There is no dead mans 'handle', but there is a foot pedal they must keep depressed and release and re-apply every 60 seconds or so.


Judge, Jury and Executioner....this is a persons livelihood you are writing off here in a single sentence.....

Pictures btw:

There is also no evidence that he was atually 'reading' the paper.....

This is the problem with the "spotter police" they take a 1 second snap of a 12hour day and then cant wait to sell it if there is even the slightest hint that something is not right (even if they need to fib a bit to do this)

There are loads of reasons that could explain the picture:

The train is stood at a red
Folding the paper to swat a fly or wasp
Folding paper to plug a draughty window or door (the tunnel would have amplified this noise)
Folding paper to make a sunshade
Picking up a paper that had blown off the desk due to the suction of the tunnel or the harsh airflow that the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) power car A/Cs put out.

The cash hungry spotter fakes it completely........

In realty, not one of them are unsafe if the driver knows the road well. Drivers will regularly check their diagrams on the move to see if they are on time & scheduled to stop at the next station.

So on the face of it this is more than likely nothing unsafe or worth bleeting about, but since a snapper has snapped it they must get their blood money so they sell it to a tabloid and let the tabloid make up whatever headline they want 

....and people wonder why staff are often hostile towards spotters?

Just another point, the MTU engines actually go into a 'split bank' mode when idling or on Train Supply, where by two halves of each bank ie. 6 and 6 fire only and it changes over every 10mins or so, making a sound like the engine 'coughs' briefly!

52762 was stopped at SPM^▸ (St Philip's Marsh (Bristol depot)) for repairs over last weekend, was due to be reformed into a 3-car sometime this week.

Being a multiskilled technician, not a toilet technician, i couldnt tell you precisely, but you have answered your own question for the first two units you mentioned. 798 didnt have a 2nd standard toilet when it came over to FGW^▸ (First Great Western), it was just an empty room. The toilet was slowly reinstated bit by bit (alot of work) each time it visited SPM^▸ (St Philip's Marsh (Bristol depot)) for a B exam, then a stumbing point was hit with regards to sourcing an apprppriate toilet pan & seat assembly to fit. Unfortuntely, nothing ever seems to happen fast on the railway and for reasons totally beyond me, the toilets and pans are specially made to order believe it or not, hence the long lead times. 959, no idea...must have been one big **** for it to take 2 months to clear it!!! 

LOL^▸ (laughing out loud)

Dehli Belly!!! haha

We still to this day cant get our heads around it.

The unit was 99% certain tanked becuase the hand basin certainly worked and the unit had come off of the depot with a fresh FPX that morning after spending several days being picked apart on fault finding but being 'NFFd' (No Fault Found!). It failed later at Pompey with a totally differant problem to what we were riding it for!!!

In my almost 5 years on the Railway so far, i have seen and heard of some horrific and unbelievable things found by cleaners, maintenance staff and production support over the years, on the West fleet and the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train). Some of the carraige cleaners have told me stomach churning tales...

**** off!!!

I have a Van and i already cringe at paying 10.90.

I am simply NOT going to pay 11.50. It is a total rip off and totally unjustified despite what all of the corrupted MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) and company directors state..... it should be a non-profit company plain and simple. They should not be allowed to monoploise the entry to wales.

I will be driving via Glocuseter in future...happily clogging up the M5, congesting the roads in Gloucester and the A48 down to the Couldra. B*****ks to it............

Sorry, probably should of added a content warning at the beginning of the post!!

RUBBISH, utter rubbish. We do no such thing.

For ages now we have been repainting walls and replacing damged/missing toilet seats, towelmasters & soap dispencers by the dozen every week.

The reason things are declining currently is becuase it is getting to the point now where they are being broken so often that we are running low on stock of parts to replace/repair them and the other damage being done (acid etching/vandalism etc) is often too severe to be sorted on the FPXs the units have over night, which have very narrow windows for repairs, meaning they have to be deffered until the next A/B Exam.

The only people to blame for the state of the toilets on the west fleet are the people (i use that term very loosley) who use the trains. Some people are worse than animals, for example....

I was en-route to Westbury several weeks ago, riding a troublesome unit with a Mob Tech. Sat in the leading cab, arriving at Bath a rather attractive lady caught my eye on our platform and a quick glance out of the front set of doors confirmed that she boarded our unit.

Later on leaving Bradford-O-A we walked through the train to the back cab to take some voltage readings from the Train wire terminals and coinciently I notied her entering and locking the disabled toilet as we walked down the train.

When we arrived at Trow, the guard came down to the back cab looking pretty sickend and we asked him what was wrong. Speechless, he lead us down the train and opened the disabled toilet door which he had LOOU^▸ (locked out of use). We were greeted by one of the most disgusting smells and sights I have seen to date (and ive seen trains post one-under). There was feaces all over the toilet pan and rim, on the open lid and even in the area between the pan and the wall, literally running down the wall along with toilet paper crammed down the pan. It didnt even look like the person had sat down.

It was vile and we then realised that considering the timescale, it must have been the 'work' of the woman i noticed earlier, who we could see sat further down the next coach & as we left the unit at Westbury, she was seen causually walking down the steps to the subway. I couldnt believe that someone so innocent looking and well presented could do such a rancid thing...

It was simply vile and i really pitty the poor person who had the unfortunte task of cleaning up the mess.

One of ours apparently hit a cow earlier in the Castle Cary area.

Has messed up our incoming sets tonight completely

The shelters had perspex back in the wessex days.

It was just scribed & set alight/spot melted by bored people/kids with cigerette lighters........

Just like the vandalised ticket machines and PIS^▸ (Passenger Information System) systems, it it not down to FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to just chase around like idiots replacing things everytime they get broken...they shoulnt be broken in the first place.

It is down to the station users and the local police to stop the people, but becuase Avon and Scumerset police are about as usefull as a handbrake on a canoe, nothing will get done, they are more worried about wangling the crime statistics and catching people doing 33 in a 30..........

Why should FGW^▸ (First Great Western) shell for new machines repeatidly when they along with the TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) ar just being constantly trashed.

I should magine that they have been severely put off of installing further machines as they are just being mindlessly vandalised. It must be loosing them ridiculas amounts of money in both purchase and installation costs.

People should not be having a pop at FGW for not chasing around like idiots repairing smashed up machines, they should be going for the scrotes that vandalise the machines in the first place.

And as for the comments about how the machine has a design flaw of being able to be removed, what a load of tosh, why should everything have to have tonnes of extra money spent on it making it essentially bomb proof? They are supposed to be a standardised cost effective PIS^▸ (Passenger Information System) system, they should simply not be vandalised in the first place. The focus on  society now is so wrong, it seems to be a case of protection not prevention. Takes the pi$$!

Station users/local residents have no one to blame for the OOU^▸ (out of use) machines in their area but some of the local residents. I suggest that you consult your local neighborhood watches or PCSOs etc to try and tackle the problem. Or failing that, just electrify that cases of the Help points so that if anyone touches anythng other than the buttons, they wont know what hit them.

I could have been alot ruder.

And no, i didnt mean women in general, i just meant the portion of the general population who are completly and totally dilusional in one way or another, similar to yourself.

FA, tbh you are a complete and utter fruitcake and the unfortunte thing is that over half of the poulation are in a simlar mental state.

Shame that the (fully deserved) whack you got didnt knock any sense into you....