Tom Robinson wrote:
Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
on a train!

Two summers ago I was travelling from Bucuresti to Tulcea and was
taking one of the new Sageata Albastra trains ("The blue arrow"). They
played a mix of 80s pop music and a souped up version of classical
music for the duration of the almost 5 hour journey.

My friend had her ipod and could block out the offending noise. I
slowly went mad.

Bill wrote:
Tom Robinson wrote:
Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
on a train!

Two summers ago I was travelling from Bucuresti to Tulcea and was
taking one of the new Sageata Albastra trains ("The blue arrow"). They
played a mix of 80s pop music and a souped up version of classical
music for the duration of the almost 5 hour journey.

My friend had her ipod and could block out the offending noise. I
slowly went mad.

We have several lecture theatres at the university that use radio mics
of different frequencies. Several years ago one of them started
picking up transmissions that sounded as if they were coming from a
mosque at prayer time. The AV guys extensively checked everything, even
asking the president of the uni Islamic society if the local mosque, a
good mile away could be responsible. He went and checked with them but
none of the rogue transmission matched their prayer times. Eventually
the transmissions stopped as quickly as they started.

I-trips are really easy to get by the way, have a look on here.

http://shop.ipodworld.co.uk/iPodWorl..._iPods_Device/

Neill

"Tom Robinson" wrote in message
...
| Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
| up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
| fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
| on a train! This continues for 2 tracks or so, punctuated by what
| sounds like the odd swearword shouted by some kid. Train stops at
| Ashford for a while and the guard announces that it's the school
| holidays and some kids are tampering with the PA system and apologises
| for the noise and the swearwords and says the police will be joining
| the train at the next stop.
|
| Strangely though, he doesnt seem to be able to stop the noise/music,
| and it continues until Staines where a load of kids leave the train
| from a few carriages down.
|
| At first I thought they had just managed to break into one of the
| cabinets and activate the PA, but the guard didn't seem to be able to
| find the cause otherwise he would have been able to stop the problems.
| The train was stopped for quite a while at Ashford while the guard and
| the driver tried to hunt down the offenders, but the problems
| continued after the train had set off again.
|
| So given they couldn't stop it, could it be that one of these kids had
| an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,
| intended for use with car radios, and interfered with the PA system in
| this way? This was the theory the girl sitting opposite put forward.
| Possible?
|

The information system in a Desiro is controlled by flash memory chips. On
SWT these are programmed at a central location and the train's "library" of
announcements is updated when the train visits Northam Depot for routine
maintenance.

Manual announcements are made using a handset. These exist at a number of
locations throughout the train - not just in the Guard's compartment - and
are only protected by standard "BR" carriage key locks. Any yobbo worth his
salt in the London area has acquired one of these carriage keys (the Guard
cannot leave his personal stuff in his "office" and still expect to find it
there on his return), and using "Occam's Razor", this is a more likely
explanation than the others which require the use of the latest electronic
technology. To put a stop to the nuisance, the traincrew would have to find
which location the kids concerned were abusing and, because all the
locations are opened by the same key, there is nothing to stop the kids
moving from one to another as the search continued.

You may ask why modern stock does not use a more secure system. I have
often wondered this myself. Does anyone else out there know?
--
- Yokel -
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