Incident at west harrow (25th April)

Have these planks never heard of a skip or recycling facility???

I have known shopping trolleys to be pushed onto tracks, thus causing electrical shorts. This happened at Woolston [Southampton-Fareham line] recently and there was a large flash from the conductor rail. The yobs were caught on camera and arrests followed.

My personal view on such events is that we are far too lenient! When I was a lad the railways even in London were mostly unfenced, indeed where I used to live one could cross the main line from Liverpool Street not only at level crossings but also by stile and footpath. When I joined LT in the 1970s it was also quite accessible.
The vast majority were brought up with a sense of responsibility when I was a kid and if we got into trouble we would be in trouble not only with various authorities but also the police and most of all our parents. Of course accidents happened so kids drowned in rivers and canals, fell out of trees and broke an arm or a leg or worse and occasionally became fatalities in dangerous environments.
Nowadays there seems to be no parental responsibility, lack of effective policing and worst of all the ridiculous concept of protecting the most wilful and disruptive types from themselves for their own good for fear of being sued for not doing so. The idea is ludicrous, of course we have sympathy for accident victims but I have none whatsoever for the wilfully destructive and would be happy to see them electrocuted, run over or otherwise despatched as a result of their own dangerous and thoughtless actions.

We can always tell what an area is like by what gets chucked over the fence! There are certain places where the railway banks are treated like a civic tip. Bad places tend to be in major conurbations. One of my collegues ran over a moped on the Filton-Hallen Marsh line in Bristol many years ago while a couple of weeks later another collegue ran over a pile of junk just down the same line that had been fly-tipped over a bridge. Both incidents caused the air brake pipe to split and involved the attendance of carraige and wagon fitters to repair the damage. Having an incident such as that on a loaded Liquid Petroleum Gas train also causes brown trouser moments!

One of the worst places for rubbish is next to Acton Canal Wharf signal box. Strangely, Hamworthy Junction in Dorset was always bad too. Punishments for the rare offenders who are caught always seem overly lenient to me.

Hopefully an S8!

*chortles* ;D