Re: Metcard - one card, many adventures.

["Daniel Bowen" <dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au>]

Don't know if you reported it to Connex or the police, but you may wish to.
The incident at Richmond may have been recorded on security camera, and in
fact some trains now have cameras inside them. Incidents by yobbos have
become a problem at my local station (Glenhuntly), and residents and
passengers reporting these problems has resulted in a higher police and
Bayside Trains Security presence on the trains and at the station, which has
helped quite a bit. If this is part of an ongoing problem on your line,
Connex may be able to help in a similar manner.

Hopefully the installation of cameras and driver intercoms on the
refurbished and new trains will reduce this kind of thing.


Daniel
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia
dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au
Melbourne public transport FAQ http://www.custard.net.au/melbtrans/


"Peter Greaves" <greave@hunter.net> wrote in message
news:4d34btsvlqk512nj7529nc9p91n7dinfrq@4ax.com...
> I had never given the most recent ad campain on Melbourne tv much
> thought until my most recent "adventure" Connex's train system.
>
> There I was, travelling home on the 9:05pm train from Central station
> to Jordanville Station on the Glen Waverley line.  I get on the last
> carriage and notice two scruffy looking youths sittng at the very back
> of the train.
>
> They were loudmouthing along most of the journey to Richmond station,
> but were easy to ignore.  At Richmond station, as the train was
> pulling away from the platform and building up speed, one of the
> youths stood at the door while his buddy held the doors forced open.
> The reason for this was not immediately obvious.  The train was
> rapidly approaching the end of the platform and was building up quite
> a bit of speed when suddenly the youth standing at the door threw a
> full large MacDonald's cup of drink all over some poor person who was
> standing near the end of the platform at Richmond Station talking on
> his mobile phone.  The last I saw as the train sped away was his look
> of total amazement on his dripping face as the train sped him out of
> my sight.  I knew then that these guys were more than your typical
> loud mouth youths.  I was rather incensed by this behaviour.
>
> Further down the line they started picking on a man sitting next to a
> female friend of his in the seat immediately diagonally behind me.  I
> thought then that something might happen then, but the guy being
> picked on wisely engaged them in harmless conversation and they ended
> up walking up the isle and sitting opposite him and had a relatively
> harmless chat.
>
> The trouble for me began when the conversation with the other train
> passenger died down and one of them started to harrass me by knealing
> immediately behind my head and moving his hands extremely close behind
> my head without actually touching me.  I was watching the whole goings
> on in the reflection in the train window and could hear the other
> youth snickering as his mate got more and more brave.  I don't know
> what came over me, whether it was fatigue after a long day in the
> office, or seeing some guy on a Friday night out get drenched by these
> fools, or what, but I flashed into a rage and stood up and faced the
> youth knealing behind me.  A split second later I had his throat in my
> hand.  He managed to break my grip before I could do any real damage,
> but I managed to nearly dislocate one of his fingers in the process.
> About that time while I was occupied with the first youth, his mate
> stood up and shoved me backwards and I lost balance on the moving
> train and fell onto the floor between two empty seats.  I quickly got
> back up on my feet, but by this time the guy who was originally picked
> on had stood up between the three of us and managed to subdue the
> situation.
>
> What followed was a lot of sitting and staring with the odd threat
> thrown in.  I was invited to get off the train at the next station so
> that we could continue our fracus there, but I just ignored them.  I
> was rather worried that they would follow me off the train at
> Jordanville Station where I was getting off and then I would be
> vunerable to an attack, but decided what must be done, must be done.
> The other option I thought of was to go to the end of the line at Glen
> Waverley where I assumed the bulk of passengers would get off and I
> would stand the best chance of avoiding attack in the crowd
>
> When the train pulled into Jordanville station, I acted as though I
> wasn't getting off, and then, when I had waited as long as I dared, I
> got up and left the train. It took them by surprise, and  I was rather
> relieved to discover that they made no attempt to follow me off the
> train.  I think by that stage the guys nearly dislocated finger was
> starting to really hurt as I could see him bending it and trying to
> keep it moving.
>
> Well there you have it, you start out one minute on Melbourne's
> transport system minding your own business reading a book, and the
> next your battling two youths.  I am not proud of what I did.  Now
> that I have had some time to think about it, I realise how lucky I was
> that neither of these scum were carrying knives or worse.  In
> hindsight it would have been better to have simply not made a scene
> and got up and moved to another seat, but it just wasn't my night for
> passively sitting idle while a scumbag attempts to make me look
> foolish.  I can do that all by myself :-)
>
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