When was smoking banned on British trains?

[Grizz]

This from the house of lords on the dictatorship running British Rail …..

 

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1992/may/19/smoking-on-trains-br-policy

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Grizz said:

This from the house of lords on the dictatorship running British Rail …..

 

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1992/may/19/smoking-on-trains-br-policy

 

Ha. Yes, in looking for the date on which smoking was banned on Network South East, I had come acroos this. Not the present baron but Toby Low, 1st Baron, "hero" of Operation Keelhaul, etc.:

 

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1993/dec/01/british-rail-smoking-ban

 

Which goes to show that there's nothing new in right-wing politicians exploiting civil liberties arguments to oppose necessary public health measures. Should anti-vaxxers be treated as a protected minority? (That's a rhetorical question; one that does not require or request a reply.)

[Grizz]

Technically I am not replying but just seeking to clarify protected status……..Protected Species?????  

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Grizz said:

Technically I am not replying but just seeking to clarify protected status……..Protected Species?????  

 

Doomed to extinction if left to their own devices?

 

See also: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act/protected-characteristics.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Compound2632

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, peterd777 said:

Yes, certainly unless clearly marked smoking was the default permission in trains, planes, work places, and even cinemas during the fifties and sixties and probably earlier.

I remember my parents, who were smokers, would always fuss and move along the platform if the specifically marked “no smoking” compartment pulled up in front of them.

Even smoking households (a rare occurrence) would have ash trays for guests.

Interestingly the buses had no smoking downstairs.

 

Not on the single deckers.  

 

On those the smoking was the back bit usually the bit from the wheel arch which was raised higher with NO partitions or physical separation.

 

I always remember arguments between the smokers that wanted to sit there to smoke and the kids that wanted to sit at the back. 

 

 

Jason

[caradoc]

IIRC BR tried to ban smoking firstly in catering vehicles, and there was a huge outcry from commuters desperate for a fag and a whisky on the way home after a hard day in the office. It seems incredible now !

[laurenceb]

In Victorian times parliament enacted legislation to force the railways to allow smoking! Times change

[The Lurker]

7 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

In Victorian times parliament enacted legislation to force the railways to allow smoking! Times change

I read a while back "The Railways" by Simon Bradley and that had a very interesting part on the provision of smoking by railway companies. It was of the opinion that the railways virtually saved the smoking industry in Victorian times because it was a dying habit. I don't have the book to hand - it's my Dad's book - but that was something that surprised me given how prevalent smoking was even 40 years ago.(Although not in our house, my parents, particularly my Mum, were vehemently anti-smoking)

[John M Upton]

11 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

I always remember arguments between the smokers that wanted to sit there to smoke and the kids that wanted to sit at the back. 

 

On my school bus, the kids sitting at the back were the smokers!  It was that kind of school, I reckon two thirds of the kids smoked!!!

[NorthEndCab]

On 09/12/2021 at 14:23, Jim Martin said:

I'm wondering because I took the Divine Mrs M to Wigan this morning, to put her on the 08:00 to Glasgow; and the preceding train (the 06:15 Birmingham-Edinburgh, due out of Wigan at 07:38) was held in the station until 07:54,  apparently while the police were summoned to remove someone who insisted on smoking their e-cigarette.

 

I can recall there being smoking compartments - maybe even whole carriages - on trains in my youth; and obviously there aren't any now; but I have no idea when the changeover occurred. Does anyone know?

 

Jim

At the risk of going slightly off-topic, this is something that has got much more prevalent over the last year or so on the railway I’ve noticed.
 

 People blatantly smoking on platforms and becoming aggressive when challenged (by staff) and simply carrying on rather than just stubbing it out sulkily like they used to. I’m not entirely sure why. 
 

I’m surprised they went to the bother of summoning BTP, they’re always two hours away…. ;-)

 

 

[TheQ]

Because the station staff no longer have any authority, they have no power to stop you doing anything, all  they can do is call the police..

[NorthEndCab]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Because the station staff no longer have any authority, they have no power to stop you doing anything, all  they can do is call the police..

I’m curious to know if there was ever a time when they had the authority to do much more than ask you to stop? 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

Because the station staff no longer have any authority, they have no power to stop you doing anything, all  they can do is call the police..

 

1 hour ago, NorthEndCab said:

I’m curious to know if there was ever a time when they had the authority to do much more than ask you to stop? 

They do have the power under the Byelaws to deal with all sorts of things which are a breach of the Byelaws and smoking is an offence against the Byelaws.

 

But the big question will always be whether they have the knowledge or,  more importantly, the sheer guts to challenge someone committing a Byelaw offence. But, as always, it is far easier to say that staff have the power to do it rather than to stand there and actually do it if the miscreant is a lot tougher looking or bigger than you are.  So it's far easier to call on somebody else - even BTP (who, as noted above, are more than likely hours away).

[bude_branch]

Smoking was banned on the Isle of Wight trains from the early 1980's, as the interiors were considered to be too much of a fire risk.

 

I well remember a heated exchange with a passenger at Ryde Pier Head who insisted that he couldn't survive the journey without a cigarette - he was travelling to the Esplanade, less than 2 minutes away.

 

Edited December 12, 2021 by bude_branch

[Compound2632]

Perhaps it's worth reflecting on the counter-question: when was smoking first permitted in British trains? I believe it was an activity specifically prohibited in the acts for many lines. It has never been a right; always a permitted activity in defined locations. Which is something the libertarian noble Lords failed to consider in their debates in the early 90s.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Compound2632

[Ben B]

It's interesting to note the way attitudes change down the generations; my eldest foster-daughter is vehemently anti-smoking (I won't go too much into details, but her real mom -who she doesn't get on with- was a heavy smoker who carried on through pregnancy, so Eldest has a few inherited health problems that a social worker reckons are attributable to it).  When she was younger we went for a ride on the local preserved line, and she was genuinely puzzled by the 'no smoking' signs on the carriage windows, saying it was obvious you shouldn't smoke on a train, as 'everyone else would have to breathe it in'.  She genuinely couldn't wrap her head around my stories of going to pubs at Uni in the early 2000's and coming back stinking of smoke, having to hang your coat up in the bathroom so the steam from the shower would draw the smell out, or our shock at the actual colour of the ceiling of our local pub when the ban came in.  I'm a lifelong non-smoker, but I probably passively smoked quite a lot as my friends were into it.  Weirdly the kids at the (kind of rough) local Secondary school don't seem to smoke; you see the odd teenager on the walk home with e-cigs or smoking joints, but not traditional ciggies.  I went to a similar school, and there I was very much in a minority as a non-smoker in the late 90's.   

 

Oddly enough the other morning I spotted a bench at the indoor shopping centre in Keighley still has a sign on it saying "this bench is reserved for non-smokers".  An odd little relic that's already history. 

[EddieK]

As I recall, the GNER Mallard Mark 4s had 3 window bays of Smoking accommodation in Coach B, the TOE vehicle, and one bay (ie 6 seats) of Smoking in Coach M, the PO adjacent to the DVT. In both cases, the Smoking section was at the extreme end of the seated area, so the end of the TOE that coupled to the loco, and the toilet end of the PO, next to the DVT. In both cases there was a new partition added.

Ash boxes were fitted into the tables except on "airline" style seats where they were within the armrest (?from memory?) The table top ash boxes were on a spring loaded cable to allow you to unclip the box and tip it out.

One of my projects was to oversee the conversion of Mallard sets to totally Non Smoking. This was done mostly at stations, during the day, either KX or at least one Sunday at Stevenage, Changing the signage internally and on the platform side was easy, but the external signage on the offside was a bit more awkward; I developed a skill of hanging out of the offside doorway and applying the new label. At KX, it was sometimes possible to lean on the train in the adjacent platform (apparently). Table top ash boxes were easy to remove by pulling hard so that the retaining wire detached. The Supervisor found some woodgrain effect Duct Tape to stick over the resultant hole, pending a change of table.

 

[Edwin_m]

8 hours ago, EddieK said:

As I recall, the GNER Mallard Mark 4s had 3 window bays of Smoking accommodation in Coach B, the TOE vehicle, and one bay (ie 6 seats) of Smoking in Coach M, the PO adjacent to the DVT. In both cases, the Smoking section was at the extreme end of the seated area, so the end of the TOE that coupled to the loco, and the toilet end of the PO, next to the DVT. In both cases there was a new partition added.

Ash boxes were fitted into the tables except on "airline" style seats where they were within the armrest (?from memory?) The table top ash boxes were on a spring loaded cable to allow you to unclip the box and tip it out.

One of my projects was to oversee the conversion of Mallard sets to totally Non Smoking. This was done mostly at stations, during the day, either KX or at least one Sunday at Stevenage, Changing the signage internally and on the platform side was easy, but the external signage on the offside was a bit more awkward; I developed a skill of hanging out of the offside doorway and applying the new label. At KX, it was sometimes possible to lean on the train in the adjacent platform (apparently). Table top ash boxes were easy to remove by pulling hard so that the retaining wire detached. The Supervisor found some woodgrain effect Duct Tape to stick over the resultant hole, pending a change of table.

 

I seem to remember extra extraction fans were also fitted in those smoking areas.  Struck me as a big expense when I think they were abolished only a couple of years later.  These were, I think, the last smoking accommodating on the UK rail network.   

[2251]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2021 at 16:33, The Lurker said:

I read a while back "The Railways" by Simon Bradley and that had a very interesting part on the provision of smoking by railway companies. It was of the opinion that the railways virtually saved the smoking industry in Victorian times because it was a dying habit. I don't have the book to hand - it's my Dad's book - but that was something that surprised me given how prevalent smoking was even 40 years ago.(Although not in our house, my parents, particularly my Mum, were vehemently anti-smoking)

The Regulation of Railways Act 1868, section 20, is the provision in question (repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1959):

 

"All Railway Companies, except the Metropolitan Railway Company, shall, from and after the First Day of October next, in every Passenger Train where there are more Carriages than One of each Class, provide Smoking Compartments for each Class of Passengers, unless exempted by the Board of Trade. "