Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Attack of the goon squad

Right, that's it. It's time to wave the white flag, draw up the surrender agreement and prepare to welcome our new overlords with open arms. The terrorists, it seems, have won. They have succeeding in destroying enough of what makes Britain Britain that the country is no longer its own. Long-cherished values of freedom have been forgotten. Ancient liberties have been cast to the winds. Minorities are being persecuted while engaging in activities which have been a Briton's right for generations.

Yes, people, the nightmare scenario is here - British trainspotters are now being persecuted as a matter of official policy.

Already reeling from accusations made by paranoid security types that people who stand around on station platforms noting the coming and going of trains must be up to no good and planning something evil, the trainspotters of Britain had already tasted persecution. Actual persecution was something trainspotters hadn't encountered before. Being mocked was one thing. It was a hazard of the job. But actual official harassment? Hardly! After all, trainspotters may be an odd bunch, but eccentricity has never been a crime in Britain. In fact, in many ways eccentricity has long been considered an asset. A hobby - albeit a slightly odd one - the enjoyment of which formerly required nothing more than a platform ticket was now being subjected to official scrutiny as paranoia started to triumph over the citizen's long-cherished right to do slightly peculiar yet utterly harmless things on the railway stations of the United Kingdom.

Network Rail runs a number of the country's busiest stations, including all the main London stations and the main stations in the regions. To their credit, as reports of trainspotters and railway photographers being frogmarched off stations just for being there started to pile up they released some official guidelines. They were fairly reasonable, but the health and safety and liability paranoia got added to the mix in the process. You were fine, they said, as long as you stayed out of the way and followed the instructions of station staff. No problem - that's basically what most people were already doing anyway. But oh, for safety reasons we'd also like you to see the Duty Station Manager when you arrive to let them know you're there. So already busy station managers were now going to be given the added task of giving the nod to people wanting to trainspot or take pictures on their stations. In reality, of course, few people ever sought this permission formally, especially if they were only taking a couple of pictures in passing. And given that the guidelines specifically requested enthusiasts not to wear railway orange hi-vis jackets while on the platforms in order to avoid being confused with staff, the actual safety issues involved were vague at best.

While when DSMs have been approached they have almost invariably been perfectly happy for these things to happen - a lot of railway employees are enthusiasts themselves - the hired security goons who enforce the rules on the ground don't seem to have been told. Either that or they have been told but can't be bothered to apply the rules properly. Stories now abound of people being randomly marched out of stations, sworn at and otherwise abused by the hired heavies. Some people have even been told that no, they can't see the DSM, and thrown out of the station anyway. Some have been thrown out even after being granted permission by the DSM. A "no photography" rule seems to have suddenly appeared in the minds of security people, despite the NR guidelines stating that photography is fine as long as it's for personal use. And today, finally, it happened to me in a small way.

While waiting for a train on Paddington station's concourse - not even on the platforms - I noticed that there was a particularly fine and clear view of the station's trainshed, and since I had a couple of minutes to kill I took out my camera and fired off a few shots. One of them accompanies this article. Within about 30 seconds a fat security goon with a radio appeared and told me - officiously and patronisingly - that "you can't take pictures on the station, Sir". I was so taken aback that I didn't have time to formulate a reply before he'd wandered off, but I just knew that if I'd asked why I'd have most likely been told something about terrorism. Either that or "That's the rules." and that if I didn't stop he'd throw me out of the station. I stopped, mostly because I didn't really want to argue with security goons and miss my train but also because I'd got my photos anyway.

I was shocked. Although I'll happily admit to being a tragic train nerd, on this occasion I was there as a bona fide traveller. I had a travel ticket and was waiting for my train's platform to be announced. I was only on the concourse, for heaven's sake - not even out on the platforms. What the hell, in short, is going on? Can I really not take a photo of a virtually empty railway station any more? If Network Rail or ATOC can explain exactly why a person standing in the middle of a half-deserted station concourse with a handheld camera taking pictures of mostly empty platforms constitutes a genuine (rather than made up) safety or security hazard I'll happily bow to their superior wisdom, but in the meantime I'm going to stick to my view that this flowering of petty-minded persecution of people doing utterly harmless things is simply and clearly absurd.

If this is really connected with fears of terrorism, I'd be interested to hear why this has only recently become an issue given the decades of experience the UK has of being targetted by terrorists. On several occasions railway stations and infrastructure were directly targetted. So why is it only an issue now?
Posted by mpk at July 5, 2005 11:24 PM