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Don Coffey cab ride video discussion

superkev

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Hi I was watching Don's latest excellent Cab ride from Chester to Birminghan via Shewsbury over a couple of nights. On trying to resume it it had disappeared along with his other recent ones. Anyone any feedback?
K
 
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RailUK Forums

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From his Youtube channel.

You may have noticed that some videos have gone missing from the channel. They reasons for this are complicated but in a nutshell, it turns out that some rail staff use my videos for route learning which sounds fine but many rail companies have a company that produces their own videos and updates them when any changes are made to the infrastructure or line speeds etc. Mine do not so especially where some videos cannot be controlled, there are implications about who might be responsible if somebody makes an error. I don’t sign a lot of these routes and wouldn’t know anyway, nor am I prepared to keep revising older videos with updates - in many cases I no longer have the footage. Its too complicated for me so it probably will result in me not doing any more videos. The monetisation has been removed so that removes a big headache in terms of keeping a balance sheet for tax purposes. This won’t suite a lot of you but I’ve been spending too much time sat editing until the early hours and this makes it easy. For the videos that still remain on the site, THESE SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON FOR ROUTE LEARNING AND ARE UNCONTROLLED.
 

Lewlew

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Interesting! I watched some of his videos these past few days. There are still a few available.


There is another channel that I've been watching that has a mixture of different routes...

 

Spandau

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An understandable explanation but a disappointment to those of us who have greatly enjoyed watching these videos. Thank you for making that possible.
 

superkev

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From his Youtube channel.
Thanks. That's sad.
Sounds like a victory for one of the many over promoted clerks and other cant do people who seem run things these days.
Could this be the end of all cab rides including the excellent Video 125 DVDs you can buy.
K
 

dakta

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Must be a bit of a kick in the face for him because the ones I saw were always very high quality and well edited - they were cabride videos 'and a bit more'. He must have invested considerable personal time and resources into it.

Can see why he's done it but it doesn't stop it being a shame.
 

43066

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A real pity. Any driver who does route learning from YouTube videos isn’t fit to be in the grade.
 

ajs1981

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Not creating new videos because it is taking too much time is, of course, understandable.

Having to stop because people can't be sensible is really annoying.

A real shame as they are really good especially with the on screen comments.
 

bramling

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Thanks. That's sad.
Sounds like a victory for one of the many over promoted clerks and other cant do people who seem run things these days.
Could this be the end of all cab rides including the excellent Video 125 DVDs you can buy.
K

I shouldn’t think so. No one should be using unofficial material for route learning anyway. The “uncontrolled” bit should be pretty obvious IMO.
 

43066

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I shouldn’t think so. No one should be using unofficial material for route learning anyway. The “uncontrolled” bit should be pretty obvious IMO.

Mind you, the DC videos are probably more useful than some of the “official” material that’s knocking around. We had to learn a fairly lengthy resignalling from a “virtual fly through”. The commentary didn’t correctly sync with the locations being shown, so it was actually worse than useless!

The mind boggles!
 

bramling

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Mind you, the DC videos are probably more useful than some of the “official” material that’s knocking around. We had to learn a fairly lengthy resignalling from a “virtual fly through”. The commentary didn’t correctly sync with the locations being shown, so it was actually worse than useless!

The mind boggles!

Reminds me of an interesting debate we had, where a particular set of sidings are 10 mph according to all the paperwork, but with a 5 mph sign on the ground. To this day no one really quite knows what it’s actually meant to be. Sometimes local knowledge is priceless.
 

Trackman

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I'm subscribed, love his videos.
Out of curiosity which videos have been removed?
 

dan4291

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I'm subscribed, love his videos.
Out of curiosity which videos have been removed?

Looks like everything except videos with TPE (Don is a TPE driver) and Northern. He did a few videos with EMR (St Pancras-Derby, Derby-Lincoln and return) and TfW (North Wales Coast and Chester to Birmingham International) plus a few others.
 

A.Butler

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So sad that certain "jobsworths" have discouraged a source of quality, well informed "cab rides" from our domain. I truly wish Don was in a position to reverse his decision. ... AB
 

malc-c

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Hope it wasn't to do with the discussions in the Stevenage Platform 5 thread over cab rides where I posted a picture of the cab window with several cameras attached.... feel quite bad now if its was...
 
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43066

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Something that always surprised me about his videos was that he was readily identifiable as a TPE driver, and clearly using recording equipment in active driving cabs (and indeed being present in cabs of other TOCs - did he have a cab pass?!).

I suppose a GoPro isn’t a “mobile communications device”, but you’re on very thin ice using electronic equipment of any kind in a cab, for unofficial purposes.
 

philthetube

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This makes no sense to me, if someone misuses tools available to all on the web, then that is their problem, I would have thought that a disclaimer would suffice.
 

dan4291

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He had permission from the TOCs to do his videos. He also gave the revenue from the videos to charity so the TOCs were more accepting of it too.
 

malc-c

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I found the image, it had been moved by the mods...

1597957048132.png

Yeah, couple of go-pros, but as some models have the ability to stream live they could be construed as being a mobile device, or possibly a distraction ? I'm not in the industry so can't' really comment on the rules or regs, but I guess that he would have had permission to record the footage from management given he was posting it in the public domain on youtube.

Maybe he could have edited the videos so less route info could be gleaned, using cutaways to points of interest rather than having the track view with text over the top ? - Shame really... they were good videos
 

Darandio

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He had permission from the TOCs to do his videos. He also gave the revenue from the videos to charity so the TOCs were more accepting of it too.

Really? In his explanation he is talking balance sheets for tax purposes due to the loss of monetisation. Would he need to do this if it was going to charity? Genuine question.
 

43066

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He had permission from the TOCs to do his videos. He also gave the revenue from the videos to charity so the TOCs were more accepting of it too.

Makes sense, thanks.


Really? In his explanation he is talking balance sheets for tax purposes due to the loss of monetisation. Would he need to do this if it was going to charity? Genuine question.

Quite possibly, because charities are treated differently for tax purposes.
 
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Randomer

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He has stated previously that he had sought permission from his management and had a rules in place in regards to what and when he could film. Presumably he sought similar permission from management at the other TOC involved. Which would probably be easier as he is already a qualified driver so less issues with being in cab, if distraction could be ruled out it must be fairly similar to having a route learner surely? Indeed he posted that his management said that essentially he couldn't post anything that might help somebody to drive a train (i.e. no cab tours or train prep videos for example.) He already modified a version of a fairly earlier video explaining turn-outs and route indicators to make it less "helpful" if somebody was to gain unauthorised control of a train.

Yes charities have to keep paperwork for tax returns, especially if they are using the VAT exemptions available to them. According to the finance department at a previous employer (a large charitable organisation) they actually found it more complicated than at a similar commercial business. However, I get the feeling that he was running it as a business that made no income by donating all profits after costs to charity which definitely requires a tax return. Mostly because if he was running a charity I would expect it to be talked about at some point in the last few years on the YouTube channel.
 

Master29

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A real Shame as I love his videos which are both informative and a good watch. His zeal and waxing lyrical about the railways (His own words) will be sadly missed. There are still some good ones out there but DC videos were a real gem.
 

the sniper

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Seems a bit odd to me, this route learning issue. Sounds like the kind of thing some genius in the messroom or divvy manager would come up with to discourage his enthusiasm, 'ya know, if some Driver watches your out of date videos and has an incident, they'll blame you and the HM Rail Inspector will be knocking at your door!'. :rolleyes:

Can't blame him if he doesn't want to put the work into them though.
 

Master29

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Seems a bit odd to me, this route learning issue. Sounds like the kind of thing some genius in the messroom or divvy manager would come up with to discourage his enthusiasm, 'ya know, if some Driver watches your out of date videos and has an incident, they'll blame you and the HM Rail Inspector will be knocking at your door!'. :rolleyes:

Can't blame him if he doesn't want to put the work into them though.
I don't really see why this should be an issue. Can you imagine the inquest when a driver says he screwed up because of Don Coffeys videos? I hardly imagine they'll lay any blame at his door. Like a kid saying they made me do it when collared.
 

Skie

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I suspect the real reason is the company producing official route learning videos feel that he’s stepping on their toes and risking a TOC asking why on earth they don’t produce them in-house for a fraction of the cost. They'll have whispered in someone’s ear about the perils of route learning from a YouTube channel so that the permission he had in the past is revoked.
 

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