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Virgin Guard Assaulted

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graham43404

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Bad news from Oxenholme. We were on the 6:25 Wigan North Western to Glasgow Central service which has been canceled due to a thug punching the guard.

The police have been in attendance and hopefully the scrote will be dealt with in the strongest possible way!

As for our journey, we have been told to get on the First TPE Edinburgh service and change at Carlisle.

*Just to add to the above now at Carlisle and having a signal again on my phone. It was disgusting to see the attitude of some people harassing the platform staff at Oxenholme, "how am I going to get to Glasgow for 9:15 now" and "why do you only have one guard" being the highlight of the self important prats.
 
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Andrewlong

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Bad news from Oxenholme. We were on the 6:25 Wigan North Western to Glasgow Central service which has been canceled due to a thug punching the guard.

The police have been in attendance and hopefully the scrote will be dealt with in the strongest possible way!

As for our journey, we have been told to get on the First TPE Edinburgh service and change at Carlisle.

*Just to add to the above now at Carlisle and having a signal again on my phone. It was disgusting to see the attitude of some people harassing the platform staff at Oxenholme, "how am I going to get to Glasgow for 9:15 now" and "why do you only have one guard" being the highlight of the self important prats.

A guard doing their job and checking tickets presumably? What is this country coming to. Wonder whether passengers would have more sympathy had incident been caused by a person under a train.
 

TheEdge

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A guard doing their job and checking tickets presumably? What is this country coming to. Wonder whether passengers would have more sympathy had incident been caused by a person under a train.

No, known fact that anything, regardless of the human cost, means nothing to the delay on these people's extremely important business...
 

graham43404

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A couple of years ago we were flying back from Bucharest to Manchester on the last flight of the day via Munich with Lufthansa, the flight was cancelled due to technical problems at Munich.

Lufthansa swung into action like a well oiled machine and arranged a hotel stay overnight, transfers and flights the day after in a very impressive time indeed. You may wonder what this has to do with this topic, well basically it all happened so speedily as the Germans and Romanians and us btw :lol: just accepted these things happened. There was no hissy fits or displays of self importance, so things were sorted fast.

One thing I want to add which I should really have done in my post is I hope the guard is ok.
 

Bob Ames

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Oh my, I use 1S34 regularly, the TMs are always nice on that service, as are the passengers (you might expect thuggery on a night service where people have been drinking but not on such an early morning service). I do hope the TM is OK and that the thug does some jail time for doing such a nasty thing.
 

Antman

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Bad news from Oxenholme. We were on the 6:25 Wigan North Western to Glasgow Central service which has been canceled due to a thug punching the guard.

The police have been in attendance and hopefully the scrote will be dealt with in the strongest possible way!

As for our journey, we have been told to get on the First TPE Edinburgh service and change at Carlisle.

*Just to add to the above now at Carlisle and having a signal again on my phone. It was disgusting to see the attitude of some people harassing the platform staff at Oxenholme, "how am I going to get to Glasgow for 9:15 now" and "why do you only have one guard" being the highlight of the self important prats.

Presumably we don't know exactly what happened here? Obviously I hope the guard is ok and I'm sure the police will get to the bottom of it.

I also don't see how passengers being concerned about getting to their destination makes them "self important prats"?
 

Carlisle

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Hope the guard is ok , oxenholme seems to have unfortunately had a fair share of incidents over the years considering it's not exactly a major inner city location
 
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86246

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Oh my, I use 1S34 regularly, the TMs are always nice on that service, as are the passengers (you might expect thuggery on a night service where people have been drinking but not on such an early morning service). I do hope the TM is OK and that the thug does some jail time for doing such a nasty thing.

We don't know if alcohol was a factor in this particular incident. Unfortunately early weekend trains do have incidents due to all night drinking.
 

Matt Taylor

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I had the first one out of Pompey last Saturday, there are some passengers who you just know are not worth trying to get money out of. My main job is to get the train to its destination safely, if that happens then I've done what I'm paid to do.
 

ushawk

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I also don't see how passengers being concerned about getting to their destination makes them "self important prats"?

Well, they could find out in a civilised way whilst actually caring for a member of staff which had been assaulted, but then some people dont actually care these days and want their train to run regardless.

Remember, in this day and age, when a person gets hit by a train, you will always unfortunately get idiots saying "who cares, just keep trains running and leave them there".

Hope the TM isnt badly injured.
 

Antman

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Well, they could find out in a civilised way whilst actually caring for a member of staff which had been assaulted, but then some people dont actually care these days and want their train to run regardless.

Remember, in this day and age, when a person gets hit by a train, you will always unfortunately get idiots saying "who cares, just keep trains running and leave them there".

Hope the TM isnt badly injured.

Yes point taken although I can understand passengers fury when everything grinds to a halt over a fairly minor incident, whether that was the case here I obviously don't know so probably best to wait for the full story to emerge.
 

RailAleFan

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I had the first one out of Pompey last Saturday, there are some passengers who you just know are not worth trying to get money out of. My main job is to get the train to its destination safely, if that happens then I've done what I'm paid to do.

Nobody should be expected to put themselves in harms way in the course of their work, but at the same time they shouldn't be allowed to get away with a free journey because of intimidating behaviour.

Is there not a procedure for this kind of scenario whereby you can call ahead for "backup" from BTP?
 

graham43404

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Presumably we don't know exactly what happened here? Obviously I hope the guard is ok and I'm sure the police will get to the bottom of it.

I also don't see how passengers being concerned about getting to their destination makes them "self important prats"?

I'm sorry mate but you weren't there to see the manner of these people at Oxenholme. They were quite clearly told that the guard had been thumped in the face by drunks. Not one of them was appalled in the slightest, the only concern was getting to Glasgow on time and having a go at the poor lady in the platform for Virgin not having two train managers on the train, presumably in the case that one can still operate the train if the other gets smacked.

I stand by my comment of self important prats and I'm sure you would say the same if you saw the uncaring attitude of these people.
 

Moonshot

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Nobody should be expected to put themselves in harms way in the course of their work, but at the same time they shouldn't be allowed to get away with a free journey because of intimidating behaviour.

Is there not a procedure for this kind of scenario whereby you can call ahead for "backup" from BTP?

Yes there is, and also in our case ( Northern Rail ) we can also request a stopping service to be " expressed " to the nearest main station with a BTP prescence on site.
 

Matt Taylor

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Yes we can call Btp, but their resources are so stretched that it's unlikely they will be able to attend.
 

carriageline

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Yes we can call Btp, but their resources are so stretched that it's unlikely they will be able to attend.


And that's always such a shame. With incidents such as trespass, by the time the BTP have turned up, the scrotes are normally tucked up in bed!

Hope the TM is okay, and it doesn't affect him into the future too much
 

Flamingo

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I'm sorry mate but you weren't there to see the manner of these people at Oxenholme. They were quite clearly told that the guard had been thumped in the face by drunks. Not one of them was appalled in the slightest, the only concern was getting to Glasgow on time and having a go at the poor lady in the platform for Virgin not having two train managers on the train, presumably in the case that one can still operate the train if the other gets smacked.

I stand by my comment of self important prats and I'm sure you would say the same if you saw the uncaring attitude of these people.

The last time I was assaulted the passenger got off at the next stop, and I took the train forward (on time) rather than keeping the doors locked until police attended, and taking time to recover my own composure, as I did not want to delay passengers (and I was aware the passenger could easily be tracked down).

The dozen or so passengers who witnessed the assault refused to give their details (an approach that was approved by a large number of members of this forum), once the train had left the station nobody from the company contacted me again for a week to see how I was, and BTP were unable to find the passengers details, despite them contacting Customer Services to complain about my lack of understanding of their "Behavioural Issues"!

The one thing I took from it is that the next time a similar incident happens, regardless of injuries sustained or not, I am going to hit the floor like a sack of spuds, screaming my head off, and that train will not move another foot. If this inconveniences anybody, I don't care, as experience shows they won't care whatever happens to me or my colleagues...
 

Starmill

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I love how everyone is assuming this was a drunkard or 'dreg of society' type or something, and the VT guard wasn't trying to ching him for a £100several at the time. Don't see we have much to go on one way or the other.

Punching someone is always wrong though.
 

Flamingo

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I love how everyone is assuming this was a drunkard or 'dreg of society' type or something, and the VT guard wasn't trying to ching him for a £100several at the time. Don't see we have much to go on one way or the other.

Punching someone is always wrong though.

So if the passenger was a bishop, and the guard was trying to sell him a First Open Single, it would be ok then? :roll:
 

CC 72100

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I love how everyone is assuming this was a drunkard or 'dreg of society' type or something, and the VT guard wasn't trying to ching him for a £100several at the time. Don't see we have much to go on one way or the other.

I don't quite understand the scenario you appear to be suggesting there....
 

Flamingo

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Maybe the guard had refused to excess his single to a Rover...
 

PermitToTravel

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I love how everyone is assuming this was a drunkard or 'dreg of society' type or something, and the VT guard wasn't trying to ching him for a £100several at the time. Don't see we have much to go on one way or the other.

Punching someone is always wrong though.

Why seek to mitigate it then?
 

Dieseldriver

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Yes point taken although I can understand passengers fury when everything grinds to a halt over a fairly minor incident, whether that was the case here I obviously don't know so probably best to wait for the full story to emerge.

The guard was assaulted during the course of their duties. Any job where that happens things tend to 'grind to a halt'. :roll:
 

turboslug

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the person who assaulted the TM did a runner from station but later turned back up for later service, virgin & tpe staff remembered him & he was arrested
 

Moonshot

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the person who assaulted the TM did a runner from station but later turned back up for later service, virgin & tpe staff remembered him & he was arrested

I was involved in exactly the same scenario at Liverpool not so long back.....some drunken idiot cracked one of the platform staff station side and did a runner. He later turned up on my train just as i was about to depart. Luckily the despatcher recognised the guy as he was stood next to the door due to the service being rammed.

Cue - a couple of phone calls, job stopped and BTP out to nick him.
 

12CSVT

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Yes point taken although I can understand passengers fury when everything grinds to a halt over a fairly minor incident, whether that was the case here I obviously don't know so probably best to wait for the full story to emerge.
A person being assaulted at his workplace is a serious matter, not a 'minor' incident. I hope the guard makes a full recovery, and that the lowlife who did this gets the harshest sentence possible.

I also don't see how passengers being concerned about getting to their destination makes them "self important prats"?
There's a difference between being concerned about reaching their destination and hurling abuse at platform staff at Oxenholme. The individuals involved deserve to be prosecuted for public order offences.

Maybe it it about time that assaulting a front line worker at their workplace carried the same penalty as assaulting a police officer.
 
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