Talk about a ticket to ride... London rail passengers hear pr0n grunts over PA system Commuters on London's Wandsworth-Clapham service last Friday morning had yet another reason to awkwardly avoid each others' gazes as grunts and groans from what sounded like a pornographic film oozed out of the train's Tannoy system. Passenger Paul Brunton did what any self-respecting citizen would and uploaded footage of his …
"So this is why the Unions are campaigning against single crewed trains..."
Coincidently, I was watching a documentary on British Rail last night. What became the Intercity 125 and the APT "tilting train" were both designed for a single driver seated centrally. ASLEF wanted significantly higher drivers wages for those trains and insisted on two drivers so blacklisted them, BR gave in and redesigned the cab for two drivers.
yep typical of the unions in this country back then. a similar ploy now being done to stop driver only trains. As with everything they play the H&S card, a driver can't possibly look after the doors as well as drive the train despite the fact underground drivers have been doing that for ever!
It was one of the reasons the ATP was killed off as they couldn't be redesigned to allow two seats like the 125s could. I wonder how long the 125s ran with two drivers?
We'll see the return of a fireman to the cab of all trains ...
once Corbyn gets elected and nationalises everything in sight although I really don't know how he's going to pay for it. All those companies debts will become part of the national debt and our credit rating will swiftly go from 'ok' to 'pure junk'.
That in turn will cost each and everyone of us a shed load of money.
That's life I suppose.
Re-nationalising trains won't cost a penny. You just wait for the existing contract to end, and don't reissue the tender. It's all in the 2017 manifesto.
We won't even have to wait that long for some of the contracts; the private operators have a habit of handing them back when they're not making as much money as expected, after all.
Now, that honour belongs to South Western Railway, which rubbed rushed out a statement saying: "South Western Railway has a policy of blocking inappropriate material, including pornographic websites, on its onboard and station Wi-Fi services.
Well if they are blocking pron then only other explanation I can think of is the conductor was having a quickie.
The picture on the article is wrong though, the train in the picture belongs to East Midlands Trains.
... similarly-named but not similar enough.
Before SWT went to SWR, for annual season ticket holders SWT used to send out a set of 6 tickets each year, each of which could be used for one free day's travel at weekends (including off-peak on fridays) and bank holidays, which could be worth up to about £400 of free train journeys a year if you pick the right routes.
When the franchise went to SWR that nice little perk just disappeared.
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Capitalism also generally a good thing, we would never have trains without it
Something I've never heard properly discussed is the fact that just about every train company - and particularly the early ones which actually built the lines and the stations and the engines - went bust, losing a whole bunch of capitalists a whole bunch of money. Vast amounts of venture capital just vanished and assets were snapped up by other companies.
At least most of the money was private money I suppose.
Eventually, of course, with the mergers and the groupings it all led to nationalisation where, once again, the debts were effectively written off.
So yes, capitalism brought us the railways and arguably they wouldn't have happened (or wouldn't have happened in quite the same way) if being done by government, but it seems to me that capitalism brought us railways in an incredibly fiscally inefficient manner, leaving aside all the shenanigans with two or three railway companies trying to serve the same markets, leading to two or three separate lines travelling essentially the same routes.
M.
"Now the trains get more government money than it did when it was state own."
Much of the train service is still state owned. The German, Dutch and French state owned/backed rail companies have many of the UK rail franchises. All that UK government funding to make sure the franchise holders make a profit and it's going to European treasuries (even after Brexit!!)
Why the downvotes? Does it not fit with your world view or something?
Abelio - Owned by the Dutch national rail operator
West Midlands Trains - Abellio
Greater Anglia - 60% owned by Abellio
Stanstead Express - 60% owned by Abellio
MerseyRail - Abellio and Nederlandse Spoorwegen (both Dutch Govt owned) + Serco.
c2c - Owned by an Italian Govt owned rail operator.
Arriva - Deutsche Bahn (private company with one share holder, the German Govt.)
Chiltern Trains - Owned by Arriva
CrossCountry - Owned by Arriva
Northern - Owned by Arriva
Great North Western Railway - Arriva (due to start operation in Sept'19)
SouthEastern - Owned by Govia->Keolis->SNCF (French Govt), jointly with Go Ahead
Transport for Wales - Keolis (SNCF) and Amey.
That's a pretty large chunk of the UK rail services owned by European governments.
That's a pretty large chunk of the UK rail services owned by European governments
Although, in the case of Transport for Wales, I believe it isn't actually ownership, which rests with TfW, it's more of a lease. Granted, it still means quite a lot of money leaves these shores, but at least the hard assets remain here.
TfW has quite an ambitious regeneration plan. About time too. At the moment we're still relying on Pacers and Sprinters.
And while there was certainly a lot of "railway mania" in the UK (the whole bizarre history of the Aldwych tube "branch" being just one small quirky microcosm of this), in some other countries it was soon seen as sensible for the railways to be managed and developed by the state.
@Martin An Gof, "Eventually, of course, with the mergers and the groupings it all led to nationalisation where, once again, the debts were effectively written off."
Not strictly true. Nationalisation was funded by swapping shares in the post 1921 grouping Big Four companies (GWR/LNER/LMS/SR) with government issued debt but the British Transport commission (BTC) was obliged to pay a pretty high interest rate dividend (I don't have the rate to hand) on that debt which hammered their finances and in part led to the closures of the 1950s (closures started in earnest long before Beeching).
Also during WW2 the railways were run as a single organisation under a joint committee (pseudo-nationalisation) but still charged for all traffic carried. The network was hammered by the high volume of traffic, especially government/MOD traffic, during the war while the lack of labour and resources meant the infrastructure couldn't be maintained for all that extra traffic. They did have the foresight to build up reserves from all this war time revenue with the intention to repair the network when the war ended, but on nationalisation all that money just vanished into HM Treasury rather than being spent on the network which was left in its dilapidated war time state. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
Outside of war footings states are appallingly bad at doing anything new.
I would counter that things such as universal education, universal healthcare (in the civilised world anyway), employee rights, consumer protection legislation, public water supply and sewerage and probably quite a lot of other "stuff" simply wouldn't have happened in a purely capitalist society. Now you could argue that some of these things aren't necessarily "innovative", but in a broad sense they are definitely more socialist than capitalist and while some early pioneers in the fields weren't "the state", they weren't "the corporation" either, instead being philanthropists, co-operatives, etc.
M.
My point was that the state would never have invented railways
The state may not have invented them quite as early as "free enterprise" did, but I would contend that once the technology was possible, they would eventually have invented them. The first transport revolution was probably the turnpike toll roads, and as far as I'm aware these were state-sponsored, if not directly state-run.
One of the driving forces was the need to reduce the travel time between London and (Northern) Ireland for the post, by improving on the existing roads. Leaving aside canals (the magnificent Pontcysyllte Aqueduct notwithstanding), if private companies hadn't got there first, government would eventually have built a railway to Holyhead for the very same reason.
M.
> The state may not have invented them quite as early as "free enterprise" did, but I would contend that once the technology was possible, they would eventually have invented them.
And just where would they have got the technology from?
It was the needs of another branch of free enterprise that led to the technology. I really don't think the state would have brought about the building step required. "The State" tends to favour the status quo, introducing steam power pumps adversely impacted those with a vested interest in using animal power for that task. Replacing the existing technology with something new has recently become known as "disruption" and "The State" isn't going to disrupt things*, it upsets too many people at too many levels. If mining were state controlled then they would probably not seen the need for deeper mines, they'd have just moved on to alternative shallow mines. Going deeper was driven by a mine owner only owning that one mine, if they wanted more out of it they needed to go deeper.
Your example of turnpikes BTW is another example of organisation and not invention. Roads are an ancient idea. I used to live just by a road that was ancient when the pyramids were built, animals produce tracks and roads are just an evolution of those. Turnpikes weren't new, they were just better organised roads.
(*) except where war'ish environments exist. Only then do mavericks manage to drive through radical changes.
States didn't used to fund research, or at least not very much.
Academic research was usually done by rich buggers who could afford to and were curious or because rich buggers funded it. State funding of university research is quite new.
By "railway time" increasingly those rich buggers were the industrialist who'd throng to scientific presentations looking for things they could profit from.
I'm not sure how much its done now, but until fairly recently lots of companies got involved in blue sky research. I used to work in research and while the area I was working in was related to things the company hoped to turn into products in the medium term it wasn't tomorrows products. Another company I worked for had an research organisation who were focussed on much further out technologies.
Unions generally a good thing
Capitalism also generally a good thing
And the trick is balancing between the two to gain the benfits of both without too many of the penalties. Something that we are historically bad at - going from the 'unions crippling the county' in the 1970's to 'corporates crippling the country' now.
If only there was a middle of the road political party! (That was electable)
@ Forum MCForumface's "Cockfosters is if anything) a slang term for urine".
Are you taking the slang term here?
Because you couldn't be more wrong. If you knew a bit more about pr0n you'd be well aware of the fact that when a male performer is, um, ready to perform, he is said to have got Oakwood.
Yes, porn has sound, even more annoyingly so if you don't want to let other people hear what you're watching.
Example : long boredroom meeting/train/aeroplane/boat/ferry/bus journey, you want to have a quick shufty at some porn clip, but all of a sudden your volume pumps itself up and everybody can hear quite clearly what Jane wants John to do to her [unmentionables]...
Indeed, I remember a story a few years ago about the student who went into the lecture hall, sat at the back with their laptop, plugged in a set of headphones and fired up some porn.
30 second later, the student glanced up and noticed everyone in the room looking at them. It was at this point the student realised they'd plugged their headphones into the mic socket rather than the headphone socket...
Once upon a time, I was in a bar in Ottawa. There were several TVs hanging from the ceiling, but we were seated behind them and we could only hear the audio. The audio was quite intriguing, with the sound of women breathlessly panting and calling out, "Push! HARDER, HARDER..." On behalf of my group, I wondered over to investigate what was playing on the TVs. I reported back in a loud voice, "It's just Women's Curling !!"
Trains don't drive themselves as such (except on completely segregated systems - DLR and the LU Victoria line being two prime examples). The Driver is still driving and, especially on DOO services (plus DCO with no Guard present) is singularly responsible for several hundred passengers, especially if there is an emergency.
One thing I've learned from driving on a heritage railway (Class 37 locos definitely don't drive themselves!): it's [relatively] easy to make the train move. Getting it to stop safely and smoothly in the exact spot on the platform every time is a lot harder!
So there is traction knowledge (how the traction works and the ability to fix faults that develop when in service while the line controller is screaming at you to get moving because the penalty payments are racking up quickly), route knowledge (speed limits, junctions, signals, controlling signal boxes), rule book knowledge (defines everything with respect to how trains are worked including what to do in an emergency like protecting the line etc) plus the job itself (in many cases lone working, and shift working at unsociable hours, then the trauma having "one under" i.e. seeing someone go splat when they commit suicide). Yes a lot earn £40k+ but it's a bit more than just pushing a button and letting the train drive itself.
That said, the driver in question - if he was distracted by something like watching pr()n on his phone/tablet while in the cab (never mind actively driving) - is in for some serious disciplinary action. Not paying attention to your driving is inexcusable.
If you think it's just stop and go then get along to your nearest heritage railway, pay for one of their driver experiences and show the instructor driver how it's done! Controlling 300 tons of train is a little more complicated than a 1-2 ton family car.
Mines the one with the big bag of popcorn (and flask of weak lemon drink natch).
As for steering - drivers are still expected to observe the road ahead and watch for points that haven't gone over correctly or have failed (think Potters Bar).
"The three-minute journey from Wandsworth Town to Clapham Junction takes place on a stretch of rail laid between 1838 and 1863. It's not known where the passenger embarked and even less clear where the announcer or driver, er, got off but Shepherd's Bush, Cockfosters and Mudchute are all very possible."
Not content with the chap who posted this claiming it was on a tube train, El Reg now puts more nonsense in its article. The train in question, a series 458 or possibly 707, would be on the Reading, Windsor or Addlestone service (third rail 750V). The line may have been opened in 1838 but I would hope the rail itself was laid much more recently. The driver doesn't normally have access to the public announcement system, the guard does. Yes, he may have done something irregular in his guards van. Much more likely the whole thing has been made up by Mr Brunton to moan about SWR (or was it TFL and he edited the wrong tape?). Shepherds Bush, Cockfosters etc are quite definitely not possible stops on that line. And judging by the few people in the carriage it was hardly filmed on a Friday morning near Clapham Junction, the trains are always jam packed there.
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>"South Western Railway has a policy of blocking inappropriate material, including pornographic websites, on its onboard and station Wi-Fi services.
"We are investigating this incident to establish how this material was broadcast on our service.
A mystery for the ages, indeed. It's a good thing portable electronic devices don't have any kind of built-in storage that would permit videos to be viewed without the need for an Internet connection. Cause if you're really crass enough to be watching porn in public or on the job, you wouldn't want to risk dodgy free wi-fi causing an "interruption" at the wrong moment, now would you?
In one of the most boring posts on the board (since it might be vaguely IT related) I would guess an erroneous (maybe?) bluetooth connection from someone's fun on a mobile device to the train audio connection... where no-one bothered to change the default connection pairing code? .... nothing to see here (unfortunately).
"London rail passengers <were> played......"
Its typical journo headline misuse of the past participle, as in .....
'audience played noise at music festival', when they mean
'audience were played noise at music festival'
or more correctly 'audience suffered noise at music festival' and more accurately
'Band played challenging music at festival that some in the audience considered to be noise'
Journo's have free license in Headlines, grammar is never applied, in part, to make us read the article.
@semtex451: It's not "journo's" (sic) whoever they might be who have "free license in Headlines, grammar is never applied in part, to make us read the article" but Subs (sub-edtors, who are underwater versions of journalists and very often failed reporters or failed English language teachers.) Headlines are written to fit a space in the page design, and may be clever or prosaic. El Reg's are rarely (if ever) the latter.
On the evidence of your defective pedantry, it would seem you yourself are a failed English language teacher: '"audience played noise at'" music festival" when they mean "audience were (sic) played noise at music festival"' is even more incomprehensible than the average railway platform announcement. Well done!
Everyone is assuming he was 'avin' a wank, when he could just as easily have been getting a blowie, or doin' the doggie, etc. You are also assuming it was the driver, when it could have been the conductor, or some weirdo who had broken into the conductors room for a quick wafty crank. Either way, kudos for making half of a train sit up and pay attention.
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