 favorites]

Jeeze. I came through Waverley (the main station in Edinburgh) yesterday and saw an absolutely chock-full platform of people rammed together, waiting to get on the London train, and it gave me the horrors. But at least, I thought, at least they're all wearing masks.

Do they just all rip them off and throw them out the window at the English border?
posted by penguin pie at 8:53 AM on February 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Ahahahaha I did the north west version of this journey yesterday from Cumbria back to Paris, and the bit to London took eight hours instead of three, three trains instead of one, and cancelled all my wheelchair assistance requests, I am broken and exhausted today!

I missed two Eurostars but thankfully they let me onto a later one without charging me the £86.50 change fee.

And so few people were wearing masks, it was rubbish.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:22 AM on February 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

This feels like the opening for a UK version of Station Eleven
posted by sixswitch at 9:50 AM on February 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

If you told me that was entirely staged for a music video, I would believe you.
posted by moonmilk at 10:06 AM on February 20, 2022 [12 favorites]

DON'T THESE PEOPLE KNOW THE QUEEN IS SICK???
posted by supermedusa at 10:09 AM on February 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe in this video.
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:34 AM on February 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

One of the things I have missed most during the lockdowns is traveling by train. I used to present at one or two conferences per month and always looked forward to working on my talks while on the train ride to some other European city (and then watching the talks that I missed on the way home). I also liked to shoot slow-motion films when passing through stations to enjoy the parallax or imaging that Star Guitar is playing while watching the catenary towers go by. Hopefully it will be possible again soon!
posted by autopilot at 10:41 AM on February 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

What a great freaking video!
posted by obfuscation at 11:43 AM on February 20, 2022

Was…was there a guy dressed as Goldilocks on board? Just after the group of people getting up?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:31 PM on February 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

That’ll be a stag do (bachelor party) TWinbrook8.
posted by Concordia at 12:53 PM on February 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

That's an excellent video.

The lack of masks, however, is why I'm reacting to gentle suggestions that perhaps I'd like to pop into the office at some point (an endeavour requiring about two and a half hours all told on trains packed to the gills) the way I'd react to gentle suggestions that I might like to go for a swim in shark-infested waters or try my hand at tightrope-walking across Niagara Falls.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 1:06 AM on February 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I love the video, but it's interesting to think what sort of replies aishaxkhann would have got had she asked about posting it on AskMe.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 3:48 PM on February 22, 2022

Penguin pie: Do they just all rip them off and throw them out the window at the English border?

No. At York. No one getting on or off the train at York had a mask on when I last took the train down from Edinburgh. No surprise York has had consistently high case numbers throughout.
posted by sincarne at 2:55 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]