Police deal with trainspotters breaking Covid lockdown rules

[darrel]

Last Saturday a group of about 20 youths aged 13 to 14 were stood on a platform opposite the BTP office drinking alcohol and not socially distancing making illegal journeys on trains. Half an hour later another group of drunk youths were stood right outside the BTP office making illegal journeys not socially distancing. Neither group had a face mask between them. Guess what the BTP did? Yep nothing at all. 

Two boys go trainspotting and the BTP go to town on them. Hmmmmmmm

[Tim V]

I read an interesting statistic yesterday, while a lot of people have been prosecuted for breaking the Covid laws, not a single employer has been prosecuted for an unsafe workplace. Odd that?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/14/operation-blame-the-public-covid-unsafe-workplaces-coronavirus-tories

[woodenhead]

45 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

On joining the army, if you think about it, it is nothing more than making a fashion statement while allowing other people in a different type of fancy dress try to kill you.

 

Now that is conditioning !!!

 

Or in the case of one individual and I am seriously going off topic he is managing to create a perfect storm that will result in blue on blue

[Gibbo675]

2 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Or in the case of one individual and I am seriously going off topic he is managing to create a perfect storm that will result in blue on blue

Hi Woodenhead,

 

Do you mean the "Red King", you know the chap, he is an American discordant chaos magician who's spells hypnotise and force conditioned triggered psychic responses in the weak of mind causing rage and anger in such people ?

 

I have heard that there is a sort of Pavlovian "Derangement Syndrome" named after the Red King.

 

Gibbo.

[Geep7]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but if you really do need to do some trainspotting, you can easily view some of the Free Railcams on Youtube from the safety of your own home.

 

I do agree somewhat with the mental health aspect of perhaps going out trainspotting. I live about 2 minutes walk from my local station, and I tend to route my daily walk across the road bridge at the station. Do I see anything of interest though? Nope, they've always already been through or go through after i've been on my walk. 

 

I wonder if the police might have viewed things differently if it had just been a solitary person trainspotting?

[ejstubbs]

<double posting - thanks RMWeb>

Edited January 15, 2021 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

19 hours ago, 30801 said:

How the hell is fishing classed as exercise but going for a walk with a drink is a picnic? 

 

It wasn't a picnic, the officer in that example (the two women who went for a walk at Foremark reservoir and picked up takeaway coffee on the way) was making up the rules on the fly.  The women concerned have had their FPNs cancelled after Derbyshire Police got a rap on the knuckles from the NPCC.

[ejstubbs]

20 hours ago, caradoc said:

Various of my work colleagues go fishing, others play golf, and every single one of them is an ordinary bloke (in fact, just like you and I, an ordinary railwayman) with no political connections or influence whatsoever. 

 

Phil was not suggesting that every angler or golfer has the ear of the PM or anything ridiculous like that.  But there are undoubtedly organisations which represent participants on those sports which do have a degree of influence in the corridors of power.

 

Likewise the Ramblers Association, which managed to get an exemption to the taking-exercise-in-groups rule in Scotland, for reasons which still remain unclear.  So I can go for a walk with no more than one other person, or an organised "ramble" as a member of larger group.  How does that make any actual sense?  In that case I believe a number of MPs do list the associated pastime amongst their leisure interests, and it only takes  one or two to have a word in the right place to get favourable treatment.  After all, there's no actual money to be made out of it so it can't be regarded as corruption...

Edited January 16, 2021 by ejstubbs

[TheSignalEngineer]

19 hours ago, woodenhead said:

It does seem daft, can I go for a walk at the local resevoir with my friend if we arrive by seperate cars with a coffee each - No.

 

Can I visit the same resevoir by car and go fishing - Yes.

We had a similar situation in our locality during previous restrictions. Not permitted to go out in a group of more than six people from different households by walking across open countryside but can accompany 29 Hooray Henrys whilst carrying firearms to the same countryside and blast the hell out of a few grouse.

[TheSignalEngineer]

19 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I don't mind people getting out of their house locally and going for a walk or doing exercise, it is people pushing it, going out to do other stuff. 

A group of numpties from Manchester came to the area last weekend. They parked in the town and went up Bleaklow in search of the B29 wreck. First mistake, it had about 18" of snow over it at the time. They walked around through snow for about five hours and were at the furthest point they got from their car when they realised they were lost and it was getting towards sunset. Fortunately they were able to get enough signal for an emergency call and the Mountain Rescue managed to locate the position of their phone fairly quickly. They found them and marched them back off the hill. 

I don't see how we are ever going to enforce anything when BoJo keeps on about 'advice' when these people come out equipped for a walk in the park and go up a 2000ft hill when the temperature at 500ft was around freezing. They do not have the brain power to understand their visible surrounding let alone the concept of an invisible entity capable of causing fatal results.

(Rant over)

Edited January 15, 2021 by TheSignalEngineer
typo

[Grizz]

20 hours ago, woodenhead said:

So you catch it and toss it back - have to say that is barbaric - playing with another living creature for sport.

Just thought....Does anyone know if fish are capable of catching and passing on COVID????  Catching a fish, handling it for a while whilst the hook is extracted etc and then putting it back only for someone else to then catch it again and then put it back and so on......Maybe put some detergent in the lake? 
 

By the way before someone saddles up for a square go regarding the last comment, I was joking. I don’t condone putting detergent into lakes or any other water courses.
 

Major problem from day one, no one ever defined ‘Essential’ to the public. Only if essential will be used by some to justify any behaviour. Asking the public to exercise judgement or a common sense approach to the word ‘Essential’ was never going to work either, especially when the ‘It’s essential for my mental health’ card is played. 
 

You can write in law what ever you like, but if you are relying on people to behave responsibly and you can’t back up the laws with sufficient levels of hard enforcement, coupled with overwhelmingly hard consequences.......

 

......Then the Country is totally ‘Garbage Trucked’.......

 

Anyway it’s easy to socially bash trainspotters, whatever the rights and wrongs of going out in lockdown. Just think in the good old days we only had word of mouth, television and the written media to send out messages of hate and derision against trains spotters. Now thanks to social media billions can hate us instead. 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Grizz
Pslening

[TheSignalEngineer]

19 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

'Elite sports' are well connected to those in power.

 

The Health Secretary is MP for a constituency covering Newmarket I believe.

 

A board member of the Jockey Club is the head of Test and Trace and was at Oxford at the same time and studying the same subjects as a former PM.

 

Cheltenham Festival anyone?

 

19 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

There are lots of other activities which can be similarly beneficial to mental health that have been made to stop due to Covid restrictions even though some of them could still be carried out without endangering others.

The Lawn Tennis Association had a strict set of protocols for outdoor play during restrictions including the clubhouse being closed, only playing singles if players weren't in the same household or support bubble, no inter club matches, etc,

I suppose tennis had to be banned because a certain party raises a lot of funds by the leader auctioning his playing time to wealthy supporters.

[The Stationmaster]

45 minutes ago, Grizz said:

 

Major problem from day one, no one ever defined ‘Essential’ to the public. Only if essential will be used by some to justify any behaviour. Asking the public to exercise judgement or a common sense approach to the word ‘Essential’ was never going to work either, especially when the ‘It’s essential for my mental health’ card is played. 
 

 

Defining something like 'essential' is always difficult and can vary in how it is interpreted.  so somebody who drafted the current lockdown stuff obviously knew that because they didn't use the word except in one place in respect of the extremely vulnerable (who get personal advice anyway).  But the rest simply says 'stay at home, unless ...'  and they've even defined 'local' for those of limited brain power or who want to argue the toss about driving several miles before they start walking.  

 

Of course the big problem is that you need to be able to read it and you also need to be able to understand and the latter implies that you are not stupid (which regrettably applies to far too many of the population - numbered in their millions alas.

 

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, darrel said:

Last Saturday a group of about 20 youths aged 13 to 14 were stood on a platform opposite the BTP office drinking alcohol and not socially distancing making illegal journeys on trains. Half an hour later another group of drunk youths were stood right outside the BTP office making illegal journeys not socially distancing. Neither group had a face mask between them. Guess what the BTP did? Yep nothing at all. 

Two boys go trainspotting and the BTP go to town on them. Hmmmmmmm

 

So you are asking two lone officers to take on a total of 20+ youths buoyed up by alcohol on their own are you. BTP are usually spread quite thinly away from major stations and any sort of massed response takes a significant amount of planning by which time the need for intervention may well have passed or other more significant incidents occured.

 

As was discussed on another thread dealing with regular police, the brutal truth is there are insufficient officers, cells, etc for them to do everything that is asked of them thanks to decades worth of budget cuts and efficiency targets that remove any slack from the system.

 

The result is thus somewhat predictable - large gatherings that could easily descend into violent confrontation sometimes get ignored while other 'petty' offences seem to be more rigorously investigated. It is easy to imagine the reaction of the two groups - the trainspotters doing as the officers requested and leave the station while a group of pissed up youths flatly refuse to do so "only two of you and 20 of us, what ya going to do" mentality if you will and go on to tie up lots of officers from dealing with other incidents

[Rivercider]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

It wasn't a picnic, the officer in that example (the two women who went for a walk at Foremark reservoir and picked up takeaway coffee on the way) was making up the rules on the fly.  The women concerned have had their FPNs cancelled after Derbyshire Police got a rap on the knuckles from the NPCC.

Agreed the officer was overzealous there. But everyone has their own idea of staying local.

Should we visit the nearest place we can walk, or the nearest nice place? Are there no parks in Ashby?

 

I live about 3 minutes walk from the sea front, and since the recent lockdown started there have been significant numbers of people walking along the prom, many of them must have travelled more than 10 minutes to get there,

 

cheers 

 

cheers 

[phil-b259]

10 hours ago, beast66606 said:

Words fail me Phil - my reply would not be suitable for this forum so I'll leave most of it out.

 

I assume you are in debt, are worried about losing your job, your house, your car and everything you own otherwise you wouldn't be so glib with your "behaves responsibility and puts people before profit / money" comment - if not then I'll send you my sons bank details and you can send him all of your savings, you can remortgage your house so you have a huge debt and send him that money too - then HE can lecture YOU about staying in and denying you the only bit of relief you get even if you do it responsibly and socially distanced.

 

 

 

I make no apologies for stating that money is an inanimate object that can be regained in later years - the ability to actually be alive and not be a pile of ashes is not something you can go back and change later on.

 

I'm sorry but pleas to reduce lockdown simply because of money issues is ultimately a selfish* response when we KNOW any loosening of restrictions will commit many others to DEATH, not only because of Covid, but also postponed cancer treatment, etc.

 

As I have said before, if people are not being adequately supported as a result of not being able to work (and I have never denied that is the case) then the answer is to increase Government support measures to aviate the significant pressures some like your son are facing until such time as Lockdown can legitimately eased without overloading the NHS again.

 

To take your point about mortgages for example - its not beyond the whit of Government to instigate temporary controls on secured loans which would effectively freeze mortgages (i.e. the amount to be paid off, including interest) so the amount owed static for 24 months. Yes this move would have implications for the national debt and may well mean higher taxes in coming years but I would regard such things as perfectly reasonable if it means we can keep more people alive...

 

 

* please note this is not a insult - human beings simply couldn't have become the dominant species on this planet without that impulse. However we must (yes I am happy to acknowledge I too have selfish thoughts by the way) also be able to recognise them for what they are and should not pretend they do not play a significant factor in how we see the world.

Edited January 15, 2021 by phil-b259

[John M Upton]

Continued support from the Government is all well and good but the question continually unanswered is where is the money coming from?  The Magic Money Tree/Forest must be threadbare by now.

[Rivercider]

6 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Continued support from the Government is all well and good but the question continually unanswered is where is the money coming from?  The Magic Money Tree/Forest must be threadbare by now.

No, there is a great big forest of Magic Money trees, growing on Tax Evasion Island!

 

cheers

[Grizz]

Never enough BTP any more sadly.
 

An old mate of mine used to be an Ops Station Manager at a large London Terminus. One with a connection to a large busy airport and with large proportion of daily commuter traffic. It was subjected to regular criminal gang activity, almost daily assaults on staff, drunken loutish behaviour, regular criminal damage and relentless anti social behaviour. Following the 7/7 bombings in London there was highly visible armed police presence at the station. Regular patrols around the station and some on trains, the same type of presence as is the accepted norm at airports..

 

Amazingly enough during this period assaults on staff dropped to zero as did pretty near all criminal and anti social behaviour. Apparently criminals and people behaving irresponsibly and antisocially were less inclined to act this way when faced with the possibility of ending up laying face down on the concourse with an MP5 pointed at the back of their head. Apparently it focusses the minds of even the most pi**ed up people when this happens. 
 

My mate reflected that just the presence of regular armed police patrols was enough of a deterrent, with the majority of law abiding people quite happily getting on with their business and in the end almost oblivious to their presence. 
 

Sadly as soon as this approach was dropped, back came the old trouble. 

[Reorte]

35 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

Agreed the officer was overzealous there. But everyone has their own idea of staying local.

Should we visit the nearest place we can walk, or the nearest nice place? Are there no parks in Ashby?

 

I live about 3 minutes walk from the sea front, and since the recent lockdown started there have been significant numbers of people walking along the prom, many of them must have travelled more than 10 minutes to get there,

Everyone has their own idea, and it'll also depend upon everyone's own circumstances too. Plus a bit more travelling can mean a bit more spreading out.

 

I live on the edge of the Peak District, and quite honestly travelling anywhere for exercise would be hard to justify when I can go straight from my front door. But I wouldn't regard the nearer parts of the Peak District to Manchester as unreasonable for someone living in a Manchester flat.

[phil-b259]

37 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Continued support from the Government is all well and good but the question continually unanswered is where is the money coming from?  The Magic Money Tree/Forest must be threadbare by now.

 

Thats why we are going to have to see increased tax rates and cutbacks over the next decade

 

For what its worth pretty much every other developed nation is facing the same problem.

 

I suspect that if you crunch the numbers then what they would actually say is let people die - after all medically speaking the virus is more likely to kill 'vulnerable people' , the very grouping that tend to take more out of the exchequer than contribute to it.

 

That is effectively the calculation people are making when they are calling for a easing of lockdown - i.e. their financial needs trump keeping people alive.

 

I don't criticise such thinking outright - as I have said before virtually every road scheme places a value on human life when deciding if it is affordable / viable, as does the drug approving committee that licences drugs for NHS use. However what I do object to is when people are unwilling to be upfront about it. Easing Lockdown now (instead of taking on more Government debt to fix issues like that highlighted by Beast66606) will be balanced by many more people dieing. How many extra lives should we discard......

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by phil-b259

[gordon s]

Funny how those who say let the old and vulnerable die are usually around 30 years younger than me.......

 

Having worked for over 50 years and paid a lot in taxation and NHI contributions, I feel absolutely no guilt that I may need more care in the years to come.

Edited January 15, 2021 by gordon s

[30801]

11 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Funny how those who say let the old and vulnerable die are usually around 30 years younger than me.......

 

'Underlying conditions' is a thing that you hear a lot. What they really  mean is 'not like me'

[stewartingram]

One thing that puzzles me? 

Ok, the Govt. subsidises businesses, morgatges or whatever, to the hilt, during lockdown, and (presumably) this ends up being loans that are borrowed (from somewhere - world banks or whatever?).

Now we are just one nation; every other nation is also suffering. Each one will do its own thing with subsidies etc, but ultimately they are all borrowing - from the same sources.

Will this supply run out? If I borrow from Barclays, they have funds to lend to me. LARGE funds compared to what I ask for - but not infinite funds. If EVERYBODY suddenly went to Barclays for loans, the company would collapse?

Maybe the  numbers are just too big for me to contemplate, so I can't get my head round it.

[Shedmaster]

7 hours ago, darrel said:

Last Saturday a group of about 20 youths aged 13 to 14 were stood on a platform opposite the BTP office drinking alcohol and not socially distancing making illegal journeys on trains. Half an hour later another group of drunk youths were stood right outside the BTP office making illegal journeys not socially distancing. Neither group had a face mask between them. Guess what the BTP did? Yep nothing at all. 

Two boys go trainspotting and the BTP go to town on them. Hmmmmmmm

Good evening all,

 

May I add something to this conversation.....?
 

My understanding is that there is a situation at Acton Bridge Station regarding one of the residents in a local or adjoining road, with any form of ‘enthusiast’. 
 

Could anybody add to this, I could do with some help making my point?

I’m sorry I can’t offer any more details, I thought I’d read this on RailforumsUK, whereby there is a known issue at this location? I suspect the said Trainspotters may have been reported under the guise of the COVID pandemic as part of an ongoing dispute?

 

Many Thanks,

 

Shed.