Boris Johnson's address to the nation - Friday 17th July 11am

[yorksrob]

Of course, you could consider other modes and reject them because you preferred to go by train!

Indeed. I always consider helicopter, hydrofoil and hot air balloon, but on most occasions I find them impractical in comparison to the train.

 

[yorkie]

Of course, you could consider other modes and reject them because you preferred to go by train!

True; I did argue that at the time, but I'm glad that message has been removed now.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

At my first full time job, they had a tea lady who came round with a trolly.

Those were the days !

I remember it well. 1975

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Well 2 days after Boris's latest pronouncement it seems nobody has told Network Rail yet.

The PA system at Manchester Piccadilly is still, Sunday, playing the "Please only travel if you really need to and keep trains clear for those who need them most" / "Hello, I'm Hannah, a nurse in a care home. Please avoid travelling by train unless you really need to so that I can travel to work safely " announcements every few minutes. Leeds was still playing them yesterday evening too.

 

[HSTEd]

Probably pro lockdown people in the management infrastructure dragging feet on changing the messages or turning them off.

Perhaps the government should announce its plans for mass redundancies for rail staff unless passenger numbers climb

 

[yorksrob]

Well 2 days after Boris's latest pronouncement it seems nobody has told Network Rail yet.

The PA system at Manchester Piccadilly is still, Sunday, playing the "Please only travel if you really need to and keep trains clear for those who need them most" / "Hello, I'm Hannah, a nurse in a care home. Please avoid travelling by train unless you really need to so that I can travel to work safely " announcements every few minutes. Leeds was still playing them yesterday evening too.

This is where an MP3 player comes in handy !

 

[StephenHunter]

Well 2 days after Boris's latest pronouncement it seems nobody has told Network Rail yet.

The PA system at Manchester Piccadilly is still, Sunday, playing the "Please only travel if you really need to and keep trains clear for those who need them most" / "Hello, I'm Hannah, a nurse in a care home. Please avoid travelling by train unless you really need to so that I can travel to work safely " announcements every few minutes. Leeds was still playing them yesterday evening too.

TfL has posters from the "Stay at Home" period still up. We're likely to be seeing social distancing markers around for many years, I would say.

 

[Halish Railway]

I’m not sure if there’s a more appropriate thread for this question, but does anyone know if Northern are starting to remove their “out of use” labels from the seats of their trains as I’m hearing mixed reports.

 

[BJames]

I’m not sure if there’s a more appropriate thread for this question, but does anyone know if Northern are starting to remove their “out of use” labels from the seats of their trains as I’m hearing mixed reports.

I don't know about Northern (they probably haven't started yet knowing them but they could be pleasantly surprising us) but the Nottingham trams still have theirs. Although I appreciate the seats are closer together but this is precisely why social distancing needs to be scrapped on public transport - you've got Boris saying you can now use public transport, and that more people should go back to work, and basically do whatever else you want to in places that are open. But then you've got operators like NET and Northern who still tell people which seats to sit in, vastly restricting capacity. The trams have got a lot busier over the last few weeks and yesterday it was certainly the case that there were not enough seats without the "keep this seat free" label for the people on the tram - thus people just started sitting anywhere. The vast majority of people aren't going to be prepared to wait 30-60+ minutes for a service that's got enough space to keep 1m+ away from others. Why tell people to start using public transport again if they can't even get on because of social distancing?

 

[yorksrob]

I’m not sure if there’s a more appropriate thread for this question, but does anyone know if Northern are starting to remove their “out of use” labels from the seats of their trains as I’m hearing mixed reports.

Yes, there are a lot fewer around now.