On my way home last Saturday, I had to change at Newcastle because the train went from there straight to Berwick. On the Northern trains, a regular announcement includes a request for passengers to keep their feet off the seats.
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On my way to London a few days earlier, our train was delayed by almost two and a half hours because someone had been struck by a train earlier that morning and all the following trains had to queue while the line was cleared. To make matters worse, our train then terminated at Peterborough and we all had to get off and wait for the next one. Almost everyone tried to squeeze into that, already busy train even though yet another train was announced as following six minutes later. Not wishing to stand for 50 minutes, I waited. I found an unoccupied seat but it had a bag on it and the tray table was down with a newspaper on it. I asked the person in the other seat, 'Is this anyone's seat?' I got a proper toss of the head and an audible 'humph!' as she moved her stuff so I could sit down! I assume she had bought only one ticket!