All aboard the Paisley party train

“Look, someone’s smashed a bottle of tonic,” I say to Mark, my photographer. “That’s not Buckie,” he replies, “it’s blood”. I look closer at the thick droplets splattered on the otherwise pristine marble floor, mixed in with bits of broken glass. He’s right, the splashes are a muddy red, more crimson than the dark purple hue of wreck-the-hoose juice. We raise our gaze, belatedly noticing the blue curtains, paramedics and police. “Fuuuck,” we both exclaim under our breaths. 

It’s Saturday night, and the atmosphere in Scotland’s busiest railway station is palpable, as is the sharp smell of alcohol in the air. That afternoon, Celtic had lifted the Scottish Premiership trophy for the fourth consecutive year. An Orange March had missed the title celebrations by a few hours. 

The mood is celebratory, yes, but also fraught. A group of monks in their habits, rosary beads draping down from their waists, stand under the departure board saying bye to one another; the serene scene a jarring juxtaposition to the taps aff chaos and open bottles of Eldorado everywhere else we look. 

The evening prior, we’d headed into town, hopping on a few trains to gauge the mood and ask folks about the news that the ScotRail alcohol ban would be lifted next month — or see if the ban had ever really mattered at all. Initially a temporary measure during the pandemic, the initiative was subsequently extended, but is set to be scrapped on 2 June , allowing passengers to drink between the hours of 10am and 9pm. While welcoming clarity on the new rules, chief superintendent of the British Transport Police Scotland, Lorna McEwan stressed that tackling anti-social behaviour remains a “key priority” for the force. 

Given the weather, we’d expected the tributaries of Strathclyde to be flowing generously into Glasgow from the south, carry-outs in hand. But it was a quiet Friday, with few people around to speak to.Three hours in, we called it quits, agreeing to try again the following evening. So there we were, shell-shocked only minutes after arriving into Central. 

With trepidation, we braced ourselves and boarded the train to Paisley. 

We ease our way through the carriages, navigating those standing in the aisles singing, dancing and waving tricolour flags. Stephen and James, two pals from Ayr in their 50s and early 60s respectively, are sat sharing a four pack of San Miguel on their way back from the match. “What booze ban?” James asks with a grin. He seems wholly surprised that an alcohol ban has been in place on all ScotRail trains since November 2020. 

‘Has the ban had any effect on your rail-based alcohol consumption?’ I ask the Ayr-bound pair. “Nane whatsoever, not in the slightest, nah” they chime. Stephen had a litre of wine on the train from Ayr to Glasgow earlier. “I’ve goat a bottle of water, but it’s actually wine that’s in it, ken wit ah mean?” he boasts, impressed with his own ingenuity. James says he only had two cans on the train in, although judging by his largely incomprehensible mumbling, one might suspect he’s telling a porky. “Honestly I cannae understand him either, so don’t worry about it,” Stephen says with a belly laugh. “Everything’s awrite, everything’s cool, just carry on drinking,” James slurs happily. 

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They both agree that the ban has been a “waste of time”. “We just like a wee drink and enjoying wurselves. Unless you’re being abusive or that, you should just carry on. We’re no abusive, we’re just stoopit,” says Stephen. Plus, “We’d stop if we were asked to”, he claims. “If you were checking tickets, and there was three hunner folk drinking, would you say: ‘don’t drink’,” he asks rhetorically. Can open; case closed.  

We hop off at Paisley Gilmour Street, the tannoy announcing that the train back to Glasgow has been delayed. Someone has sounded the on-board alarm. After a spell, we’re on our way back to Central. The foul smell reaches us before we see the large puddle of piss outside the toilet. Pushing past a carriage of particularly rowdy fans, we’re stopped and asked for a lighter. As we disembark, the fug of fag smoke has filled the air.

Back at Central, we’re ready to go again, opting to travel back and forth from Paisley to canvass passengers’ opinions as the evening progresses. We find the Gourock train, where a boy who looks all of 13-years-old is carrying a crate of Corona past the ticket inspectors nonchalantly. 

David and Gillian are on their way home from the Book of Mormon at the King’s Theatre, the tickets a present for her birthday. David didn’t realise there was a booze ban, but Gillian did. “I thought it had already been lifted,” she says as she cracks open a can with a smile. She invites us to take one. “Help yourself, they’re cold” 

“They’ve got a hard task, these guys,” David says of the ticket inspectors. “To generalise everybody in the same category is quite difficult, because we're no all rowdy, we're no all out o’ order.”Sometimes they get the last train home to Port Glasgow. Once, they saw “a wee boy” with his feet on the seats, vaping and drinking, who delighted in telling the conductor to “fuck off” when questioned. “How could you dae that job? It’s ridiculous,” David says. “I really don't think they can control it, they don’t have the manpower,” Gillian says. 

“They’re duking the fares by the way,” David jokes to the ticket inspector as we get up and say our goodbyes.

We nervously edge our way down the train towards a raucous carriage in which a large group is chanting and singing. A woman in a Tricolor bucket hat pushes past, shouting “Tiocfaidh ár lá” at the tops of her lungs. Eilidh, a Celtic fan in her twenties with a half-eaten tray of chips, vape and several cans of Four Loko on the table in front of her, agrees to chat. “It’s a shambles,” she says of the ban. “Why?” I ask sheepishly. “What the fuck dae ye mean, ‘Why?’? Ah cannae drink on the train. If I’m goin tae Glesca an’ Ah cannae drink, what use is that? It’s like a knitted condom.” 

I gesture towards the open can she’s been sipping from, politely pointing out that she is drinking on the train. “An’ fucking wit, are ye polis?”. Her friend, acting like her agent all of a sudden, announces, “That’s us done, interview over,” waving me away. Eilidh agrees to a picture before we cut our losses, but when Mark gets his camera out, she shouts, “As long as you’re no a paedo”, loud enough for the whole carriage to take note. It’s time to move. 

At Paisley Gilmour Street for the fourth time in 24 hours, the train back to Glasgow is delayed again. This time due to a police incident on board.

Daisy* is off to see the Scissor Sisters with her pal at the Hydro. There’s an empty can of passion star martini in front of her. She’s also had four G&Ts by her count, although it could be more judging by her ebullient state. She’s “half pished” by her own admission, and has taken a liking to Mark, despite being old enough to be his mum. “The best trains I've ever been on are on what we call ‘the vomit comet’, coming back from Glasgow to Largs,” she says. “It’s the Scottish way isn’t it, we love a drink, we love socialising. That's just Scotland — our big thing is boozing.”

Back at Central, police officers await the train as we disembark. Three of them rush off to apprehend someone. Another officer stops a drunk woman with a young child, who stares confusedly at the stranger in the fluorescent jacket questioning her mum. 

We give the wheel another spin, and jump on our penultimate train of the evening. The scene is apocalyptic — far too chaotic to ask anyone anything, or for Mark to risk a photo. A guy in a NASA shirt looks around shiftily before breaking out a bag of gear and having a dunt, picking up a can of Tennent’s for a swig once he’s done and passing the bag along. A queue forms for the toilet as a large group sing ‘Champions again’. Others sit restlessly, pulling at bottles of tonic and puffing on vapes. There are screams and manic cries nearby. Our shoes stick to the floor. 

Alighting at Paisley for the third time this evening, the train has been delayed again — another incident on board. When it eventually pulls in, a group of young girls jump off, cans of Dragon Soop and Four Loko in hand. There’s a loud bang and a smash, followed by screaming. The group starts to beat their fists on the windows and kick the train. Others do the fingers and goad whoever’s on the other side of the reinforced glass. Apprehensively, we jump on a calmer carriage further up, where three girls, in an altogether more jovial mood, are recording a dance video. Eventually, we wander down to survey the damage. Bits of the emergency door release panel are smashed up on the floor. The atmosphere is somber. 

We get chatting to a young ticket inspector, who doesn’t look older than 20. He’s ashen-faced, with something of the war weary about him. Just before Paisley, four girls had jumped on top of a guy and started battering him. The fact they were around 15 and “wearing almost nothing” meant he was powerless to intervene. “It would have been easier if they were adults,” he explains, as at least then he could have tried to split them up by getting in between the fracas. Almost all the fights he sees on board are kids aged 15–17, he tells us, with a thousand-yard stare. Emotionally defeated, he remembers he has four hours ahead of him, and another train to Ayr up next. 

Back at Central, I grab a bottle of water as I wait for the train home to arrive. Walking back towards the platform, the police march two young boys past — taps aff, naturally — escorting them out of the station at pace. On board the Newton train, I relax for the first time this evening. There’s a ticket inspector sitting at the table across. He shares a few of the incidents his colleagues have had to deal with today. Earlier, a drunken reveller had punched an Asian man in the face for no apparent reason, other than his skin colour. The Asian man proceeded to get up and fight back, but by the time British Transport Police arrived, the passengers were going for the man who’d started the fight. In a separate incident, a group of football fans jumped on a train and quickly began attacking a group of off-duty police officers — only realising their folly when the men got their handcuffs out and arrested them. 

I jump off at Queen’s Park, thinking of the weary wee lad on the train to Ayr, powerless to the mob. It’ll take far more than an unenforceable booze ban to make his job bearable. 

*Names have been changed

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