Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sir Velo: WRONNNNNG!!!!

Strictly speaking (even more strictly speaking?) the train is the bit (coaches, wagons) that follows behind the locomotive, but not certainly including the locomotive, by analogy with the way a Victorian lady's train followed behind the lady!

Wot don't modern ladies' ones do that???

[LeMartinPecheur]

Wot don't modern ladies' ones do that???

AFAIK the Victorians were unable to see modern ladies' trains: they'd have needed a good crystal ball as there aren't many to be seen these days!

"In clear", my ref to Victorian ladies' trains was because the metaphor is Victorian...

[Flosshilde]

But did Victorian ladies go off the rails?

[LeMartinPecheur]

But did Victorian ladies go off the rails?

Their trains certainly did! (The Tay Bridge disaster to name but one)

[Serial_Apologist]

Did Victorian ladies have trains then?

(Take no notice - I'm just a wind-up merchant today)

[Flosshilde]

This all reminds me of a joke told by the local vicar during his weekly visit to the village primary school - 'Q: Why couldn't the engine sit down? A: Because it had a tender behind."


Another was "Q: Why did the lobster blush? A: Because it saw Queen Mary's bottom." (That one went rather above my head, not knowing anything about lobsters)

[David-G]

While some of us have been training ourselves to keep track of the topic and others of us railing against it in continuously welded manner, it occurs to me that another absurd phrase that I've heard in station announcements (albeit not one that I've encountered recently so perhaps it's been quietly consigned to the ballast) is "the service now standing at platform × is the twenty-three ten service for..."...

I encountered it just the other day. It's an interesting question - when is a train a service?

[jean]

They already are. In fact under privatisation railway services get more public funding than when they were publicly owned.

Yes, but it goes into the pockets of owners and shareholders.

That's why there has to be more of it.

Can you imagine just how much additional tax revenue it would take fully to fund the amounts currently paid in fares to all public transport service providers for everything from a humble short bus journey to a first class ticket from London to Auckland?!

But you won't have to spend all that money on your own car.

[Vile Consort]

I think you will find it is going into the pockets of the employees, too. Thirty years ago, a job on the railways wasn't particularly well paid but it was good steady employment - i.e. you were not likely to get made redundant. I am told freight drivers can easily earn £75,000 a year nowadays.

In what other industry could anyone be paid for ten hours at triple time plus a day in lieu for ringing in to see whether they were required (and being told they weren't)?

[ahinton]

They already are. In fact under privatisation railway services get more public funding than when they were publicly owned.

But this thread is in danger of becoming political & therefore at risk of being shunted off to a siding.

Or even becoming a train wreck...

[ahinton]

Did Victorian ladies have trains then?

(Take no notice - I'm just a wind-up merchant today)

Are you making a healthy profit from the marketing of your merchadise?

[ahinton]

But you won't have to spend all that money on your own car.

How so? Public transport of any and all kinds cannot replace that, can it? I don't quite follow you here...

[ahinton]

I think you will find it is going into the pockets of the employees, too. Thirty years ago, a job on the railways wasn't particularly well paid but it was good steady employment - i.e. you were not likely to get made redundant. I am told freight drivers can easily earn £75,000 a year nowadays.

You could almost get a mortgage on a £300K crash pad with that...

In what other industry could anyone be paid for ten hours at triple time plus a day in lieu for ringing in to see whether they were required (and being told they weren't)?

Composing, of course!

Ahem...

[jean]

How so? Public transport of any and all kinds cannot replace that, can it? ...

Welcome to the online headquarters of the World Carfree Network, the hub of the global carfree movement. Worldcarfree.net is a clearinghouse of information from around the world on how to revitalise our towns and cities and create a sustainable future...

[ahinton]

Welcome to the online headquarters of the World Carfree Network, the hub of the global carfree movement. Worldcarfree.net is a clearinghouse of information from around the world on how to revitalise our towns and cities and create a sustainable future...

I don't live in or near a city and there's no public transport around here. Furthermore, whenever I've passed the occasional bus a few miles distant, said bus has been empty except for its driver (unless it's a school bus), which hardly bodes well for the continuation, let alone expansion, of service provision; I have no idea how the companies that provide such bus services manage to keep going - they must either be making a thumping great loss or are getting handouts from somewhere. The nearest one to where I am does provide school bus services, so maybe it subsidises its empty buses from the profits generated from that - who knows?

The prioritisation of efficient public transport services in cities, however, is something that I probably support as much as you do.