at crianlarich in the highlands, trains from fort william wait for their opposite number from oban, after which both are coupled and run together to Glasgow. this gives smokers on the fort William trains a good ten minutes to have a smoke on the platform.
on a summer saturday a year or 2 back, a fort william train arrived and the smokers piled off for a quick puff, knowing that the arriving oban train would alert them to rejoin the train. except that there was no oban train; on summer saturdays this particular pair of trains run separately an hour or 2 apart. thus 6 or 7 smokers were treated to the sight of their train (and their luggage) retreating up the line in the direction of glasgow.....