Enough with the "Stand Behind The Yellow Line!"

Or, indeed, when you're walking alongside a stationery train at it's terminal station.

They need to give this one a rest already. To my knowledge, NOWHERE else on the TfL network is this overzealous approach considered proportionate or necessary.

Witnessed the first argument this morning. At Forest Hill a lady took great objection and said something to the effect of "I've been commuting from here for the last 30 years, why has it suddenly become dangerous to stand where I've always stood without incident. This is unwarranted harrassment of the public". Also noticed they guys at NXG were announcing the train destination and stops with loud hailers at the same time as the automated announcement doing exactly the same thing. They really add nothing and are a nuisance.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if LO staff are under the same regime as LU staff - monitoring of particular PA's which lead to disciplinary action if they're not heard.

For example, the LU standard when doing SATS (person with a bat on platform) in the peaks is that they must say things like "use all available doors" or "move down inside the cars" even if it's blatantly not required. If they don't say these things and are caught.....

As an LU employee I agree that the current situation with regard to PA's really has gone too far, but you have to understand that if management are prepared to dangle the threat of disciplinary action over employee heads, it's no wonder employees are complying with something they know is totally ridiculous.

Do these managers actually travel on the system?

I'm also baffled as to why this should be considered necessary on the ELL part of the LO system, but not on the other parts!

Indeed - it's going off topic really, but there was a classic example in the Metro today....

A woman is suing Google for $100,000 because she was using one of their maps, in Los Angeles, on her Blackberry and it advised her to cross a dual carriageway. Needless to say she got hit by a car.

She is claiming it's Google's fault as they didn't warn her of the dangers.

This is what it's come to.

To be honest I would feel more safer if it was the police more than a bunch of people in Hi-vi's. All the staff will be able to do is call for help and watch. They're not going to invervne becuase of the risk of injury. All they're going to do is help you afterwards.

The orange jackets upped the ante this morning at Forest Hill - using some form of wailing siren (a bit like Red Alert on Star Trek) out of the loud hailers first before repeatedly shouting SBTYL.

I'm beginning to wonder whether there is a plan to this. Could it be that with the very intensive (for NR) style of service now running through stations they're worried that every second counts? Perhaps it's just to give the drivers more confidence to brake late. I've seen before on NR that where a platform is extremely full drivers do seem to coast in very slowly (understandably) but that of course just makes matter worse.

Interesting thought comes to mind, the fromer Southern stations now passed to London Overground have these megaphone wielding types calling out everytime a train runs in. For those staions between Norwood Junction and New Cross Gate how will they cope on the morning that a train fails on the up fast at Forest Hill and all the up service runs over the up slow. Mmmm.....Do they make an anouncement for a train passing through as it would not be expected to stop.

Anyway at least LO/TfL have created some meaningless jobs and helped the unemployment statistics, that is until they are all made redundant as LO/TfL are forced to make financial savings and they realise that they serve no real purpose.

Yeah, have a ruddy medal!

I mean, what's the point of that? When was the last time you were in a supermarket and a continuous tannoy announcement was bellowing that they'd actually managed to serve 97% of their customers with the goods they'd payed for?

Stick some gum over the speaker!

This morning there was a hush at Forest Hill. The megaphone guys were there but no shouting was deemed necessary aside from a reasonable "mind the doors". Perhaps they've had feedback from up on high ...