York Station Saturday Night Clownocracy

[sprinterguy]

Whilst like other forum members I enjoy a pint from time to time (preferably from a hand pump) I really don't understand why when faced with a long train journey people don't just bring something to read instead of relying on alcohol to pass the time. In particular buying a book to read on the train (or even more so a newspaper) may well work out to be the cheaper option and won't have the same affect on your health.

Well there's the relaxing effect of consuming alcohol combined with watching the world go by when you want to "switch off" for a bit while someone else takes care of getting you to the destination, or there's the enjoyment of the taste and, yes, even perhaps some of the intoxicating effects, and there's the social aspect of alcohol when travelling as a group looking to chat, catch up on news and enjoy each others' company. The most basic motivation is surely that people are looking to maximise the enjoyment of their leisure time, which can include enjoying the taste, intoxicating effects and social lubrication offered by alcohol as mentioned above. Or perhaps as a form of stress relief after a hard week at work or other personal issues, or as part of the excitement of a special event (birthday, stag/hen do, city break, sporting event, etc), remembering that train travel itself can be quite a novelty for some people.

Although there's certainly nothing wrong with reading as an effective means to pass the time on long journeys, and I often combine a good book with a few drinks when travelling.

 

[Spamcan81]

So the OP was aggrieved that they couldn't buy a beer for the York - Leeds journey. It's hardly a journey to the far side of the universe so why not have a final ale in the Tap and then get another one on arrival at Leeds? I often use the train for a day's ale sampling with mates but never feel the need to drink on the train home.

 

[LowLevel]

If it's anything like the rubbish we get on a Saturday night (fights, staff being pushed on to the track or otherwise assaulted, goons eyeballing each other for 'looking at their missus', people weeing/puking up the cab door, streaking, smoking, falling down stairs, I once had a bloke in his 50s and his group of mates waving his meat and two veg in a young girls face and had to intervene to get them out of there etc etc) then I'm not surprised they go for hard measures. We now have police officers and private security conducting boarding controls on our worst trains following some quite serious incidents and I'm afraid I'm merciless - I'd be happier with the trains not running altogether, but anyone slightly unreasonable I have removed from the premises in the hope that mucking up their evening will encourage them to take their custom elsewhere in future. If you don't use the ticket offices or machines the trains are local door only as well and you get left behind, no tickets sold by guards, and a pair of coppers stand at the platform end to physically prevent any late runners trying to chuck themselves at the train as it moves off.

It all sounds rather draconian but given how fed up we are with it it could be worse.

 

[JohnB57]

We have a national problem with alcohol abuse and, like alcoholics themselves, too many people deny the problem. We waste critical resources in hospitals, and the Health Service in general, treating people who think it amusing to get so drunk that they need help and have younger generations assuming that's a normal way to live.

I can see alcohol being banned from all public transport in years to come.

This is not an argument for or against alcohol, but don't overlook the fact that legislation aimed at not "wasting critical resources" can only save money if hospital staff are made redundant and hospitals are closed. That's where the money is spent.

And if you clamp down on one kind of extreme anti-social activity, you also have to consider doing the same with other forms of perhaps more passive self-harm; cyclists who suffer extreme injury by not wearing protective gear; hikers who don't plan properly and take up critical emergency resources when they go missing; people who have or cause accidents when they're focussed on their mobile phones rather than what they're doing; etc. In varying measure, these can all waste the same resources and they are avoidable.

I'm afraid that as with everything in life, the minority's abuse of social niceties dictates the laws and restrictions that have to apply to all of us and I'm inclined to agree that alcohol will, sadly, be a thing of the past on public transport before too long.

 

[al78]

And if you clamp down on one kind of extreme anti-social activity, you also have to consider doing the same with other forms of perhaps more passive self-harm; cyclists who suffer extreme injury by not wearing protective gear;

Do you have evidence that "protective gear" makes any significant difference to KSI statistics for cyclists. If you do I'd love to see it since data from Australia after compulsory helmet laws were brought in shows no evidence of significant reduction in severe head injury rates amongst cyclists. In the case of my accident last year, one neurologist stated the most likely effect of me wearing a helmet at the time of the collision would have been the surgeons would have had to remove bits of shattered plastic from my head.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1096.html
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1242.html
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1018.html

 

[DarloRich]

Do you have evidence that "protective gear" makes any significant difference to KSI statistics for cyclists. If you do I'd love to see it since data from Australia after compulsory helmet laws were brought in shows no evidence of significant reduction in severe head injury rates amongst cyclists. In the case of my accident last year, one neurologist stated the most likely effect of me wearing a helmet at the time of the collision would have been the surgeons would have had to remove bits of shattered plastic from my head.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1096.html
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1242.html
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1018.html

I do. A colleague was killed riding his bike. The inquest said he wouldn't have been killed had he been wearing a helmet. That will do for me.

 

[Robertj21a]

This is not an argument for or against alcohol, but don't overlook the fact that legislation aimed at not "wasting critical resources" can only save money if hospital staff are made redundant and hospitals are closed. That's where the money is spent.

And if you clamp down on one kind of extreme anti-social activity, you also have to consider doing the same with other forms of perhaps more passive self-harm; cyclists who suffer extreme injury by not wearing protective gear; hikers who don't plan properly and take up critical emergency resources when they go missing; people who have or cause accidents when they're focussed on their mobile phones rather than what they're doing; etc. In varying measure, these can all waste the same resources and they are avoidable.

I'm afraid that as with everything in life, the minority's abuse of social niceties dictates the laws and restrictions that have to apply to all of us and I'm inclined to agree that alcohol will, sadly, be a thing of the past on public transport before too long.

Sorry, I really can't agree with some of that.

Hospital resources (and you could include the Police too) are clearly stretched to their limits in many parts of the UK. Indeed, it seems to be getting worse. There is little or no likelihood of such staff being made redundant while they still have so much else that needs to be done - and I never even mentioned anything about saving money.

It wouldn't be so bad if the minority of idiots getting drunk and wasting everyone's time were a very small minority. However, in some parts of the UK, we have ended up with people who go out in large groups specifically to get drunk and 'look forward' to creating problems for others (in the street, clubs or on public transport). I don't want my taxes wasted on these people - I don't want the police wasting their time breaking up pub brawls and I don't want my A & E unable to treat deserving cases because of the sheer volume of drunks also there.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I am not outraged by it. I understand why it is done, however I still maintain it merely treats a symptom transferred from "outside" the railway rather than the cause.

Agreed

Perhaps I don't live in as sheltered a world as other posters as your horrendous issues didn't seem that bad when i traveled. Yet above you indicate you support these restrictions. Are they only appropriate when they don't inconvenience you? Perhaps people ought to be banned from travelling away form their homes.

As someone who has worked late trains from Lime Street (and other busy centres in the north west) I speak from experience. The problems may not be of the same degree each and every week but there are most definitely times when all staff concerned are very much on edge due to the atmosphere that can build up. But that's altogether not the same as wishing to deny people the right to travel!

So pay people less is your answer? :roll: It is odd no one seems to want to look at WHY there is an issue with binge drinking.

Did I mention pay? No! I merely highlighted the fact that some people with money burning a hole in their pockets choose to spend it on drink. And nothing wrong with that in principle. As you say the issue is why do some of those feel the need to drink to such excess.

God how awful, those terrible young people going for a night out. They should know their place and stay there :roll: People go out for a drink with their mates, to have a nice day out, try and pull, have a few drinks and a laugh. is that so awful?

Again, no need to put words in my mouth. Nothing wrong with an awayday. Except that clearly in the minds of some it's more "acceptable" to misbehave when off their own patch as their face is not known and will be forgotten by the time they make a return visit.

I don't think that situation is any different in Leeds or Manchester or Newcastle etc. Why is York special?

Did you miss my points about proximity/density of drinking establishments? And I suspect that York not being under a metropolitan constabulary may mean a
different level of police funding has an effect too.

Perhaps we should just ban it entirely. Although there are many other things that "waste critical resources in hospitals, and the Health Service in general" so they best go at the same time. Hopefully none that you enjoy.

I realise that this was in response to another poster. But you may be assured I would not support a ban on drinking. As you have said yourself the issue is why does the binge drinking attitude have such a wide hold. I suspect that the puritanical approach of so many actually makes it worse. How many parents deny or severely restrict the opportunity for their offspring to have even a small drink before being 18 years old? Leading to the inevitable teenage backlash of sneaking around with mates and drinking in an uncontrolled way. Which becomes established as the norm. And why aren't license holders held more to account for the effects of their unrestricted sales to anyone that can pay? The problem of binge drinking/drunkenness is not solely down to the drinkers themselves, though an acceptance by them of some responsibility would help.

 

[Retorus]

In ages past, men drank ale merely because water was often impure. As we've got pure water, ale is unnecessary, rendering its consumption a vice.

One must also consider these specific circumstances, whereby such substances cause nothing but a nuisance for the vast majority of upstanding passengers on trains and in stations. There is no justification for drinking of this sort in public trains and stations.

What a hilariously out of touch post this is.

 

[mlambeuk]

It's going to be horrific in York this Saturday with it been the first Saturday race meeting of the season(do these people actually watch the racing).

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Says it all really.....

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Damn, can't rotate it!

 

[JohnB57]

Do you have evidence that "protective gear" makes any significant difference to KSI statistics for cyclists.

Well, no I don't have statistics for those cyclists who were saved from serious injury, or even escaped injury altogether because they were wearing even basic protective clothing. There's no meaningful way to gather that information. People get up and walk away.

Examples like yours are, I would suggest, the exception.

Sorry, I really can't agree with some of that.

Hospital resources (and you could include the Police too) are clearly stretched to their limits in many parts of the UK.

Yes, I agree.

But resources would be reduced to a level that still resulted in them being stretched during critical periods.

And what defines a "wasted resource" in your book? Having to treat a drinker but not a runner, say? Having to treat someone injured by a fall after drinking would be a waste but breaking a leg playing football would be fine?

I suggest these questions remain rhetorical because they're diverting the thread somewhat.

 

[D1009]

Last night I travelled on the 1947 Penarth to Treherbert as far as Cardiff. I was intrigued that the CIS display at Penarth indicated "No alcohol to be consumed between Pontypridd and Treherbert." For a Monday night I thought that a bit extreme.

 

[Robertj21a]

Last night I travelled on the 1947 Penarth to Treherbert as far as Cardiff. I was intrigued that the CIS display at Penarth indicated "No alcohol to be consumed between Pontypridd and Treherbert." For a Monday night I thought that a bit extreme.

Doesn't it say that most of the time on that stretch ? - if it's not that one, there is one of the Valley Lines that has a semi-permanent notice showing about no alcohol on a specific section of the service.

 

[yorkie]

Doesn't it say that most of the time on that stretch ? - if it's not that one, there is one of the Valley Lines that has a semi-permanent notice showing about no alcohol on a specific section of the service.

Yes, that's right.

Valley lines north of Pontypridd are permanently dry I believe.

 

[D1009]

Yes, that's right.

Does that mean it's worse than York up there?

 

[Llanigraham]

Does that mean it's worse than York up there?

You've obviously never met a drunk Maerdy Rockape!!
Neanderthal!!

 

[Harbornite]

What a hilariously out of touch post this is.

Looks like there's no need for the Alcohol industry any more. Let's all drink water when we go out clubbing or pubbing. :roll:

 

[RichmondCommu]

Well there's the relaxing effect of consuming alcohol combined with watching the world go by when you want to "switch off" for a bit while someone else takes care of getting you to the destination, or there's the enjoyment of the taste and, yes, even perhaps some of the intoxicating effects, and there's the social aspect of alcohol when travelling as a group looking to chat, catch up on news and enjoy each others' company. The most basic motivation is surely that people are looking to maximise the enjoyment of their leisure time, which can include enjoying the taste, intoxicating effects and social lubrication offered by alcohol as mentioned above. Or perhaps as a form of stress relief after a hard week at work or other personal issues, or as part of the excitement of a special event (birthday, stag/hen do, city break, sporting event, etc), remembering that train travel itself can be quite a novelty for some people.

I whilst I can agree with some of this having to go without alcohol for no more than a few hours is hardly a trial. If you've had a long hard week at work I agree that a pint certainly helps but there is no reason why one can't be enjoyed in the pub before you head to the station. Failing that the thought of heading home to loved one's certainly put's a spring in most people's step.

In all honesty I would really guard against using alcohol as some kind of relief from personal issues. As much as I love a pint, alcohol in those situations will only make things worse, sometimes with dreadful consequences.

For what it's worth I often see 'hens' on the way back from Manchester if I've been up there with work on a Friday. I find them very entertaining and harmless (seeing Manc ladies getting merry is always amusing) but for others they're a nuisance.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

But that would mean missing out on the window gazing.

Although in this case you were aware that you would be travelling at night and therefore wouldn't see a thing! For what it's worth I don't think for one second that you will cause a moments trouble with a bottle of beer in your possession but on the other hand the journey between York and Leeds is less than an hour.

 

[eastend43]

Whilst I can agree with some of this having to go without alcohol for no more than a few hours is hardly a trial.

Alcohol use is a complex problem that affects individuals, families and society. For some people, going without alcohol is a trial as it is an addiction and not consuming alcohol causes physical side affects, sometimes quite severe. It can affect different people at different times of the day. We probably all recognise the 'stereotypical' street drinker who starts their day with an alcohol drink, but perhaps do not recognise the 'functioning alcoholic' who perhaps 'needs' a drink on the journey home from work (to reduce withdrawal symptoms). Hence M&S and other outlets sell conveniently sized containers of alcohol.

Alcohol related disorder is clearly a significant problems for the railways, as it is for society in general. I could be pedantic by saying that it isn't the alcohol consumption that is the problem, but certain people's behaviour after consuming alcohol that is the problem, but the lines between those two things are probably blurred in most peoples minds.

As with many public health issues, interventions or 'rules' applied at the 'population' level (i.e. applying to everyone) are often shown to be the most effective. There will be many on here who feel they drive safely at more than 70mph on a motorway, or are safe enough to drive after having drunk more that the amounts of alcohol that convert into the (different) blood alcohol limits in force in the UK. They may be right (based on their driving skills or the speed at which their liver metabolises the ethanol within alcohol), but society cannot have different laws or rules for different individuals.

I know this post doesn't suggest a solution (as most posts on here do), but just wanted to point out that addiction to alcohol is something that can be severe and that there are no easy solutions.



Of course that is an entirely different issue to the binge drinking (including stag / hen culture) but that's for another posting...

 

[IanD]

Failing that the thought of heading home to loved one's certainly put's a spring in most people's step.

But what if you're heading back to the wife and kids?

 

[RichmondCommu]

But what if you're heading back to the wife and kids?

Well in my case, heading home to my wife and our children (although they are now grown up and at Uni) always cheered me up no matter how long my week had been. And in all honesty it still does

 

[AnonymousUser1]

In ages past, men drank ale merely because water was often impure. As we've got pure water, ale is unnecessary, rendering its consumption a vice.

One must also consider these specific circumstances, whereby such substances cause nothing but a nuisance for the vast majority of upstanding passengers on trains and in stations. There is no justification for drinking of this sort in public trains and stations.

'small beer' of course being as or less alcoholic than pub shandy ...

 

[matchmaker]

What a hilariously out of touch post this is.

Indeed. :cry:

 

[wensley]

Not to worry. Next time I will be sure to bring my own to avoid this cretonous stupidity.

And you won't be able to carry that either! A dry station is the same as a dry train ... Same byelaw(s), no beer.

 

[deltic08]

The Northern crews will be thankful though, if they work the York to Blackpool North train, it could be worse, they could be crewing a train departing from the other end.

York also has a recurring issue of people having had too much to drink in the river side bars and jumping in the Ouse, despite these acts being fatal in the past.

The same happens in Durham City and river Wear. Both are University towns with 15,000+ students. All fatalities are young single people at University. In Durham, students have the audacity to blame the City Council for not looking after them by not fencing off the river.

 

[Senex]

The same happens in Durham City and river Wear. Both are University towns with 15,000+ students. All fatalities are young single people at University. In Durham, students have the audacity to blame the City Council for not looking after them by not fencing off the river.

Similar pressures in York -- it's so obviously the Council's obligation to fence the river banks, of course.

 

[talltim]

I do. A colleague was killed riding his bike. The inquest said he wouldn't have been killed had he been wearing a helmet. That will do for me.

A good chunk of my helmet was scraped off when I fell off. That would have been a good chunk of my head scraped off.

 

[al78]

A good chunk of my helmet was scraped off when I fell off. That would have been a good chunk of my head scraped off.

Human skulls are far stronger than an inch of styrofoam, and at best the helmet protected you from cuts and bruises. If it broke then the helmet failed, and absorbed negligable energy from the impact (helmets are designed to crush, the crushing is what absorbs some of the collision energy, like impact zones on cars, if it splits it has not performed properly).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Well, no I don't have statistics for those cyclists who were saved from serious injury, or even escaped injury altogether because they were wearing even basic protective clothing. There's no meaningful way to gather that information. People get up and walk away.

Examples like yours are, I would suggest, the exception.

There is meaningful evidence globally, as I mentioned, statistics from Canada and Australlia showed no evidence of a reduction in head injury rates after mandatory helmet laws were introduced. Sorry, but I am afraid to say that the evidence out there contradicts your opinion, you are wrong. The vast majority of cyclists do not fall off and have severe injuries, in fact cycling is no more dangerous than walking. If you are really concerned about things like head injuries then you would be far better advocating helmets for motorists, since motor helmets are strong enough to have a decent protective effect and far more motorists are killed through head injuries in crashes. It is irrational how cyclists are singled out when it comes to protective equipment as though no-one else ever has an accident, it seems to me it is an attempt to victim blame and a way of trying to divert responsibility away from motorists to drive in a safe manner.