TRANSPORT - TRAINS

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A list of actual announcements that London Tube train drivers have made to their passengers...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologize for the delay to your service. I know you're all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you'll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction."

"Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome: not knowing his elbow from his backside. I'll let you know any further information as soon as I'm given any."

"Do you want the good news first or the bad news? The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won't reach our destination."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay, but there is a security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here for the foreseeable future, so let's take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now.... 'Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall.....'."

"Beggars are operating on this train. Please do NOT encourage these professional beggars. If you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity. Failing that, give it to me."

"Please allow the doors to close. Try not to confuse this with 'Please hold the doors open.' The two are distinct and separate instructions."

"Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors."

"We can't move off because some idiot has their hand stuck in the door."

"To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the second carriage - what part of 'stand clear of the doors' don't you understand?"

"Please move ALL baggage away from the doors." (Pause..) "Please move ALL belongings away from the doors." (Pause...) "This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train: Put the pie down, four-eyes, and move your bloody golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your arse sideways!"

"May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it's only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage."

AEA Technology Rail, based at Jubilee House in Pride Park, has developed a £500,000 sprinkler system to simulate rain, which prevents the noise of squeaking rails. The firm came up with the concept after Railtrack asked it to investigate ways of stopping the noise on a sharp curve of a line at Barnt Green in Birmingham. The squeal, which occurred every time a train ran along the curve, was driving local residents round the bend. Engineers at AEA, which develops leaf-busting and fault-finding technology for the railways, investigated the problem. They tried to identify whether the trains or the track were causing it. They carried out remote tests with equipment they subsequently named Squealchex.

The same technology is normally used to investigate so-called "bridge bashes", in which vehicles hit rail bridges. It measures noise and air and rail temperature, records images of trains passing and collects other data. The data was then sent back to AEA's headquarters in Derby for analysis. After a couple of months of tests and discussions with local people, the engineers discovered the noise had never occurred on wet lines. The dry metal on the wheel, rubbing against the dry rail, caused the noise. So the company carried out a successful test in which an engineer sprayed the 200-yard stretch of line with water each time a train approached.

AEA then recommended that Railtrack develop a way of spraying the lines every time a train ran over them. Railtrack installed a long line of piping that automatically sprays the line when a train approaches. The equipment has solved the problem. AEA says Squealchex has attracted interest from Dutch National Railways. Lines in the Netherlands are noisy because they lack the undulating territory that helps reduce the noise. AEA spokesman Terry Collinson said, "This is a cost effective way of solving the problem." Railtrack spokeswoman Michelle Conaboy said, "We've had a successful result on this and the residents of Barnt Green are very happy."

Train companies in the East Midlands have failed to improve their punctuality, according to the latest national survey. The three worst-performing inter-city train companies in the UK - Virgin CrossCountry, Midland Mainline and GNER - all run in the region, according to the figures from the Strategic Rail Authority. Virgin CrossCountry, which runs a service through Derbyshire, ran 67.8% of trips on time, while Midland Mainline had a 69.1% punctuality record and GNER hit the target for 74.8% of journeys.

The nation's worst-performing regional train service was run by Central Trains with 72.9% punctuality, while Arriva Trains Northern came in eighth out of 10 such operators on 82.3%. Overall, fewer of Britain's trains ran on time over the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. The Strategic Rail Authority says about 20% of trains failed to arrive when they should. Complaints have also increased by 8%. The SRA plans to run fewer services in an attempt to improve the reliability of those that do run.

Train companies managed a slight improvement in services over the spring and early summer of 2003, but improvements do not go far enough. New quarterly figures show punctuality went up by 1.2% to 84.2% compared to the same period in 2002. Also, the figures showed the number of complaints per 100,000 journeys for all operators had increased by 6% since last year. The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) chairman, Richard Bowker, said, "The rise in complaints figures highlights the concerns passengers have about issues such as cleanliness and information and we are particularly concerned about the punctuality of long-distance operators."

Bottom of the table was Midland Mainline which dropped 15% because of problems with the lines it uses and train breakdowns. In August, a Network Rail freight train came off of tracks near Lichfield because lines buckled in the heat. In early September, about 1,600 trains were stopped and 60% of the London Underground network was closed due to the largest power cut from the National Grid for 10 years, stranding 250,000 during the evening rush hour. See: Powercut

A new seasonal enemy has appeared to plague passengers - dandelions. They caused disruption to Grand Central Trains, which operates services from Sunderland and Bradford to London Kings Cross. Things were running smoothly until the 15.57 departure from London ran into a cloud of dandelion seeds. The dandelion “parachutes” have come out across the country in the recent warm weather but large drifts were airborne in South Yorkshire and gusting across the main line. Somewhere near Doncaster, the five-carriage train ploughed through the drift, sucking vast numbers of the tiny seeds into the air filters, which were soon blocked. Four of the train’s five engines shut down as they overheated, leaving the vehicle running under a fraction of its normal power.

The driver coaxed the lone engine to stops at Pontefract, Wakefield and Brighouse but the Bradford-bound train finally limped into Halifax, West Yorkshire, at what passengers described as a “walking pace”, an hour late. It was terminated there. The train was one of the first to operate by the firm, which only started the service a few weeks ago. A spokesman for York-based Grand Central Trains said when engineers inspected the engines, the filters were so packed with dandelion seeds that they looked like the fleece of the sheep character from the animation Wallace and Gromit. He said, “It went off to the depot and there was so much of the stuff flying around the filters looked like Shaun the Sheep. The vents got clogged and the engines shut down. We are disappointed one of the first trains we ran did not run all the way through.” (Source: Daily Telegraph, Jun/10)