Observed whilst catching an 05.30am out of Birmingham New Street to Glasgow- 
Ticket checks took place on the sparse passengers between Wolverhampton and 
Stafford. In front of me at the opposite end of the carriage, were three 
youths fast asleep across pairs of adjacent seats.  Train Manager 
repeadtedly shouts 'Hello' and 'Tickets please' and after 5 minutes or so of 
complete lack of any response, a loud ' 'Fxxx Off' was heard. Train Manager 
went back to his office and telephoned control  for security or BTP to meet 
train at Stafford or Crewe... It was Lancaster before any help appeared in 
the form of a single guy with a hi-vis vest and 'SECURITY' on it , who asked 
the guys to get off, which they subsequently did at Carlisle.... The moral 
of the story is the legitimate travellers got surcharged and paid thru the 
nose, whilst the illegitmate travelled free.....

and what do you propose the TM should have done then?
Not wishing to state the bleeding obvious but if the TM had been assaulted 
the train may well have then been cancelled so how does that help? -he has 
to leave them at a staffed station, preferably with btp.
The TM did what anyone would have done, taking it upon himself/herself would 
have been inviting trouble -ob staff are NOT the police and should never act 
like it.
bear in mind that fare dodgers like this are :
a: the 1% that is actually obvious (as opposed to the 99% who will pay but 
only when directly challenged and wear suits and pretend they are law 
abiding!)
b:not able to do this everyday without getting arrested sooner or later
c:who said they were actually aiming for carlisle? they may well have been 
trying to get further and in making themselves a pain in the a*se they ended 
up not only being ejected short, but making the security and station staff 
aware of them and therefore not likely to be able to then continue their 
fare dodging on another service.
There is only so much a TOC and it's staff can do to stop scum like this, if 
the btp/security take their time/have insufficient resources/are occupied 
with something else (delete where applicable!) then we all need to be 
realistic.

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as turbo
 gently breathed:

>Observed whilst catching an 05.30am out of Birmingham New Street to Glasgow-
>Ticket checks took place on the sparse passengers between Wolverhampton and
>Stafford. In front of me at the opposite end of the carriage, were three
>youths fast asleep across pairs of adjacent seats.  Train Manager
>repeadtedly shouts 'Hello' and 'Tickets please' and after 5 minutes or so of
>complete lack of any response, a loud ' 'Fxxx Off' was heard. Train Manager
>went back to his office and telephoned control  for security or BTP to meet
>train at Stafford or Crewe... It was Lancaster before any help appeared in
>the form of a single guy with a hi-vis vest and 'SECURITY' on it , who asked
>the guys to get off, which they subsequently did at Carlisle.... The moral
>of the story is the legitimate travellers got surcharged and paid thru the
>nose, whilst the illegitmate travelled free.....


Clearly all Train Managers should be armed with automatic weapons and
anyone who dares to respond with obscenity should be blasted into a
one-way ticket for the great Voyager in the sky...  :-)

Seriously though - the problem here isn't the railway's, it's society's.
People have lost the idea that officials must be respected and rules
must be obeyed, partly because of a change in peoples' perceptions of
their own importance and partly because of an almost total lack of reedy
against those who break the rules.

It'll take a major cultural shift to get people to respect the rules
again, and require a vast investment in enforcement at all levels
(especially police).  If every fare dodger knew that they had a 90%+
chance of being arrested and locked up, or even just heavily fined, far
fewer would chance it.  But until that "high probability of being caught
and dealt with" is achieved, the problem will continue to get worse.

Some would call for harsher penalties (I used to be one of those who
called for such), but the first step has to be adequate enforcement of
the existing penalties.  I think it was Ross who said that the main
deterrent is the risk of getting caught.  In this case "getting caught"
doesn't mean being woken up by the TM and telling him to flock off, it
means being arrested by the police very soon after said incident.

My sympathies to the TM - they should not have to work in such
conditions.

NP: Nightwish - The Kinslayer.
-- 
 - DJ Pyromancer, Black Sheep, Leeds.  <http://www.sheepish.net>

Broadband, Dialup, Domains = <http://www.wytches.net> = The UK's Pagan ISP!
<http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk>    <http://www.revival.stormshadow.com>

Pyromancer wrote:

> Seriously though - the problem here isn't the railway's, it's society's.
> People have lost the idea that officials must be respected and rules
> must be obeyed, partly because of a change in peoples' perceptions of
> their own importance and partly because of an almost total lack of reedy
> against those who break the rules.


Yes it is a serious problem we on the railway which have inherited from
society. It occurs daily be it on long distance or shorter distance
workings, unfortunately as a guard/conductor or train manager there is
little you can do without assistance. Fortunately Police do travel on
trains and on the more than one occasion where things have got ugly
there has been a police officer to assist. The key problem is excess
alcohol, so it's only going the get worse when the government
effectively remove the licensing hours.


> It'll take a major cultural shift to get people to respect the rules
> again, and require a vast investment in enforcement at all levels
> (especially police).  If every fare dodger knew that they had a 90%
> chance of being arrested and locked up, or even just heavily fined, far
> fewer would chance it.  But until that "high probability of being caught
> and dealt with" is achieved, the problem will continue to get worse.


The problem in the South (I cannot speak for the North) is that since
the penalty fares came in there and there are so few occasions where on
DOO especially evaders get caught that it becomes a gamble with the
odds in favour of the evader. £20 once every now and again vs the cost
of the ticket every day. What is needed of course is more revenue
protection staff and less PFs when MG11 is more suitable (MG11 being a
court summons and £5,000 fine).

A young girl once showed me the outward portion of a Saver return 2
days after the date on the ticket, she claimed she was told she could
use it any time in a month, after I explained that only the return
portion was valid for a month she let slip her friend did not tell her
that. So, a bit more questioning about the ticket led to the fact she
bought it from a friend. When I pointed out that presenting an invalid
ticket which could easily have been used by the friend 2 days previous
could land her with a prosecution she asked what for, when I pointed
out that it could be seen as 'gaining money or services by deception'
she was most apologetic and was very keen to pay outright for a new
ticket. The point is fare evasion is not taken seriously enough.


> Some would call for harsher penalties (I used to be one of those who
> called for such), but the first step has to be adequate enforcement of
> the existing penalties.  I think it was Ross who said that the main
> deterrent is the risk of getting caught.  In this case "getting caught"
> doesn't mean being woken up by the TM and telling him to flock off, it
> means being arrested by the police very soon after said incident.


What I don't understand from the orignal post is that if it was
Stafford that the altercation took place why were they not removed at
Crewe, Warrington, Preston or Lancaster, all of these being staffed and
surely police could have got there by the time the train did? If I had
my way an additonal stop at Leyland where they could be removed would
be nice!!!


> My sympathies to the TM - they should not have to work in such
> conditions.


Unfortunately TMs/guards and conductors do, as well as the platform
staff. Banning drinking alcohol on the trains after a certain time, not
selling it from the buffet cars and more security staff on the trains
will help.

"tim"  wrote in message 
news:dggqjn$207$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...

> and what do you propose the TM should have done then?


surely he is suggesting BTP were at fault here?

(another) tim

>> and what do you propose the TM should have done then?
>
> surely he is suggesting BTP were at fault here?
>

I wasn't suggesting the TM should have done anything- I wouldn't or couldn't 
, but where was the support, and backup... The situation was clearly 
volatile, and could have involved a coach , now filling fast with 
commuters.. Whether its BTP or 'Security' or whatever, it didn't give much 
re-assurance of anything being done to assist the TM. My feeling was that 
some support should have been available at best at Stafford, or at worst at 
Crewe, giving some 35 minutes for BTP to respond from their shack on the 
station car park. Next time these louts travel, do you think there was ANY 
incentive to pay or get a ticket?  I note another poster suggested an 
unscheduled stop at Leyland, I'm sure back up plans should be in existence 
for such unscheduled stops in the middle of no-where, like Acton Bridge...

In message , at 
04:14:18 on Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Conductor in Charge of.......... 
 remarked:

>The key problem is excess alcohol, so it's only going the get worse 
>when the government effectively remove the licensing hours.


How so? The extended closing times will be long after the last train has 
run.
-- 
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry"  wrote in message 
news:Tn4f3DFAGBLDFAPM@donald.internetpolicynews.co.uk...

> In message , at 
> 04:14:18 on Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Conductor in Charge of.......... 
>  remarked:
>>The key problem is excess alcohol, so it's only going the get worse when 
>>the government effectively remove the licensing hours.
>
> How so? The extended closing times will be long after the last train has 
> run.
> -- 
> Roland Perry


Isn't that the point? The next mornings commuter services will be full of 
drunks going directly to work from their all night sesh, hic!

Paul

Conductor in Charge of.......... wrote:


> The key problem is excess alcohol, so it's only going the get worse
> when the government effectively remove the licensing hours.


Every time I see this kind of statement, it puzzles me. People have
never been unable to drink as much as they like whenever they like. The
only thing the licensing hours affects is to restrict the places and to
stop pub landlords deriving income from the practice.

Unless, that is, the suggestion is that people who drink in pubs really
are so unimaginative that they really can't imagine what to do when the
pubs are closed...
-- 
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9628968.html
(03 162 at Carrog, 2 Jun 2004)

Going back to the point about enforcing rules, the number of drunks one
sees on trains is  clear evidence that the rule that drunks should not
be served alcohol (it's a condition of the licensing laws, I
understand) is clearly being flouted. On the subject of police back-up
and attitudes to staff, I recall an incident involving a ticket
inspector I knew slightly who when she challenged someone on a train
who had an invalid ticket, the passenger in question calmly got his
mobile out, rang his mate and in full hearing of the rest of the
carriage, asked this mate to "do over" (or words to that effect) the
Train Manager on arrival at its destination. Needless to say, this
gentleman had a BTP reception committee waiting for him at the next
convenient intermediate stop. I did not witness this incident but was
subsequently told about it by the employee in question, who had
understandably been shaken up badly by the incident.

On my line (Kings Cross - Cambridge) WAGN now tend to have at least one
police officer in attendance if they are doing a ticket examination at
a station. I recall this at Letchworth late on a Saturday night
recently; the layout of the station is such that the exit cannot be
seen from those alighting from a down train until they have climbed the
steps of the footbridge, when on this occasion a loud collective "oh
s**t" was heard from various individuals (not me, I hasten to add!) and
the RPIs did get a lot of customers!!!

On 18 Sep 2005 07:54:33 -0700,
billetelic_ferroequinologist@hotmail.com wrote:


>it's a condition of the licensing laws, I
>understand


I do not believe railway operators (or other transport operators, for
that matter) are subject to (all of) the licensing laws where the
alcohol is sold on a moving vehicle.  This is to do with the fact that
the vehicle may be moving through more than one local area, and
alcohol licensing is a local authority issue.

That said, just about every pub also flouts the rule concerned...

Neil

-- 
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

sorry turbo, you are quite correct it was BTP/general security at fault here 
clearly.
However this IS the main reason ticketing staff refuse (or just plain don't 
do) to check tickets on later night time trains, they are simply 
apprehensive about getting a slap from some k**b-end and running the risk of 
either going sick and being harrased by managers or cancelling the train due 
to them not being able to be in a 'fit state' (ie eye injury as I have 
'seen' over the years!) and no other guard being available.
Most staff IME just simply revert to 'guard only' duties on late night 
trains and rely on btp etc to remove those passengers who are really making 
a nuisance of themselves.

Paul Scott wrote:


> "Roland Perry"  wrote in message
> news:Tn4f3DFAGBLDFAPM@donald.internetpolicynews.co.uk...
> > In message , at
> > 04:14:18 on Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Conductor in Charge of..........
> >  remarked:
> >>The key problem is excess alcohol, so it's only going the get worse when
> >>the government effectively remove the licensing hours.
> >
> > How so? The extended closing times will be long after the last train has
> > run.
> > --
> > Roland Perry
>
> Isn't that the point? The next mornings commuter services will be full of
> drunks going directly to work from their all night sesh, hic!


Yes this is sort of the point. Why was it that at 7.50 this morning
there were people (not for long i might add) in 1st class drinking cans
of *****? Why was it at 9.50 2 people got on swigging from a large wine
bottle?

Did you notice how I specified EXCESS alcohol?

On 19 Sep 2005 09:11:45 -0700, "Conductor in Charge of.........."
 wrote:


>Yes this is sort of the point. Why was it that at 7.50 this morning
>there were people (not for long i might add) in 1st class drinking cans
>of *****? Why was it at 9.50 2 people got on swigging from a large wine
>bottle?


Given that the new laws are not (as far as I am aware) yet in force,
the above is clearly not to do with them.

I personally do not think it will make any adverse difference, TBH.
After all, so long as it is purchased during licensing hours, you can
drink alcohol whenever you want at home, or indeed on a train where it
can also be sold at any time!

Neil

-- 
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.