Friday, August 4

Trains do it - and even dogs do it ....

Intrepid Journalist, Ross Smith in the Newcastle based The Journal today uses every double entente he can think of in a story about rail workers and enthusiasts who are kicking up a stink over a train operator failure to stop spraying them with excrement as fast express trains hurtle around bends on the famous east coast line.

Apparently a lack of facilities to empty toilet tanks at Newcastle depot means that sewage is being released by GNER trains into the North East's glorious countryside.

Trackside workers are regularly doused in effluent as the toilet tanks on GNER's new fleet of Mallard Trains release the foul smelling and potentially dangerous spray of chemically treated human waste as they carry out vital maintenance on the track.

Amazingly a GNER spokesman issued a statement, which is reported in The Journal, that included the reassurance that, ''there is no health issue whatsoever for passengers.'' The crassly inappropriate statement continues: ''Trackside workers have been given specific hygiene advise while this matter is permanently resolved''.

Clearly, it is GNER management that needs both hygiene advice; as well as some lessons on press statements.

Ross Smith's piece, ''Loco Motions'' is published with a quarter page colour photograph of Gregg Tursdale a former railway signalman who has been enthusiastically campaigning for sometime on this anti-social corporate fouling.

Now for the really funny bit (all credit to The Journal's Photographer) The photograph, (reproduced below) captures Mr Tursdale's canine friend clearly enthusiastically entering to the spirit of his masters campaign by empathising with the passing express and doing what dogs are apt to do; defecate in public. One wonders if both GNER and Gregg Tursdale could be (or should be) fined for fouling the Queen's Countryside.

The duty reporter at The Journal this evening exclusively informed this blog that the matter had been much discussed on the newsdesk today and the considered view was that Mr Tursdale's best friend was crouching for a better view of the wildlife nearby. Well the story is after all about crap.
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The photograph from The Journal with Gregg Tursdale and his supportive dog
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To read the full article in The Journal -please click below:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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Published in The Journal today - That picture and the comment:

What is that Dog doing? For reader Peter Troy, this photograph by Trevor Smith, which was featured in Saturday's paper, is a clasic shot.

Peter's letter reads:

The photograph featured next to the The Journal's article Loco Motions (Friday 4 August) captures Rail enthusiast Greg Tursdale's canine friend is not perhaps entering to the spirit of his masters campaign against excrement spraying trains. The image of the dog empathising with the passing express and doing what dogs are apt to do in public is a classic shot.

Well done Mr Troy - one day you will make an excellent publisist !