The 18:30 Club

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Links The Saturday Telegraph article

On the bus from Waterloo to Canary Wharf one day, Cousin It mentioned the train community and one of the guys on the bus (who is an editor of some sort on the Telegraph), who duly despatched a reporter and photographer (poor sods!) to the train one Friday night to accompany us to Winchester and a beer in the Albion.
Click on one of the pictures below to see a bigger version.

Party On: Easing the pain of the long journey home.

The Daily Telegraph, 5th June 1999

Some commuters let the train take the strain off their social life, too. Christopher Middleton joins the club on the 18.30 from Waterloo to Weymouth. Pictures: Martin Pope.

It's Friday night at Waterloo Station, and there is still a quarter of an hour till the 18.30 leaves for Weymouth - yet already the buffet car is packed to bursting point. The curtains are drawn, the cans of beer are out and the ashtrays are starting to overflow.

Whereas the other carriages on the train are filled with ranks of quiet or semi-comatose commuters, the buffet car is like a bearpit, the air filled with raucous laughter and the hiss of ringpull cans.

And it's not just because it's the end of the week, either. "It's like this every night," shouts one homebound traveller, jacket already off. "In fact, Fridays are quieter, because you get a few outsiders in, and people are a bit more restrained."

The term "outsider" in this context refers to anyone who isn't a regular user (i.e. five days a week) of this post-work pub on wheels. Although they don't consider themselves a formally constituted club, the 18.30 crowd are a clannish bunch and take unkindly to unfamiliar bottoms occupying their seats.

"Fridays you just have to grin and bear it," says Helen Jenkins, who works as a dealing-room manager for a large City bank. "The rest of the week, though, we take exception. In fact, what usually happens is that those of us who get here first spread out and keep a place for the others. That lot of seats is for the poker club, this lot is for the Coven."

The Coven? Yes, just as in any other tribe, the 18.30-ers have special names for each other. The Coven is what they call the group of ladies who sit each evening round the little, circular table on the left of the buffet car; their head "witch" is Mrs Jenkins (club name Granny Weatherwax, after a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels).

Meanwhile, over at the poker table, there's Mole and Country Boy, while standing in the middle of the carriage, swaying expertly with the train's roll, are Young Chris, Old Chris, Paddington(?), the Lager Monkey and Spanner. The club even has its own website, with biographies and photographs of its leading lights.

"Basically, this is our local," says Suki Humby, a 23 year-old information technology worker. ''Some people go to the pub when they get home - well, we go to the pub on our way home."

More seriously, Helen Jenkins points out the difficulty of sustaining a home-based social life when you're a long-distance commuter (she comes into London each day from Winchester).

"I leave the house each morning at around 6am and don't get back till after 8pm, completely shattered," she says. "So how am I going to be able to go out and meet people round where I live?"

For many of the 18.30 crowd, the buffet car camaraderie is what tips the balance in favour of living out of town. Certainly, house prices along the Weymouth line are lower than in London (rather more noticeably so in Southampton and Poole than in Winchester), but this is cancelled out by the cost of your annual season ticket (£3,000 and rising).

The crucial judgment, therefore, has to be whether the perceived quality-of-life benefits of a non-London life (bigger house and garden, cleaner air etc) can possibly justify the daily two to three hours spent in the tender care of South West Trains.

Chartered accountant Jacquie Byford is in no doubt that she has made the right choice in opting to commute. "Listen," she says "When you live in London, it takes you an hour to get home on the Tube, and it's miserable. It takes you an hour to get from Waterloo to Winchester, too - but it's a lot more fun.''

What's more, the fun can carry on when you've got off the train. Many a birthday or promotion is celebrated at the Albion pub, just next to Winchester Station - from which point 18.30-ers either wend their own way home, are picked up by their spouses, or else continue their homeward journey on a later train, usually to Eastleigh or Southampton.

Friendships made in the buffet car extend out into the real world, too. Some club members meet up for lunch in town, while Jacquie Byford invited no less than eight of the regulars to her wedding. One couple - Debbie and Brian - met and got married through the 18.30.

There is no mistaking the relish with which the 18.30 crowd talk of their reputation as the wild bunch of the Weymouth line. "We like to laugh, we like to drink and we like to play cards for money," says American-born stockbroker Mike Greaves (alias Country Boy), with undisguised glee. "You'd never get this where I come from (New Jersey). Over there, you have to keep your alcohol hidden in a brown paper bag."

And everyone bursts into laughter at the thought of anyone trying to get the 18.30 club to do their drinking in secret. Most of the other passengers pay little or no attention to the club, leaving them to get on with their merrymaking behind closed doors.

Ironically, the one group that finds the 18.30 bunch a bit much is the 17.15 crowd. For by some strange coincidence, the earlier Waterloo to Weymouth train also sports a resident buffet car group, who themselves like a drink and a chat, but find the 18.30 mob a bit on the boisterous side.

"Less cultured", "too loud", "full of lads and ladettes" - such are the observations of the 17.15-ers, on their later-travelling counterparts. The 17.15's altogether less devil-may-care attitude is symbolised by the fact that the majority of them bring their own drink, rather than forking out the £2 a can it costs at the bar.

"Priced themselves out of business, the rail caterers have," confides one senior civil servant, opening up his jacket to show a half-bottle of vodka poking out of his inside pocket.

But while spending less at the bar, the 17.15 crew do splash out on their social outings, which involve something a bit more imaginative than just visiting the pub. Their recent trips have been to France and Ascot, the next is to Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium.

As for outsiders, "If someone's in one of our seats, we ask them to move, simple as that," says Tony Bruce (left-hand circle of seats, nearest the window). "We suggest they go and find themselves a place in one of the dormitories [the damning word the buffet car crowd use for all the other carriages]."

So what is it that makes the Waterloo to Weymouth line such a hot ticket socially? The answer, it seems, is in the layout of the train - in the fact that there is a buffet car in which you can actually sit down, whereas on most modern trains, there is barely a shelf to perch your drink on (and frequently a no smoking policy, to boot).

Not that the encouragement of inter-station socialising comes very high on most rail companies' list of priorities. Of the eight firms approached while preparing this article, not one had the slightest clue as to whether there was a particularly pally train on their line.

"That is not something we would know about our passengers," said one bemused spokesman. "We just get them from A to B and back again."

An inspector at Victoria did think he had heard someone mention a train called the Bognor Boozer, while a stationhand at Waterloo thought the 19.09 to Ashford also had something of a reputation - but neither could be sure. The tip-off about the Weymouth line came from the caterers, Rail Gourmet, whose trolley-pushers and bar staff are about the only faces that commuters these days can call familiar.

As well as causing the decline of on-rain socialising, rail privatisation has also meant a decline in the number of commuter study groups that are in operation. Ten years ago, there were hundreds of rail passengers making use of their travelling time to learn a language or a new skill - now there are hardly any.

"British Rail used to put aside special compartments for us," says Pamela Le Pelley, founder of Commuter Study Clubs. "We ran classes in French, German, Spanish, architecture, computer studies and antiques. Then there were bridge groups and chess clubs, and at one stage we were operating three or four classes on about 40 different trains.

"The problems began, though, when the compartments started to be phased out, and the carriages all went open-plan. Suddenly, teaching became a lot more difficult because we didn't have the privacy any more.

"And I'm afraid that nowadays rail companies just aren't prepared to put aside first-class compartments for second-class passengers to study in."

A small handful of tutors do manage to struggle on, and one of the most successful is Jacqueline Gonzales-Marina, who runs courses in French, journalism and Spanish on the 17.50 between Euston and Milton Keynes.

"My classes are small and quiet, we sit in a group of four - three pupils and myself - and we bother no one," she says. "My students learn are highly motivated. I would say they are hungry to learn - and the same applies to many, many others. For most commuters, going to conventional evening classes is not possible because they get home too late and are too tired to go out again."

Despite the popularity of her courses, Mrs Gonzalez-Marina still has to get onto the train arly in order to "bag" the seats for her lessons. "I run these classes with the blessing of the Silverlink rail company, but I would love to see them and others putting aside whole learning carriages on their morning and evening trains," she says.

As to whether these universities of the rails will ever become a reality, is anyone's guess. However, Mrs Le Pelley is optimistic that commuter- learning will one day emerge from the sidings where it has been shunted. Indeed, she is currently hoping to get some classes going out of Waterloo and Charing Cross (the Faversham line was once a hotbed of learning) - and is hopeful of attracting sponsorship from estate agents who operate in commuter country. It is, she says, a noble aim to try and enrich the lives of rail passengers.

"Commuters are not the faceless dummies they are often made out to be," she says. "In fact, every train is full of the most interesting people who would love to do something that is more useful and enjoyable than just staring out of the window.

"All they need is a chance."

The 18.30 club website address is http://www.cewap.co.uk/1830/index.htm

Contact Commuter Study Clubs at 18 Victoria Park Square, London.


Home CEWAP Mark Thomas 18:30 Club GM Food Car Cats Links		The Saturday Telegraph article

		On the bus from Waterloo to Canary Wharf one day, Cousin It mentioned the train community and one of the guys on the bus (who is an editor of some sort on the Telegraph), who duly despatched a reporter and photographer (poor sods!) to the train one Friday night to accompany us to Winchester and a beer in the Albion. Click on one of the pictures below to see a bigger version.

Party On: Easing the pain of the long journey home.

The Daily Telegraph, 5th June 1999 Some commuters let the train take the strain off their social life, too. Christopher Middleton joins the club on the 18.30 from Waterloo to Weymouth. Pictures: Martin Pope. It's Friday night at Waterloo Station, and there is still a quarter of an hour till the 18.30 leaves for Weymouth - yet already the buffet car is packed to bursting point. The curtains are drawn, the cans of beer are out and the ashtrays are starting to overflow. Whereas the other carriages on the train are filled with ranks of quiet or semi-comatose commuters, the buffet car is like a bearpit, the air filled with raucous laughter and the hiss of ringpull cans. And it's not just because it's the end of the week, either. "It's like this every night," shouts one homebound traveller, jacket already off. "In fact, Fridays are quieter, because you get a few outsiders in, and people are a bit more restrained." The term "outsider" in this context refers to anyone who isn't a regular user (i.e. five days a week) of this post-work pub on wheels. Although they don't consider themselves a formally constituted club, the 18.30 crowd are a clannish bunch and take unkindly to unfamiliar bottoms occupying their seats. "Fridays you just have to grin and bear it," says Helen Jenkins, who works as a dealing-room manager for a large City bank. "The rest of the week, though, we take exception. In fact, what usually happens is that those of us who get here first spread out and keep a place for the others. That lot of seats is for the poker club, this lot is for the Coven." The Coven? Yes, just as in any other tribe, the 18.30-ers have special names for each other. The Coven is what they call the group of ladies who sit each evening round the little, circular table on the left of the buffet car; their head "witch" is Mrs Jenkins (club name Granny Weatherwax, after a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels). Meanwhile, over at the poker table, there's Mole and Country Boy, while standing in the middle of the carriage, swaying expertly with the train's roll, are Young Chris, Old Chris, Paddington(?), the Lager Monkey and Spanner. The club even has its own website, with biographies and photographs of its leading lights.

"Basically, this is our local," says Suki Humby, a 23 year-old information technology worker. ''Some people go to the pub when they get home - well, we go to the pub on our way home." More seriously, Helen Jenkins points out the difficulty of sustaining a home-based social life when you're a long-distance commuter (she comes into London each day from Winchester). "I leave the house each morning at around 6am and don't get back till after 8pm, completely shattered," she says. "So how am I going to be able to go out and meet people round where I live?" For many of the 18.30 crowd, the buffet car camaraderie is what tips the balance in favour of living out of town. Certainly, house prices along the Weymouth line are lower than in London (rather more noticeably so in Southampton and Poole than in Winchester), but this is cancelled out by the cost of your annual season ticket (£3,000 and rising). The crucial judgment, therefore, has to be whether the perceived quality-of-life benefits of a non-London life (bigger house and garden, cleaner air etc) can possibly justify the daily two to three hours spent in the tender care of South West Trains.

Chartered accountant Jacquie Byford is in no doubt that she has made the right choice in opting to commute. "Listen," she says "When you live in London, it takes you an hour to get home on the Tube, and it's miserable. It takes you an hour to get from Waterloo to Winchester, too - but it's a lot more fun.'' What's more, the fun can carry on when you've got off the train. Many a birthday or promotion is celebrated at the Albion pub, just next to Winchester Station - from which point 18.30-ers either wend their own way home, are picked up by their spouses, or else continue their homeward journey on a later train, usually to Eastleigh or Southampton. Friendships made in the buffet car extend out into the real world, too. Some club members meet up for lunch in town, while Jacquie Byford invited no less than eight of the regulars to her wedding. One couple - Debbie and Brian - met and got married through the 18.30. There is no mistaking the relish with which the 18.30 crowd talk of their reputation as the wild bunch of the Weymouth line. "We like to laugh, we like to drink and we like to play cards for money," says American-born stockbroker Mike Greaves (alias Country Boy), with undisguised glee. "You'd never get this where I come from (New Jersey). Over there, you have to keep your alcohol hidden in a brown paper bag." And everyone bursts into laughter at the thought of anyone trying to get the 18.30 club to do their drinking in secret. Most of the other passengers pay little or no attention to the club, leaving them to get on with their merrymaking behind closed doors. Ironically, the one group that finds the 18.30 bunch a bit much is the 17.15 crowd. For by some strange coincidence, the earlier Waterloo to Weymouth train also sports a resident buffet car group, who themselves like a drink and a chat, but find the 18.30 mob a bit on the boisterous side.

"Less cultured", "too loud", "full of lads and ladettes" - such are the observations of the 17.15-ers, on their later-travelling counterparts. The 17.15's altogether less devil-may-care attitude is symbolised by the fact that the majority of them bring their own drink, rather than forking out the £2 a can it costs at the bar. "Priced themselves out of business, the rail caterers have," confides one senior civil servant, opening up his jacket to show a half-bottle of vodka poking out of his inside pocket. But while spending less at the bar, the 17.15 crew do splash out on their social outings, which involve something a bit more imaginative than just visiting the pub. Their recent trips have been to France and Ascot, the next is to Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium. As for outsiders, "If someone's in one of our seats, we ask them to move, simple as that," says Tony Bruce (left-hand circle of seats, nearest the window). "We suggest they go and find themselves a place in one of the dormitories [the damning word the buffet car crowd use for all the other carriages]."

So what is it that makes the Waterloo to Weymouth line such a hot ticket socially? The answer, it seems, is in the layout of the train - in the fact that there is a buffet car in which you can actually sit down, whereas on most modern trains, there is barely a shelf to perch your drink on (and frequently a no smoking policy, to boot). Not that the encouragement of inter-station socialising comes very high on most rail companies' list of priorities. Of the eight firms approached while preparing this article, not one had the slightest clue as to whether there was a particularly pally train on their line. "That is not something we would know about our passengers," said one bemused spokesman. "We just get them from A to B and back again." An inspector at Victoria did think he had heard someone mention a train called the Bognor Boozer, while a stationhand at Waterloo thought the 19.09 to Ashford also had something of a reputation - but neither could be sure. The tip-off about the Weymouth line came from the caterers, Rail Gourmet, whose trolley-pushers and bar staff are about the only faces that commuters these days can call familiar. As well as causing the decline of on-rain socialising, rail privatisation has also meant a decline in the number of commuter study groups that are in operation. Ten years ago, there were hundreds of rail passengers making use of their travelling time to learn a language or a new skill - now there are hardly any. "British Rail used to put aside special compartments for us," says Pamela Le Pelley, founder of Commuter Study Clubs. "We ran classes in French, German, Spanish, architecture, computer studies and antiques. Then there were bridge groups and chess clubs, and at one stage we were operating three or four classes on about 40 different trains. "The problems began, though, when the compartments started to be phased out, and the carriages all went open-plan. Suddenly, teaching became a lot more difficult because we didn't have the privacy any more. "And I'm afraid that nowadays rail companies just aren't prepared to put aside first-class compartments for second-class passengers to study in." A small handful of tutors do manage to struggle on, and one of the most successful is Jacqueline Gonzales-Marina, who runs courses in French, journalism and Spanish on the 17.50 between Euston and Milton Keynes.

"My classes are small and quiet, we sit in a group of four - three pupils and myself - and we bother no one," she says. "My students learn are highly motivated. I would say they are hungry to learn - and the same applies to many, many others. For most commuters, going to conventional evening classes is not possible because they get home too late and are too tired to go out again." Despite the popularity of her courses, Mrs Gonzalez-Marina still has to get onto the train arly in order to "bag" the seats for her lessons. "I run these classes with the blessing of the Silverlink rail company, but I would love to see them and others putting aside whole learning carriages on their morning and evening trains," she says. As to whether these universities of the rails will ever become a reality, is anyone's guess. However, Mrs Le Pelley is optimistic that commuter- learning will one day emerge from the sidings where it has been shunted. Indeed, she is currently hoping to get some classes going out of Waterloo and Charing Cross (the Faversham line was once a hotbed of learning) - and is hopeful of attracting sponsorship from estate agents who operate in commuter country. It is, she says, a noble aim to try and enrich the lives of rail passengers.

"Commuters are not the faceless dummies they are often made out to be," she says. "In fact, every train is full of the most interesting people who would love to do something that is more useful and enjoyable than just staring out of the window. "All they need is a chance." The 18.30 club website address is http://www.cewap.co.uk/1830/index.htm Contact Commuter Study Clubs at 18 Victoria Park Square, London.