In a rare departure from ranting directly at Third Rate Western, I feel it's time to address one of the main causes of the irritating, avoidable, smaller delays to services. The kind of 3 or 4 minute delay at each calling point, that ends up being 20 minutes by the end of the journey. The kind of delay that is caused by stupid passengers who can't be arsed to close the door behind them.
You see it at every station, pretty much every time a train calls. Everyone gets on, and then the platform staff have to walk up the entire length of the train shutting all the doors. Of course, the situation is even worse on stations that aren't manned (aside of the fact that arguably the HSTs shouldn't be stopping there at all) when the train manager has to do every door. And inevitably by the time he's finished, some late arrival at the station has left another one open and so the tedious cycle begins again.
When I was a lad (before I was sent down t' pit and had to eat gravel etc.) I'd get the train to and from school, on the London to Brighton line with old fashioned slam-door trains. There were no platform staff. The guard didn't have to shut the doors. The commuters did it themselves. Why? Perhaps because they knew that no-one was going to do it for them, and if they didn't shut them then they wouldn't be on their way to work any time soon.
So perhaps a social experiment is called for. Maybe if the platform staff stop shutting doors, and train managers simply announce "we are not leaving because someone hasn't bothered to close the door behind them" people will start taking 3 seconds out of their lives to speed up the journey for everyone else.
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3 comments:
I have to say, I agree whole heartedly with this - even when people are repeatedly told that the doors need to be closed, some of these passengers, in their dream like state in which they stumble through life, just don't shut the door.
Were they born in a barn or something.
Goodness me.
The Train Fellow. www.trainfellows.blogspot.com
I also agree but doubt whether the companies would support their staff in such action or the passengers responsible would listen or take action.
I actually think that some very petty sad people leave the door open deliberately when leaving as some sort of pathetic 'protest' or perhaps because they have no sex lives/freinds/all 3!
Just another example of sheer ignorance from passengers. Quite similar to passengers trying to press the door open buttons on the outside of a train when the button itself isn't even lit up/active at the time.
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