Train delayed due to driver inhaling passenger's weed

[peteb]

What's the protocol in these situations? Would the driver stop short of a station, call control from signal and alert BTP to arrest drug users on train when it arrived at next station? Or simply arrive at next station and let drug users disappear before BTP could arrive?

 

[O L Leigh]

Class 172 cab aircon recycles air from the saloon immediately behind the cab into the cab.

Is that right?

I know the early batches of Cl170s have a shared HVAC system with the saloon, but the later builds have an independent HVAC for the cabs. The giveaway sign is the small air scoop on the cab roof on the driver’s side. As Cl172s also have this scoop I would have said that they have the same independent cab HVAC as the later build of Cl170s.

Doesn’t stop odours coming through the door, though.

 

[43066]

What's the protocol in these situations? Would the driver stop short of a station, call control from signal and alert BTP to arrest drug users on train when it arrived at next station? Or simply arrive at next station and let drug users disappear before BTP could arrive?

If the smell was annoying them the driver would call the guard (assuming there was one) and alert them. They would make the way to the front carriage and ask the miscreants to stop. What would happen after they would depend on a number of factors. If close to a major station such as Manchester pic or a London terminal, the BTP might well be sent for. If at a more minor station, it’s highly doubtful it would be worth delaying the train (and therefore delaying potentially dozens of other trains, and thousands of passengers) for goodness knows how long to wait for BTP, when the perpetrators would simply have scarpered long since.

 

[Sprinter107]

What's the protocol in these situations? Would the driver stop short of a station, call control from signal and alert BTP to arrest drug users on train when it arrived at next station? Or simply arrive at next station and let drug users disappear before BTP could arrive?

I always advise the control if ive had weed smokers, and been forced to inhale their fumes for obvious reasons, but carry on as booked. The only time I've had to stop for a break is the couple of times I've been force fed skunk.

 

[Tractor86]

They must've been smoking a lot of weed for it to have been strong enough in the cab for the driver to declare themselves unfit to drive.

I live in Chorley and can confirm the entire town centre smells of pot so it wouldn’t surprise me.

 

[Jozhua]

You would probably need to hot box the train pretty bad to get other people onboard high, so I'd hope the onboard ventilation isn't that bad, but it wouldn't surprise me!

Ultimately the driver is going to be the one who suffers the worst consequences if they make any mistake, so totally their call on wether they feel fit to drive or not.

I don't know why the hell anyone thinks smoking weed on a train is a good idea, especially with the whole no smoking/vaping thing. Vapourisers are becoming increasingly popular, so maybe it was one of those? Edibles would have probably been a little smelly, but fine. The thing is that skunk is very pungent, but the smell only gets stuck when you actually smoke/vapourise it, in that case the whole carriage will stink of weed for a long time!

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I thought there was a lot of limiting smoking (tobacco), can this be applied/enforced here? I have never knowingly smelt it, maybe unknowingly.

 

[dk1]

I live in Chorley and can confirm the entire town centre smells of pot so it wouldn’t surprise me.

That sounds so awful. Whatever is wrong with these people? Do they not have jobs or a life?

 

[peteb]

If the smell was annoying them the driver would call the guard (assuming there was one) and alert them. They would make the way to the front carriage and ask the miscreants to stop. What would happen after they would depend on a number of factors. If close to a major station such as Manchester pic or a London terminal, the BTP might well be sent for. If at a more minor station, it’s highly doubtful it would be worth delaying the train (and therefore delaying potentially dozens of other trains, and thousands of passengers) for goodness knows how long to wait for BTP, when the perpetrators would simply have scarpered long since.

I think therein lies the issue, the train delay is seen as a priority: stopping it and sorting out criminal actions seems less of a priority, hence folks ( passengers and staff) reluctance to intervene or report anti social behaviour. How serious does the crime have to be before the train delay is over-ridden by the need to stop it, sort out the issue and then safely continue...?

So if I report a crime to BTP by text, the old see it say it sort it routine, will they intervene, get the train stopped and deal with it or decide to wait till it gets to a more convenient location by which time criminals gone? Going off topic I know but it's important to know as the travelling public is bombarded by this rhetoric but does it actually work in practice?

 

[172007]

Is that right?

I know the early batches of Cl170s have a shared HVAC system with the saloon, but the later builds have an independent HVAC for the cabs. The giveaway sign is the small air scoop on the cab roof on the driver’s side. As Cl172s also have this scoop I would have said that they have the same independent cab HVAC as the later build of Cl170s.

Doesn’t stop odours coming through the door, though.

You can smell the air coming through the roof aircon vent. Also, you know how well the Airton is working in the saloon immediately behind you as if its freezing cold i
n summer you still get cool air coming though even with cab on ven, if its broke then you will get warm air. Really rubbish design.

 

[43066]

I think therein lies the issue, the train delay is seen as a priority: stopping it and sorting out criminal actions seems less of a priority, hence folks ( passengers and staff) reluctance to intervene or report anti social behaviour. How serious does the crime have to be before the train delay is over-ridden by the need to stop it, sort out the issue and then safely continue...?

So if I report a crime to BTP by text, the old see it say it sort it routine, will they intervene, get the train stopped and deal with it or decide to wait till it gets to a more convenient location by which time criminals gone? Going off topic I know but it's important to know as the travelling public is bombarded by this rhetoric but does it actually work in practice?

As I understand it “see it say it sorted” relates more to suspicious packages etc. which need to be acted upon immediately.

61016 is to report matters which do not require an emergency response and is used more for intelligence, identifying hotspots where crime occurs and allowing limited resources to be deployed effectively going forward.

Getting a train stopped is going to be where, for example, a serious assault takes place and the train effectively then becomes a crime scene. Something like someone smoking on board is essentially low level anti social behaviour and the priority has to be keeping the network moving (as unsatisfactory as that is if you’re in the carriage affected!).

 

[DaveTM]

Certainly on 313s and 377s, and probably on various other classes, there is a natural vacuum in the cab relative to the saloon. I guess this happens as the bow wave of air is pushed aside by the train leaving a slight vacuum at the sides of the train around the driver's side window. The driver's cab in a 313 gets most of its heating from the saloon heaters. I guess this is a safety feature so that we are amongst the first to know if our train catches fire. The other result is we know who is behind us (stale beer and vomit; friday night drunks. Stale beer and BO, football supporters. Cheap aftershave and beer, on the way to horse racing. Cheap aftershave and vomit, on the way back. Herbal, stoned idiots).

Weed unfortunately plays on your mind as a driver. We don't know how sensitive the drugs tests used in the industry are; no one can definitively say whether second hand smoke inhaled for 5 minutes between stations would be enough to trigger a positive result. But it would seem logical that the test must be sensitive enough to catch a concentration at least a bit below the minimum that could affect driving ability. Certainly I have been in the situation where I could see wisps of smoke curling round the inner door. So as you drive along breathing the fumes you are wondering if (a) it could turn a minor cockup into unemployment, and (b) if it is enough to cause the cockup in the first place. And that worried thinking in itself can be enough of a distraction. So I absolutely stand with any driver who (1) kicks pot smokers off his train, and/or (2) makes the decision not to risk driving further.

 

[bramling]

You’re never going to inhale enough from passive smoking in a railway setting to fail a drug test. The concern would be the distraction, and the driver was quite right to take the action he did if he felt it necessary.

In my DOO days I dealt with this a couple of times by throwing open the door to the saloon, and ordering the culprit to move to the next coach back! Worked every time.

I did it from a rear cab recently, the element of surprise made it all the more fun. I chose a different solution though, which was off at the next station, complete with arrangements for re-entry to be inhibited!

The best one I saw was some years ago on LU, in the days when the Central Line was still manually driven. Driver dropped the handle between stations from about 60mph and came tearing out the cab door and storming down the car before the train had even come to a stand. The element of surprise worked very well, though probably not best practice...

That sounds so awful. Whatever is wrong with these people? Do they not have jobs or a life?

A couple of years ago we went for a couple of days walking in the Chichester (Sussex not Tyneside) area, drove down the previous evening to stay in a Premier Inn. We arrived around 2100, and the entire town centre reeked of it, and the Premier Inn wasn’t much better. Quite surreal really.

 

[Wtloild]

A couple of years ago we went for a couple of days walking in the Chichester (Sussex not Tyneside) area, drove down the previous evening to stay in a Premier Inn. We arrived around 2100, and the entire town centre reeked of it, and the Premier Inn wasn’t much better. Quite surreal really.

Straying off topic a bit, but both from the aromas I smell on my evening dog walks & anecdotal snippets from a friend who works on a substance abuse team, pot-smoking has risen significantly during the various lockdowns of the last 18 months.

 

[Sprinter107]

Sometimes its not a single smoker. Its now very often a small group sat behined the driver all smoking it. So it can get quite overpowering.

 

[43066]

Weed unfortunately plays on your mind as a driver. We don't know how sensitive the drugs tests used in the industry are; no one can definitively say whether second hand smoke inhaled for 5 minutes between stations would be enough to trigger a positive result.

Just before my initial railway medical I remember going to a stag do in Cologne and stepping out of a cab into a cloud of interesting smelling smoke! Needless to say I was rather worried, but from what I remember reading at the time you’d have to stand in a phone box with several people smoking joints to stand any chance of ingesting enough to show up on a drugs testwas confirmed by the occupational health doctor. Looking at it another way, the threshold has to be high enough that nobody can ever use passive smoking as a defence to failing a D&A test!

It’s a disgusting smell though and the driver was quite right to do what they did if (in their opinion) they were too distracted to continue safely.

I did it from a rear cab recently, the element of surprise made it all the more fun. I chose a different solution though, which was off at the next station, complete with arrangements for re-entry to be inhibited!

The best one I saw was some years ago on LU, in the days when the Central Line was still manually driven. Driver dropped the handle between stations from about 60mph and came tearing out the cab door and storming down the car before the train had even come to a stand. The element of surprise worked very well, though probably not best practice...

Charging out before the wheels have stopped is hilarious. I’m afraid my approach is rather more laissez faire. As I see it any attempt at intervening carries a non negligible risk of being assaulted, or getting into an altercation and then being accused or assault myself, with all the attendant risk to my employment.

Unfortunately anti social behaviour has skyrocketed over the last few years and a significant % of the population clearly have no regard for anyone other than themselves. Witness smelly food, feet on seats, endless loudspeaker phone conversations and music being blasted out in virtually every train and tube carriage and every bus. That’s a societal issue rather than anything specific to the railway, though!

 

[Trainfan2019]

Reading this thread is a real eye opener for me with people smoking right behind the driver's cab. I never realised it occurred on what seems quite a frequent basis. What puzzles me though is why people are smoking onboard trains with cctv cameras around. Are the cameras of much help in catching illegal activity onboard?

 

[43066]

Are the cameras of much help in catching illegal activity onboard?

Only if something serious enough to warrant them being downloaded happens. To put it another way, given how prominent this kind of behaviour is, CCTV is clearly no deterrent whatsoever!

 

[jon0844]

Reading this thread is a real eye opener for me with people smoking right behind the driver's cab. I never realised it occurred on what seems quite a frequent basis. What puzzles me though is why people are smoking onboard trains with cctv cameras around. Are the cameras of much help in catching illegal activity onboard?

The smell of weed on trains seems very common now, just like walking around any town centre or high street, and it's also very common to see those little gas canisters all over the floor too.

I guess the problem is going to decrease now that trains are getting back to normal and it might require being that little bit more brazen to do it on a train than when you had the trains to yourself during lockdown.

 

[peteb]

The smell of weed on trains seems very common now, just like walking around any town centre or high street, and it's also very common to see those little gas canisters all over the floor too.

I guess the problem is going to decrease now that trains are getting back to normal and it might require being that little bit more brazen to do it on a train than when you had the trains to yourself during lockdown.

Problem is if BTP aren't able to engage and sort it out, and there don't appear to be the rail equivalent of town centre enforcement officers able to issue fixed penalties to those contravening railway bylaws then problem will continue to grow......

 

[jon0844]

Problem is if BTP aren't able to engage and sort it out, and there don't appear to be the rail equivalent of town centre enforcement officers able to issue fixed penalties to those contravening railway bylaws then problem will continue to grow......

But hopefully the problem has already seen a massive decline since people came back to the trains, making it a lot harder than when the bulk of the passengers at certain times of day/night were kids who had a total free reign (no revenue protection) to do whatever they like.

I agree that things like this need to be taken more seriously, as someone, or a group, that has little to no care about others for things like this may well be involved in other things.

 

[bramling]

But hopefully the problem has already seen a massive decline since people came back to the trains, making it a lot harder than when the bulk of the passengers at certain times of day/night were kids who had a total free reign (no revenue protection) to do whatever they like.

I agree that things like this need to be taken more seriously, as someone, or a group, that has little to no care about others for things like this may well be involved in other things.

What hope really is there when it seems apparently normal for a whole town to stink of it during the evening? As we all know, BTP are too thinly spread to be able to keep on top of this sort of low-level nuisance.

Hopefully things will improve a bit if and when we return to elements of proper normality, but of course this sort of thing was going on well before Covid. As you say stuff like lack of revenue protection possibly hasn’t helped, likewise the fact that some services and routes are now rather dominated by more troublesome types. There’s a definite feeling of 1980s in places, and it’s rather depressing.

The railway isn’t the only place under the weather at the moment. One doesn’t have to look far to find reports of hospitality staff having to put up with all sorts of nonsense. Some people seem to have become very self-entitled over the last 18 months, perhaps this is being bred by lacking the structure of being in a formal workplace environment.

 

[Sprinter107]

The smell of weed on trains seems very common now, just like walking around any town centre or high street, and it's also very common to see those little gas canisters all over the floor too.

I guess the problem is going to decrease now that trains are getting back to normal and it might require being that little bit more brazen to do it on a train than when you had the trains to yourself during lockdown.

Those little gas cannisters, laughing gas, i think they call it, doesn't seem to have caught on too much on the routes I work. I had it on couple of trains some months ago, but none since, so hopefully that craze hasn't caught on.

 

[AlterEgo]

That sounds so awful. Whatever is wrong with these people? Do they not have jobs or a life?

Come to London sometime and smell it. It’s everywhere. Foul stuff.

 

[bramling]

Come to London sometime and smell it. It’s everywhere. Foul stuff.

The worst (IME) is some coastal towns. Even smart market towns aren’t immune from it. Agree it’s absolutely vile. Seems to be fairly accepted nowadays.

 

[Pigeon]

Those little gas cannisters, laughing gas, i think they call it, doesn't seem to have caught on too much on the routes I work. I had it on couple of trains some months ago, but none since, so hopefully that craze hasn't caught on.

If you're going to worry about something, worry about that. No smell so you have no idea how much of it is drifting about...

 

[Wtloild]

The worst (IME) is some coastal towns. Even smart market towns aren’t immune from it. Agree it’s absolutely vile. Seems to be fairly accepted nowadays

The train in this instance had originated in Blackpool.

 

[dk1]

A couple of years ago we went for a couple of days walking in the Chichester (Sussex not Tyneside) area, drove down the previous evening to stay in a Premier Inn. We arrived around 2100, and the entire town centre reeked of it, and the Premier Inn wasn’t much better. Quite surreal really.

Mate that sounds dreadful. I will avoid so cheers for the tip.

 

[scrapy]

Oh, I don't decry the driver for being cautious, just curious how much weed they were smoking. There's a difference between a faint smell of weed, and thinking "this might be having an effect on me".

Given that staff are told there is a zero tolerance approach and any trace of illegal drugs is likely to lead to immediate dismissal then there's no other reasonable action the driver could take if they feel they may have inhaled any of the substance. One pint of beer probably wouldn't have an effect on most people but there's no way anyone is likely to drive a train shortly after.

 

[contrex]

They must've been smoking a lot of weed for it to have been strong enough in the cab for the driver to declare themselves unfit to drive.

I don't know if asthmatics are allowed to drive trains, but it would only take a whiff of weed to bring on an attack for me.