Hi All
From the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Trainspotters on rampage: Vintage rail enthusiasts are facing a ban over
claims of yobbish behaviour
By CHRISTIAN WOLMAR
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ng-ban-claims-yobbish-behaviour.html?ITO=1490
They trundle around Britains railway network, harmlessly recreating, it
seems, the innocence of a bygone age.
But now train enthusiasts who charter vintage rolling stock for day trips
are being warned their hobby could be banned because of drunken and
yobbish behaviour.
Enthusiasts have been spotted yelling at people as they pass through
stations an activity dubbed as bellowing and hanging as far as
possible out of old-style train windows, known as flailing.
Off the rails: Nazi-style salutes at a Peak Army reuion in 2004
Last month, during one trip between Preston and London, two men had to be
ejected from a heritage train being pulled by a Class 40 diesel engine
manufactured in the Fifties.
One refused to stop leaning out of a window and shouting at people, and
the train was delayed at Leeds while police were called to deal with
another man who had provoked a fight.
The carriages were left in a disgusting state by the drunken enthusiasts
and required special cleaning.
As a result, the operator, West Coast Railway, which owns the carriages,
said it would cancel future trips if tighter policing by stewards was not
enforced.
The chairman of the Class 40 Preservation Society, John Stephens, said he
was furious about the unruly behaviour on the Preston to London charter,
which he blamed on a small group of outsiders.
These yobs and troublemakers came from a group of lads who got on the
train with an 80-pint barrel of beer at 6.30 in the morning and drank all
the way to London, he said.
We carried the can for their behaviour but it was nothing to do with us.
Offensive gestures at a Peak Army renuion in 2003
On a Christmas special tour yesterday for dozens of enthusiasts of the
classic Class 40 locomotives between Shrewsbury and Lincoln, participants
were given a list of strict rules.
Flailing, leaning out of the windows, smoking and drinking alcohol before
10am were banned.
Mark Honey, boss of Rail Blue Charters, which organised yesterdays tour,
said: 'We are taking a zero-tolerance line on this. Future charters will
be heavily policed by stewards.
In June, an incident involving a man seen perilously leaning out of a
train on a trip organised by Spitfire Tours led to an official complaint
by Network Rail.
The company wrote to Spitfire threatening to withdraw its licence to
operate if there were further incidents.
A spokesman for Network Rail said: We dont want to tar everyone with the
same brush but we will clamp down on bad behaviour very strongly.
One rail expert said that the craze for travelling behind particular types
of locomotive was an extension of trainspotting.
He said that each class of locomotive attracted a different set of fans,
often depending on which part of the country the trains were most common
but those drawn to diesels from the Fifties seemed to be the rowdiest.
They are allowed out to play by their wives or mums and get so excited
when they are being hauled by their favourite type of engine they end up
behaving like football hooligans, he said.
The group with one of the worst reputations is the so-called Peak Army,
who followed Peak Class 45 diesels produced in the Fifties, he added.
He said they were known in the Eighties for throwing toilet seats out of
the window and were described in one rail magazine as the Millwall of
rail enthusiast groups.
Pictures on the internet show a group of 45 enthusiasts at a 2004 Peak
Army reunion giving a Nazi-style salute.
Regards David Kirkwood
