Evening
To give a comnparison, Penmere has a chip shop 2mins
walk up the road and has 4 schools in 15mins walking
distance and the fair uses the recreation ground also
2mins walk three times a year. We also have the chav
problem as well (upto 25 on one evening congressing
there before the last train has gone); so not too
different!
The simple answer to that is just keep going! The
amount of times we have had to repaint or repair has
been lost and we run a shoe string with donations and
grants from Rail Partnership Groups and
FGW▸ so you don't
need to have a billion turn over per year to achive this.
Obviously
CCTV▸ will help to at least identify the youth
problem, the other thing you do is to find out who your
local Station Manager is and report vandalism e.t.c. to
them. Third way around it is to form a neighbourhood
watch type scheme for the station forth way is to form a
group like we did to help to maintain it.
It is suprising that Penmere was getting a bit taty
and was hit a by grafitti and vandals, but soon as we
started repainting it and tidying up, there has been
less problems than before; they haven't even scratched
the enemal signs suprising yet; touch head!
The biggest problem we have is the police. The
BTP▸ in
Cornwall only has two officers who are very helpfull,
but that office shuts at 6pm and then calls are relayed
to Birmingham. It is then handed over to PSO or
D&C Police, again some are helpfull some arn't as they
consider it a BTP job. I phoned the BTP at Truro about
problems with youths and grafitti and he said will let
D&C (as being in evening), to be honest they haven't
done much. I also grabbed two PSOs one day and said they
would have a look, but again I haven't seen them and we
still get problems. The panda cars usually just
sail past at night!
I would also appeal to train crews if they saw something
odd to report it ASAP. We had four wooden tubs to the car
boot value of ^150 - ^250 stollen from Penmere one
evening, the Train Manager saw them (as was told latter),
but I don't think it was reported.
Regards
Karl.
No a coat of paint won't do much to improve the
acual service, but one thing that we have found
at Penmere is that after things had been tidied
up (painted), sometimes it can attract people,
more so than you would think.
In my occassional observations of Furze Platt over
the years, there's no shortage of people hanging
around the station. Usually youths that are probably
up to no good though!
Both Karl and Industry Insider have highlighted the
problems for a TOC▸ of running stations like Furze
Platt. It makes an interesting study. Here we have a
single platform staion in a totally urban environement
with an AHB road rail crossing at the Maidenhead end.
Several road/rail collisons over the years. There are
shops nearby including if it's still there a Fish and
Chip outlet. There is also a large comprehensive
secondary school nearby as well. It is also largely
unmanned (totally?) joining passengers should purchase
tickets from the conductor but with only a 5 minute run
to Maidenhead that may not be possible. Not sure if there
is a ticket machine. So how do you make it a bright clean
welcoming environment as Karl suggests and at the same time
not make it too attractive that it attracts the crowds
Industry Insider suggests gather there?
