back to article Indonesian train roof fare-dodgers given the brush off

Indonesian train operators have come up with yet another ingeniously cruel system designed to discourage fare-dodging commuters from blagging a free ride on the roof of their carriages - this time involving brooms covered in putrid gunk. Fresh from the success of its plans to dislodge the pesky roof-dwellers with small …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the UK rail companies get wind of this story they wouldn't install brooms or concrete balls. They would sell tickets (scenic viewing / smokers area) for the roof space to help reduce the overcrowding on trains..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      not forgetting...

      ...mobile phone users area.

      1. Code Monkey
        Joke

        No way are they letting mobile phone users on my open air smoking platform. I want to enjoy a cancer stick in peace and quiet thankyouverymuch!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Hello...

        I'm ON the train.

    2. N2

      Be a pleasure

      As opposed to standing with 160 other standing passengers in a carriage as I oft did

    3. TRT Silver badge

      British Rail have been selling putrid lumps of concrete in their buffet cars for years. I believe they called them 'pork pies'.

      1. Red Bren
        Unhappy

        @TRT

        The Eighties called and asked for their British Rail food joke back.

        It's funny how privatisation has dealt with the problem of train puntuality - turn the station into an over-priced coffee shop to fleece a hungry, captive market. It's almost as though there's an incentive to delay you...

      2. Anonymous John

        What's British Rail?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Quite

          British RailWAYS ... please.

          With the wonderful lion holding a wheel.

          Ahhh... in those days, logos /were/ logos. Possibly because nobody thought of calling them logos.

          1. Starkadder

            British Rail, actually

            The Lion went away in the mid-1960s, when the name was changed from British Railways to British Rail. So in the 1980s its correct name was British Rail, whose logo is an arrow pointing in both directions, known as the arrow of indecision.

            1. TRT Silver badge

              When it was British Railways, the tea was fresh, the sandwiches weren't rinsed and resealed daily, the cakes were hand baked by the stationmaster's wife and it was all served to you at a proper table on (or in) something ceramic.

    4. Is it me?

      Loading Gauge

      Here in the UK we don't need concreate balls, we have a, it true British style built most of our railway infrastructure to decapitate the unwary traveller as it is.

      In the glorious days of British Railways, it was not unknown for passengers, as they used to be called, to be decapitated by sticking their heads out of the carriage window, being hit either by a handy bridge or another passing train. This is why there are notices telling you not to lean out of the window,

      Good efficient infrstructure design builds tunnels and bridges with the minimum space needed around the vehicle. UK Loading Gauge is much smaller than European and North American. After all, you can always rebuild it later, if demand requires.

      (PS The exceptions are HS1, The Old Great Central out or Marylebone, and The old broad gauge lines from Paddington which exceed the UK Standard, there are also a few are more restrictive)

  2. Kool-Aid drinker

    A title is not required

    The rail company could try making the train roof more commuter-friendly and allowing people to use it, then the freeloaders might become paying passengers when their income increases a bit, especially in the rainy season.

  3. Silverburn
    Devil

    lol

    The mental picture this article portays to me is bloody amusing. Am I evil?

    1. Alfie

      No, but do are you a fan of Winter Wipeout?

    2. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Joke

      Wasn't it one of the stages on Takeshi's Castle?

  4. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    Am I the only one that sees the solution here?

    Stop them getting on the roof? Either by personal force (which is what would happen over here), or by the simple precept of painting the train roof in anti-climb paint? Why some fancy-schmancy system of hanging deadly devices in the path of fast-moving trains?

    1. Anonymous IV
      Thumb Up

      Perhaps use anti-climb paint AND stinky gunk!

    2. alexh2o

      Or use the night bus driver's trick... refuse to go anywhere until they are off. Eventually, the paying public get so annoyed, they 'deal' with the situation to get the journey going!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or superglue

      and colonies of aggressive ants?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why some fancy-schmancy system of hanging deadly devices in the path of fast-moving trains?

      Because you'll get lots of hits on Youtube if you manage to film a de-trainsurfer incident.

    5. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Why paint the roofs of hundreds of carriages

      I'm sure a couple of brroms are cheaper than drums and drums of anti-climb paint

  5. Monkey Bob
    Coffee/keyboard

    Damn, when I read the concrete balls bit I came as close as I've ever genuinely come to replicating the icon to the left, nasally. I think it's lucky I've got a cold.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Concrete balls

      Why don't they just cut out the middle man and pay someone to shoot at them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Love this quote

        "Some people say its inhumane, but that's fine," he said. "Because letting them ride on the roofs is even more inhumane."

        So it's better to introduce the risk of a fatal bludgeoning as well.

        Next.... land mines on the roof.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          don't forget the roofing nails

          <insert body here>

      2. AdamWill
        Headmaster

        Professor Nitpick says...

        ...surely that would be *introducing* a middle man?

  6. dotdavid
    Alert

    Putrid gloop

    "probably something to be thankful for next time the 07.42 to Charing Cross is delayed again"

    Are you kidding? Have you seen the state of the on-board toilets? Putrid gloop doesn't come close to describing them.

  7. Khaptain Silver badge
    Devil

    Quick Solution

    On the electric trains I presume it would be a relatively simply matter to "electrify" the roofs.

    BUT, the electricity should only be turned on about 3 seconds before the concrete balls/whips obstacles arrive, thereby nulifying the possibilty of acrobatically avoiding the obstacles....

    1. Figgus

      Shocking, I know.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caRxPAQOlqY

  8. I think so I am?
    Devil

    It was the PFY.......

    .......on the trains roof with a killer robot and cattle prod.

  9. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    Thumb Up

    "Health & Safety? We've heard of it!"

    More of this sort of thing!

    People who are too thick to realise how dangerous it is to ride up there clearly need to be taught the meaning of the word "consequences" the hard way.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      better to teach their widows/widowers/orphans

      The post is required, and must contain letters.

    2. John 62

      Apparently some south africans

      train surf just because there's nothing better to do. The danger is part of the attraction.

  10. Paul_Murphy

    When will they think of the train-strimmer I wonder, just like a car wash, but with rotating knives.

    It's probably a good thing I don't work for the Indian railways..

    ttfn

  11. The Metal Cod

    Putrid gloop?

    The author has clearly not travelled on Southeastern trains (often delayed or cancelled from CHX, never a working toilet, often a leaking one), a CrossCountry Voyager (crap design leads to the whole train reeking of excrement) or an Arriva Trains Wales Class 150 (if the waste tanks don't get you the ambient chemical odour will).

    1. cosymart
      Happy

      Crap connoisseur?

      (*crap* design leads to the whole train reeking of excrement) Nice one sir, unintended pun?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @The Metal Cod

      Surely you mean a CrossCountry Vomiter, with reference to what the smell makes you feel like doing *queasy*

  12. TRT Silver badge
    Trollface

    A putrid substance, you say...

    English food, probably.

    1. Stoneshop
      Coat

      Given the stuffs available over there

      I'd expect the concoction to be durian skin pulp, mixed 50/50 with trasi.

      Mine's the ABC protective suit.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Oh yuck!

        No-one remember the English Take-Away sketch?

        "What's the blandest thing on the menu?"

  13. Local Group
    Devil

    How do you say in Bahasa Indonesian

    "Are we there yet?"

  14. Uncle Siggy
    Pint

    Mornington Crescent!

  15. Mephistro
    Thumb Down

    Hmmmm...

    So the Indonesian Government is saying they can't use traditional means- i.e. police - for preventing people from climbing on the train roofs, and instead they are using an infrastructure -brushes and concrete balls- that can be easily sabotaged as it's located outside of train stations, where vigilance is, to put it mildly, quite scarce. Geniuses.

    The part about endangering the lives of their own citizens is just a bonus.

    1. Nuke
      Terminator

      @ Mestipho ...

      So you must think the railways here in in the UK (and most of Europe AFAIAA) are terrible. They have structures like signal gantries and tunnels only about 6" above the roof, far more lethal than concrete marbles and brushes.

      Something should be done about it! It endangers the lives of our own citizens!

      Quote : "So the Indonesian Government is saying they can't use traditional means- i.e. police - for preventing people from climbing on the train roofs"

      I guess the government are saying nothing - or that it's the railway's problem. That is what the government tends to say in the UK, which is why the railways pay for their own police force (the British Transport Police).

      What astonishes me is that these eastern railways' infrastructures have been buiilt so inefficiently that they do have enough room for people to sit or stand on the roof.

  16. David 45

    Deterrent

    Reckon they should electrify the roof.

  17. Local Group
    Headmaster

    A railway in a Muslim nation.

    Pitch the roofs of the carriages. Cover with pig fat.

    Problem solved.

  18. Joe User
    Devil

    A simple solution

    Just cover the carriage roofs with nails. Then you can pry off the freeloaders at the next stop.

    1. TRT Silver badge
      Devil

      This would be mistaken for the sleeper car.

  19. Stevie

    Hmm.

    Are there any videos of these miserable freeloaders brushing up against the catenary?

    I suggest swinging axes and hammers, along with improbably large munitions periodically fired down the length of the train to dislodge ticket dodgers on the unelectrified sections.

    With a bit of forethought this could be merchandised into the next X-Box game.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Top 5 inhumane ways to remove free riders from top of trains

    5. Tunnels and underpasses with strips of razor wire hanging down to roof height

    4. Trackside rock salt air guns sweeping top of train

    3. Make sure train takes scenic route through poo-flinging monkey preserve

    2. Tents on top of train containing ameobic dysentary mosquitos

    1. Endless loop of Rebecca Black's "Its Friday" blasting from traintop speakers!

  21. jungle_jim

    really grease up the roof of the train. that would be entertaining enough.

  22. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    Easy solution

    Just sell Roof Tickets

    Use the income to buy high pressure cleaners to remove evidence of 'customer loss'

  23. Qu Dawei
    Linux

    don't have roofs

    You can either sell roof tickets, or just have open-air carriages without roofs, I think.

  24. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    The Register - for all your IT* news

    * Indonesian train

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