WILD RIDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23169, 15 October 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

WILD RIDE

ROOF OF EXPRESS SCOT WITHOUT MONEY DESPERATE TO GET HOME A Scotsman's forty-six mile ride on the roof of the night Scot express from Euston to Bletchlcy was described when he was charged in London with endangering the safety of persons travelling on the L.M.S. railway. The man, Angus McLeod, a railway worker, of Green Hill Park, Willesden, was trying to get to Glasgow.

Harold Francis Toombs, station foreman at Bletchley, said that the Night Scot was pulled up by the guard with the automatic brake.

McLeod jumped down from the top of the train, and a goods guard tackled him and got him down. McLeod said: "I am going to Glasgow," Superintendent Bryant said thai McLeod would have to duck for bridees if he ivore on the roof of the train, and Sergeant Merry said that McLeod was as black as a nigger and his eyes were strained and inflamed.

McLeod, it was stated, had told the police that he was on No. 15 platform at Huston with a platform ticket. "I had a few drinks with my pals." he added, "and decided to try to cet back to Glasgow. 1 was short of nionev. as I had been paid off by the railway since August. 13, and I could not afford a ticket.

"The ticket collector ordered me off the train, but I walked the length of a coach and got into a carriage and then on the roof.

"the train then started, and when it rolled I had difficulty in keepini: on. Ten miles from where it stopped it rolled badly and I nearly fell off. so when it stopped in a station 1 lav flat on the top until 1 heard the guard shout, when 1 got down and ran off.

"Jt was a silly thinir to do, but I was desperate to get home to Scotland." The bench decided that a prima facie case of endangering the safety of other persons had not been proved and that charge was dismissed. McLeod was then charged with travelling on the roof of the railway carriage contrary to the L.M.S. by-laws and also travelling without paying his faro or intending to pay. He was fined 40s for travelling on the roof and 20s for having no ticket.