Q. "How much did the Pride paint job on that train cost?" - A. "We won't tell you because you don't believe that TWAW"

[Another2Cats]

Yes, this actually happened.

It's quite a long story but the TL;DR is just as in the title.

I follow someone on Twitter @ MouseInTheCourt and they tweeted about this earlier today.

The East Coast Main Line is the route that runs from London Kings Cross up to Edinburgh. It used to be run by Virgin Trains but they couldn't make it work so the route was returned to government control and a new, government owned, body called LNER was set up.

(totally irrelevant, they just copied the name of the company that used to own the route from 1923 to 1948 - ironically, that company, one of the "Big Four" was also set up by the government under the Railways Act 1921).

Anyway, last year LNER released a press release saying that they were going to have a train painted specially in "Pride" colours.

Together For a Summer Of Pride: LNER Launches Azuma Train Celebrating Pride

A few months later someone requested information about the process and costs of decorating a train in Pride colours. She also asked about the processes for selecting train designs more generally and about plans for future designs.

Since LNER is owned by the Department for Transport and so is a public body, this was done by way of an FOI (Freedom of Information) request.

LNER said that it did not hold the information requested. The woman then put the case that a significant sum of money had been spent and it was therefore odd that there appeared to be no paper trail explaining how the decision had been made.

LNER then trawled through her social media posts and suddenly declared that she was "vexatious".

Their reason for doing this was that, among other similar complaints, her tweets:

"... indicates a possible intent to challenge or disrupt initiatives related to transgender inclusion and to promote a binary view of sex and gender."

Her position was then given as follows:

16. The complainant accepted that she had a binary view of sex, but she argued that this was a protected belief – as determined by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the Forstater case. The public authority had therefore, in her view, unlawfully discriminated against her because it had refused to provide information, that she would otherwise have been entitled to receive, due to her beliefs.

17 She was unhappy that the public authority had conducted a trawl of her social media postings before completing its review. She argued that it was unfair for the public authority to restrict her right to access information simply because she had used her social media accounts to promote her own beliefs – beliefs which she is entitled to hold. More generally she considered it unreasonably restrictive for a public authority to grant or withhold information based on its opinion of the requester’s social media postings. Nor was it reasonable for the public authority to expect her to shift her entire system of beliefs in order to access information.

[...]

19 The public authority’s original press release had highlighted its “commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives for colleagues, customers and communities throughout the year.” There was, she argued, a public interest in understanding why the public authority had chosen this particular cause ahead of other worthy causes, what the decision-making process was and what plans it had to celebrate other causes in future.
.

Not surprisingly, the ICO came down on the side of this woman.

Full judgment here (pdf):

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKICO/2024/305669.pdf

Services should spend less money "promoting inclusion" and just be Services there is just no need to piss money up the wall on a rainbow for no reason other than lip service to a vocal minority

Yes. Or provide clean toilets on board that have running water, preferably hot, and soap. Or add extra carriages in busy times so that people who have paid the equivalent of a small mortgage to use the train can actually sit down. Or have an extra guard on board to help deal with groups of drunk rowdy boorish passengers who create an unpleasant atmosphere for everyone who wants to sit in peace. And so on. You know - the basic stuff.

I've worked in FOI. One of the main principles is that the public body should be 'applicant blind' i.e. the identity of the applicant should be treated as irrelevant.

Isn't it funny. Just shows (yet again) how signing up to extreme transactivism makes companies beclown themselves every time. They spout trans gibberish that bears no relation to the company or the role they're undertaking. Instead they appear evasive, vengeful and dishonest - and surprisingly very anti women.

Still, if that's their priority..... 🙄

There is an additional FOI request asking about their Stonewall membership and it appears that they had a Stonewall Conference in 2019. I am wondering if they ever had a Women's Conference or a Disability Conference.

I'm not sure you can compare this to the terror and distress of an LGBTQABCXYZ+ member of society having to travel on a train that isn't painted in pride colours.

Did LNER ever actually answer the question about how much it cost?

For people who "just want to live their lives", these virtue signalling businesses sure do focus on shining the spotlight on 'em. We're told they pass amongst us unnoticed, yet here's a bloody train screaming "HERE, HERE, LOOK HERE'S THE FREAK, LOOK WE PAINTED A TRAIN FOR YOU" at them.
I think I'd want to hide in embarrassment.

Wow. The responses of LNER are astonishing!! Imagine if they'd said they couldn't respond because someone had the "wrong" religious beliefs?

It was great response. Well said that commissioner.

This is what I’d like to know, too.

I remember when this new 'livery' was unveiled because they boasted about it in a torrent of ever more gushing tweets. I recall thinking It was completely bizarre at the time, and of course that they seemed fixated on this issue to the exclusion of all others. Thanks to this determined and wonderful woman we can now see just what a bunch of captured idiots they indeed were.

I guess that the reason corporations so frequently default to displaying trans-positive messaging, rather than messaging that supports other groups of people such as disabled people, women, etc, is that validation is such a central quest for quite a lot of trans people. For other groups, achieving equality is about solving practical problems (reliable access and support if you have a disability, safety and protection from harassment if you are a woman, removal of systemic institutional tendencies that generate poorer outcomes for black people than for white people, etc). It isn't about requiring others to demonstrate an endorsement of your identity.

Equality should be about removing obstacles to equal participation in public spaces, social goods, etc. But in just this case it seems to have become all about feeding a hunger for confirmation in one's identity.

It's also that it's much more difficult and expensive to actually solve the issues disabled people have, whereas in comparison, virtue signalling with a bit of paint or a social media banner is relatively cheap and easy.

Given that disabled people rank lower on the Victim Pyramid than transgender people then I guess the answer is no.

Chucking a paint job on something and declaring it changes life for people is really rather patronising, when you think of it. It's a pat on the head. No deeper than that. Now if LNER had unveiled a new inclusive unisex uniform, that would be different. If they'd developed an easy to use built in ramp system that enabled disabled and elderly passengers to safely and easily board, - great, trumpets please. But a plastic jacket for a train in certain colours is not, and never will be, groundbreaking. Its all talk and nae action. I'd feel insulted by the shallowness of the support were I trans.

Thank you for posting, OP. What a brilliant read that was. I guess it's only to be expected when you have truth and logic on your side but it's still nice to see.

Reading the comments about the experiences women have on trains (risk of sexual assault, etc) and people with disabilities, etc, one PP above says 'can you imagine train companies caring as much about this?' or similar. They were completely right. The answer is an unequivacal 'no'.

No - but the Information Commissioner has told them to go back and do it again - so they'll be forced to reveal the amount.

The decision was 30th August. So they had 30 days from there. I wonder if there is an answer.

I've put in an FOI request myself asking for a copy of their response to this woman. I'll update this if and when I get anything from them.

Some people hate women so much they'd work on it in their free time.

Awesome. Looking forward to the result.

That line is a disaster. It has been re nationalised twice now. Three times of you include the original government take over. Tax payer money used to bale out feckless private companies and their idle shareholders. I'm surprised there's any left over for such nonsense. Get on it Reeves!
Ps I took the train from Inverness to London before Major privatised BR. It was bliss - especially compared to the awful coach trip up there !

Great post.

It would be much better use of their time and resources to set up helplines and text services for people who believe they are in an unsafe situation on one of their trains (at risk of sexual assault, for example), or put advertising material signposting people to the Samaritans or other support services in places where people intending to commit suicide are most likely to try to jump in front of a train or get onto the line.

That's actually relevant to train travel.

Yes there's an odd clash between "trans visibility" and pride and all the rest of it, and, "nobody can even tell, you've peed next to thousands of trans women without even realising it".

Like, do you wanna be visible or not?

Fantastic judgement, well written and crystal clear. The adults are definitely back in the room. It is astounding that companies think they can get away with blatantly discriminatory behaviour, and think if they slap a rainbow flag on something no one can question them.