Train Of Thought
‘IT has long been our belief that not all commuters hate being delayed by our antiquated rail service.
| Pete puts in another hard day at the Anorak office |
To the high-flying City type, for whom time is money, arriving in the trading pit even a second late can mean a lost shirt and a coronary.
But consider the sexually-harassed PA, the poorly-paid secretary and the drone who delivers the morning post – do they mind that their train has been delayed for an hour or more?
We think not. Indeed, for them and many others, the break affords a valuable time out in which they can, as Pauline Cridland of the Thurrock Rail Users’ Group puts it in the Times, ”read, doze, study or think”.
It might just be that we enjoy these unadvertised perks to modern rail travel. We like the routine interruptions to what is still laughably called ”normal service”.
Sweep those leaves onto the line! Park a cow on the track! Strike noble driver, strike!
But this could be about to come to an end. As the Times reports, passengers aboard the 7:13 from Thorp Bay, Essex, to London are up in arms.
They’re upset and outraged at the intention of train operating company c2c to install television screens in each carriage, ”breaching the silent barrier zone of semi-consciousness between bed and work” with news, adverts and even travel updates.
So, a group of women intended to express their displeasure by spending the entire duration of yesterday’s journey locked in the train’s toilets.
However, what this being a peak-time service, the fools failed to realise that the toilets would be out of order.
By the time a working seat of protest had been found, most of the protestors had disembarked at their destinations, leaving just a hardcore of three women to cram themselves into the larger disabled toilet for around ten minutes.
As the paper rightly says, ”it wasn’t quite standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square”…but it did gain some exposure for this worthy cause.’
Posted: 9th, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
