Darwin Award - Puffer-nutters... again!

This from Matt's Trainpics site, with a bowler tip to @stephenrees, via Twitter...



According to Matt "At Vigo bridge there were around 20 people trespassing within sight and I suspect at least double that for this 2 mile climb from Bromsgrove."

Expect NR and the British Transport Police to review kettle operations after yesterday's Duke of Gloucester run.

Happily, if spared by natural selection, the trespassing puffer-nutters will be able to recall precisely where they were when steam was finally banned from the mainline...

In the four foot, the six or the cess.

'Nuff said.

ATOCballs - adding insult to injury!

This from Darby and Joan...

Senior Railcard holders have just received this e-mail:

Dear Darby

We’re offering you the chance to win £100 worth of travel vouchers by simply answering a few questions about your friendships, for a piece of research we are undertaking.

We’re keen to find out how often you keep in touch with your friends, whether you use Facebook and Twitter to do this and how long your average friendships last.

To complete the survey click here.

All completed surveys will be entered into the free prize draw to win £100 worth of travel vouchers to spend on UK rail travel.

Closing date for completed surveys is Thursday 30 September 2010. Terms and conditions apply.

Whipper Snapper
Senior Railcard

What a sad indictment of our society that ATOC's wet-behind-the-ears railcard team assumes that older people only keep in touch with friends by Twitter and Facebook and that their friendships are so ephemeral that enough fail to last the course for an 'average' period to be calculated.

Even worse, given the demographic being addressed, recipients of this e-mail are at a time of life when you find long standing friends shuffling off this mortal coil in increasing numbers.

So it's not exactly a sensitive request for information.

And if the grim reaper spares your friends, you can't see them as often as you like because of the complex structure of prohibitively high fares, increasingly hedged around with restrictions - even for those with Senior Rail cards.

New rolling stock strategy explained

UPDATE: This from Bill Hoole...

Why do drivers need a large plaque in the cab telling them the sort of train they are driving?

So long as you can find the Regulator and the brake when you get in the cab, that's all you need to know.

UPDATE: This from Sir Humphrey Beeching...

As some of my departmental colleagues might quip - it's the regulator that's the problem.

If Pollyanna would only get out of the cab the railway would run so much better...

Pointless signs - Twyford

Railway Garden Competition - Preston

This lovely garden sent in by D0260...

Note how it is cleverly offset with a cutting disc, a few rubber trackpads and a pot of paint.

The pièce de résistance is the unsavoury-looking detritus in the foreground.


Beautiful, just beautiful.