To be shocked that the train companies don't enforce social distancing?

[EndemicPanda]

I read a story on the BBC news this morning saying that trains out of London were packed last night and there were announcements over the tannoys saying that social distancing wouldn't be possible and people should get off if they weren't comfortable with that.

AIBU to be shocked by this? I assumed that trains would only be able to operate at a low capacity like cinemas for the time being and would require reservations.

Olive = police

Autocorrect is quite amusing sometimes 🫒

Passengers also need to take responsibility for their own actions - we are all adults here we know the rules . We know we are supposed to socially distance - stay put and don't travel. Don't expect train companies to baby sit and police you

I have just asked DH who works in control on the Railways. There is nothing to stop people buying tickets from machines at stations. He said says the guard would have the right to say the train was not safe to run , and would be cancelled.

This however would have left the platform staff to deal with the anger of passengers and would have put them all at risk. The only other thing to do was to call British Transport police to deal with it

I wondered whether this was the case. Thanks for confirming. It’s hard on the people who actually pre-booked seats on LNER trains and expected social distancing to be maintained though. As PP note, up to now LNER has insisted that seats be pre-booked and not all seats were available to book.

Where I live the guards have been instructed not to leave their cabins, so there is no-one to enforce social distancing or mask wearing.

I do get your point but I also think there does need to be some personal responsibility too.

Travellers were made aware that social distancing would not be possible. You have a choice whether or not to get on/stay on the train.

It isn’t practical. If social distancing was enforced how would people get to/from work everyday?

The people getting on Saturday evening long distance trains out of Kings Cross, carrying suitcases, are unlikely to be travelling to or from work.

Social distancing was enforced on those very trains throughout the year by the rail companies insisting that seats were pre-booked and ensuring that fewer seats were available to book.

Buses don’t either. I’ve been on two buses since March and both had people not wearing masks and people not sitting apart either. One bus had a few elderly people sitting together definitely not from the same household (could hear the conversation).

Not sure whether train and bus companies can police it efficiently tbh.

Tube is the same sure - nobody polices it - you always end up sitting next to someone

Flying is the same! I’ve sat on 2 full planes during this pandemic - it’s so weird it’s allowed

Only in the perfect bubble of mumsnet (and in Saint Boris’s head) are such things possible. The rest of us live in the real world.

Why should anyone police it? People need to take responsibility for themselves. It's hardly new news that we need to social distance.
Rail companies are probably hugely short staffed and doing their best just to keep services running.

And YABU to post this outside the coronavirus topic.

We took a flight from the US last week and considering we were all in the same cabin for 11 hours I was pretty upset they hadn’t enforced social distancing

After seeing the appalling way some members of the public treat the train station staff when a train is cancelled or delayed, then no I wouldn't expect them to have to deal with 'policing' social distancing. What are they really supposed to do? They can politely ask people to distance, but unless they've been living under a rock for the past 9 months the general public know that's what they should be doing and are choosing not to. The pandemic has been quite eye opening in seeing what some people think should be in the remit of a customer services employee who is likely working for not much more than minimum wage.

Look at the 10pm curfew, people came out the pubs - and collected in the street, and the government got the blame.

Of course the government got the blame. It was responding for allowing pubs to open by introducing the curfew. People who're allowed to gather indoors and who've had a few aren't going to suddenly start distancing because they're outside.

And where's the personal responsibility of those people then? They are the ones going, they are the ones either gathering regardless, or drinking too much to be able to make sensible decisions. Alcohol impairs judgement, just about everyone knows that, and it's the person drinking it who has the responsibility for the decision to drink to the point where they make poor ones to start with.
In the same way those passengers had responsibility for their decision to go onto the station and board the train in the first place.
That's the largest part of the problem, people want to do what they want regardless of anything, then blame someone else when it all goes wrong. No one wants to take responsibility for themselves, or the impact their decisions have on someone else.
"I don't want to follow the laws, or guidelines, or do what I know is sensible, but I also don't want to be held responsible when the results of those actions become apparent"

Our train company allows purchases on the day which I need for work. They ask for us to distance but how they could reasonably enforce it? Very difficult and unreasonable to ask them to take on the responsibility of this. Ultimately we know getting on we should.

I think it was great the train companies showed some compassion and helped everyone leave.

I left Thursday and there were 3 people in my carriage, maybe 10 people got out at my stop, from a massive gwr intercity train that would usually have had hundreds on.

If the government had had a bit more compassion, and foresight, people would have spread train travel over a few days and all would have been well.

@Littleyell

It’s been like this for months. I got the train in August to the sea side and it was quite busy. Trains need to make money. Nobody checked our tickets.

Trains don't need to make money at the moment. The train operating companies are being paid by the government to run the services. That's why they're not bothering with ticket checks - there's nothing in it for the train operators as they don't get the ticket money. It's been effectively nationalised for the duration of covid.

@jay55

I think it was great the train companies showed some compassion and helped everyone leave.

I left Thursday and there were 3 people in my carriage, maybe 10 people got out at my stop, from a massive gwr intercity train that would usually have had hundreds on.

If the government had had a bit more compassion, and foresight, people would have spread train travel over a few days and all would have been well.

I think you've spectacularly missed the point. People shouldn't be leaving London/SE, tier 4 areas as they'll spread the virus throughout the country. They should stay where they are.

@EndemicPanda how do you expect train companies to enforce social distancing? For a start it's not illegal to stand closer than 1m next to someone, and only Police officers and designated people from Local Authorities can enforce the relevant legislation.
Are you willing to pay extra council tax to fund people to travel on public transport to make people follow the rules?

@MrsMomoa

Buses are often rammed! So I'm not surprised if trains are the same.

Where I live buses have been running at 50% capacity since March and will not stop to let more people on if they are full. Half the seats are out of action and no standing allowed with the sole exception of someone with a pram on board.

@user1497207191 ohh really I didn’t know that. Well as that’s the case it’s the government if they are paying and they haven’t insisted on taking limited numbers on train journeys.

Very easy for people to pontificate from their country homes with woodburners and garden, surrounded by family and pet dog.

How would this be enforced? Send a bunch of squaddies on with riot gear to make sure only 1 person sat on every 2 seats and anyone surplus to that kicked off?

OP, I don't believe that thousands of people "fled" London or any other dramatic story.

The majority of the people pictured would have been shopping or working in London and going home on shorter journeys to surrounding areas.

When we used the trains in the summer one particular journey stood out. This rougharse family swaggered onto the train, unmasked and glaring round seeing if (( hoping )) anyone would challenge them.

The train was already full by covid standards but amidst a pantomime of swearing, beer swigging and over the top gesticulating they seated themselves right next to people. The people who they'd sat next to got up and moved. Some stood by the doors and got off.

There was at least ten of them, nobody challenged them. The guard certainly didn't and in all honesty I didn't blame him. He'll be dealing with people like that hundreds of times a day. People who probably from infancy have been taught to bully others to get what they want.

Unless the army is draughted in or a fuckton of money is pumped into our police resources there is absolutely no way of managing crowds of hundreds of people when there are only a few staff members to do it.

The people saying personal responsibility have put their finger on it. Hardly anything is actively enforced in the real world. Crimes are punished after they have been reported for the most part. When you're in a friend's house it's not CCTV stopping you from stealing from them.

Most people obey rules/laws and act with consideration because they are decent people who know it matters. They act that way every second of every day without needing to think about it most of the time.