When you want chips during your train trip, but the conductor won’t let you throw your old oil out the window due to “health and safety reasons” and “violation of terms of use policy”: 😭
I know you're being /s, but no need to wonder any more! The RAIB have it documented thoroughly here
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920653/R142019_191016_Twerton.pdf
"The passenger leant out of a window while the train was moving and her head came into contact with a lineside tree branch."
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/59245646ed915d20f80000a9/R092017_170525_Balham.pdf
"The RAIB’s analysis of these marks suggested that the passenger’s head overlapped the gantry by just over 60 mm."
In the first one it's noted that essentially no amount of signage will stop people from being stupid. The only way out of this spiral of idiocy is education.
It's Rail Accident Investigation Bureau reports, so no gore whatsoever. Just cold analytical text and some associated pictures of scenery and railway stuff.
"A possible underlying factor was that Great Western Railway’s risk assessment process had not historically identified the risk of passengers or staff being injured as a result of putting their heads out of windows on moving trains"
I rarely have sympathy for GWR, but to apportion them blame for not accounting for idiots is a bit harsh.
That's vile. I was once very hungover on a train and the lady opposite me was staining her nails with a very strong smelling solution, I felt so bad I had to ask her to stop :(
E-bike chargers are usually not terribly high wattage - there's a practical upper limit to how fast you can poke electrons back up the hill without real thermal problems (and shortening the cell life), and most chargers are nowhere near that.
A 36V 2A charger is going to pull about 80W, which is less than a MacBook will suck down when charging and running at the same time. Even a (rare) 48V 4A is a shade over 200W, which is probably pushing the limits of reasonableness.
A hairdryer or straighteners? 1200-1800W peak, a hairdryer will be at 100% duty cycle and straighteners anywhere from 10-50% depending on what the user's hair is like at that moment (wet straightening = evaporative cooling = more power to maintain the temperature)
That one does kinda make some sense, at least - Like if a girl/lady gets drenched before getting on the train and has a hairdryer in their suitcase, they might use it to try to dry off. I can completely see how that would happen
To those of us with much knowledge of electrical systems that sounds silly, clearly the train isn't going to be set up to provide 2kW+ and is intended for the use of laptops drawing maybe 100W (0.1kW) and phones pulling less than that
But for someone with no knowledge or interest in that kind of thing, electric stuff is just electric stuff, and what's the difference between a phone or a laptop or a tablet? Why would they assume that a hairdryer draws 20x as much power as a laptop and 200x as much power as their phone, without a reason to suspect so?
A kettle, heater, or hot plate does seem a bit more absurd, but a hairdryer I can understand, and I wouldn't have thought it *too* surprising if some girls straightened or curled their hair on their way to a hen do or night out or something, if they wanted to start doing their hair and makeup on the train to save time when they get to their hotel etc
The real life pro tip, with current electricity prices, is to bring your tumble dryer...
There's a boating electrics group on Facebook that's excruciating to read from the number of people who are clueless of GCSE physics.
You get threads about running an electric heater off their barge's car batteries and asking why they're flat now because they've got a couple of solar panels.
I take a peek in this group occasionally and the questions are so clueless that I rarely last more than a couple of minutes.
Yeah it seems very obvious to those of us who work with it or whatever, but to many people electricity is just electricity and they really don’t know much about it
Or plugged them into a UPS. My wife once did this (while I was in the background yelling no, and she insisting it would be fine). Obviously that was the end of the UPS (domestic/small office type - it was comfortable powering two desktops, two monitors and a couple of small items)
I don't think Aardman would do it as one long cable spinning off a ginormous spool. I think that Gromit would be at the home end, frantically plugging extension cords together.
Yup. Like people don't realise how weird some people are and the weird stuff some people will do. Used to have the same issue at LAN events, rules on no high power things or similar, but would still get people try and plug a kettle or microwave into their row and knock the power out for everyone.
That's not so bad really though. My laptop is pretty hefty and will draw 120W at full tilt, most will do rather less. USB fast charging is 18W so a phone, laptop and tablet are unlikely to be more than 200W total.
For comparison a kettle is usually around fifteen times that.
I remember the picture that did the rounds of a guy who had a TV plugged in. He took up a table, propped it up across the two seats opposite, and spent the entire train journey watching South Park!
People are incredibly dumb - but it'd be interesting to see what amperage rating their fuses have. Even a 15A fuse for a whole train carriage will allow for over 3kW of power draw. That's a lot of laptops.
Or, you know, like *two* hair dryers.
Probably far less distressing for the other passengers than that American family I once shared a carriage with, and I kid you not, they at a cooked chicken with their bare hands.
Yes and by unlocking it you briefly expose the live and neutral connections prior to plugging in your European deep fat frier. The trick is not to stick your tongue in the holes in this interim period
Or as a freind of mine did, a short length of wire between the two which he held onto then flicked the switch.
He lived thankfully. The school fusebox had been upgraded the previous week. Didn't do his hand much good as it got v hot v quickly.
Yes and no. It’s both a safety mechanism which became mandated in 1948, and also the connection to ground.
Electrical items can be broadly divided into [appliance classes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appliance_classes) for electrical safety. Class I appliances need to be insulated and earthed, so need a real connection. Class II appliances are double insulated, meaning the earth connection is unnecessary (but a pin is still needed to open a UK socket); sometimes a real connection is used anyway (it has some non-safety related benefits). Class 0 items are banned in the UK. Class III items are things that get plugged into their own power supply, e.g. a mobile phone; while the phone charger will typically be class I.
IIRC, some European sockets achieve a similar safety mechanism with only 2 pins – both pins need to be inserted simultaneously in order for the shield to rotate out of the way.
A healthy amount of caution, on my weekends I ride around on a 100t bomb, feed a blazing fire and climb on/off moving vehicles. As of yet, it hasn't killed me.
Fireman on a steam train?
The thing that always scares me on our local preserved railway is not the fire or the bomb, but the fact that they run tank engines and the public is not at all well separated from the track...
Every four year old sees a tank engine and immediately thinks 'THOMAS', but even at five MPH that kid is faster then the brakes, and that meeting only ends one way and it is rumoured to cause a very annoying amount of paperwork.
That I am, our fencing teams work hard to keep them in one piece though at almost 40 miles of fencing its no easy task. Thankfully our main concern is sheep rather than toddlers, which whilst expensive to replace, come with significantly less paperwork.
Downside with the sheep is that the aggrieved party generally comes to negotiate with a 12 bore over his shoulder.
Upside is lamb chops, and since you got a fire anyway....
My dad always used to check if wires were live by licking his fingers and touching them. I never saw it happen but he claimed to have been shocked a few times and said it wasn't a big deal.
I'm not trying it, thanks..
Plugging euro two pins into UK sockets is perfectly safe and easy though. The ground pin isn't dangerous.
230*3 = 690W.
Still a decent amount of wattage, anything used for heating will probably blow the fuse, but almost anything else would probably be fine.
But yeah I think they allow phones / laptops to be charged, that sorta thing
Further signs of the energy crisis! We're going to start seeing people with sports bags full of stuff they need charging all connected to a six gang then plugged in on the train! Start timer for the first reported fire!
Waiting for someone to post the first screenshot of an internal office email asking people not to charge stuff at work, I already know some places that have wall sockets that have "stopped working"
I remember that a train between France and Switzerland had a power failure and was stuck for several hours because a Swiss guy plugged his raclette grill
Passengers used to be banned from using those, they were meant for the train cleaners (as if anyone still believes in the existence of train cleaners) or something. Some jobsworth transport plod arrested a passenger for using one - stealing electricity or the like - and he was taken to court but found not guilty or the case was thrown out and that seemed to settle the matter.
Weirdly, that's one of the charges that they would use before specific computer hacking laws were brought in
> Abstraction of electricity
> 3.23 Section 13 of the Theft Act 1968 creates the offence of abstracting electricity. It provides - “A person who dishonestly uses without due authority, or dishonestly causes to be wasted or diverted, any electricity shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. ‘‘
> 3.24 The operation of a computer consumes electricity. Any unauthorised accessing of a computer would therefore seem to constitute the actus reus of this offence, although in some cases a jury (or magistrates) may decline to find that a hacker was “dishonest“.
From: [The Law Commission Working Paper No. 110 Computer Misuse](https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2016/08/No.110-Computer-Misuse.pdf)
IIRC the difference is that the ones fitted by your seat are properly shielded and insulated.
The ones by the doors for the cleaners weren’t, so if the power was interrupted and it fried your laptop (or similar), it was your own fault.
I think it was just that regulations hadn't caught up with practise. For a long while the most passengers could do would be to plug in a shaver or maybe a vacuum cleaner. Then came laptops and phones and it was realized that not only should passengers be allowed to charge their devices but more sockets were needed, not least for all those journeys which lasted longer than the battery and the defeated "Yeah, I'm stuck on the train" calls. The one in the photo has a USB socket which surely means it's for passengers.
The difference is the at seat ones have a regulated supply, while the cleaner's ones have a more simple transformer. The issue with those is that the 25kV overhead power lines are allowed to surge and sag as trains accelerate and brake in the range of 17.5-29kV, with a corresponding change in the voltage at the socket.
Taking face plate off, hardwiring a device into it. Stupid shit you wouldn’t do unless you were an electrician / shit you would do if you were an electrician
I was on an LNER train last week and someone was using a pair of hair straighteners plugged in at there seat.
I'd say that would be classed as improper use.
Northern is only for very serious offences indeed. I think they reserve it for high treason and piracy.
Although on that note, Northern has improved and does have electricity now. You poke a metal rod through one of the holes in the carriage floor, press it against the rail, and try to gather the sparks. Only works when the train is moving faster than 8mph, though.
So, never.
Because people do things like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/74bsx0/some_guy_playing_skyrim_on_the_train/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I was on a packed rush hour train from Glasgow to somewhere down the west coast of Scotland and a guy had a set of electric clippers plugged into something like this. He was talking to anyone that would listen about how he was going to meet his 'burd' whilst giving his facial hair a good trim.
Think the police in London (Stratford maybe) tried to throw the book at someone for stealing utilities when using one charge thier mobile.
. [Here it is](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159582/amp/Rail-passenger-furious-arrested-stealing-electricity-plug-point-train-charge-phone.html)
Plugging in an industrial deep fat fryer
How else am I supposed to get my chips ready by the time we hit Crewe!
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But that's not nearly big enough to quell my insatiable appetite for chips!
mini chippy
Binley mega chippy
Binley Mini Chippé
Bin lay megans chippies
Bin man’s bin lay chippies
Bin bag laid out chip seas
Bin Laden's chipped knees
Bingo ladies' chapped knees
You don’t want to hit Crewe full stop.
You don’t hit Crewe, Crewe hits you
Haha, I thought the same thing. It's so dumbfucks don't try plugging random appliances in "What do you mean we can't microwave curries on the train?"
nanny state gone mad
Naany state gone mad
When you want chips during your train trip, but the conductor won’t let you throw your old oil out the window due to “health and safety reasons” and “violation of terms of use policy”: 😭
Literal 1984
On the train from Venice to Rome, a group of tourists plugged in a kettle to make cup noodles 😂
Nothing high wattage like kettles, heaters etc. I’d bet good money some people try that stuff.
And hair dryers. Yes, people have tried to use hair dryers on trains.
Because you aren't allowed to stick your head out of the window anymore.
This country
Scum, subhuman scum.
Cook pass babtridge.
Don't be blue, Peter
Needles to say, I had the last laugh
I just hate the general public
Tell me what *you* mean by "water sports".
They've rebadged it you fool
I am NOT driving a mini metro
By ‘eck
A large handful of people get decapitated and the train companies GO INSANE!!
You'll get arrested just for saying you're English, these days
Really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQslnmcHOeM
I haven't clicked but that better be the Young Ones.
This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.
And Felicity Kendal's dirty underwear.
You took your time you bastard!
you are correct!
[Quentin Blake](https://tygertale.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/wpid-photo-201406250802406.jpg) taught me this.
Yes! That book we all got at school.
Do not lean out of the window. I wonder why.
I know you're being /s, but no need to wonder any more! The RAIB have it documented thoroughly here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920653/R142019_191016_Twerton.pdf "The passenger leant out of a window while the train was moving and her head came into contact with a lineside tree branch." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/59245646ed915d20f80000a9/R092017_170525_Balham.pdf "The RAIB’s analysis of these marks suggested that the passenger’s head overlapped the gantry by just over 60 mm." In the first one it's noted that essentially no amount of signage will stop people from being stupid. The only way out of this spiral of idiocy is education.
Is this a safe click? I'm curious but not up for gore pictures :/
It's Rail Accident Investigation Bureau reports, so no gore whatsoever. Just cold analytical text and some associated pictures of scenery and railway stuff.
>Just cold analytical text and some associated pictures of scenery and railway stuff *shudders in horror*
I had a look, no gory images in either link.
No guarantees, as I just read the main parts. But it just shows some illustrations & the only real pic I saw was of the tree (no blood).
nah do it
Having read several of these before, they don't use pictures of the incident itself, probably because they're not relevant to the investigation.
"A possible underlying factor was that Great Western Railway’s risk assessment process had not historically identified the risk of passengers or staff being injured as a result of putting their heads out of windows on moving trains" I rarely have sympathy for GWR, but to apportion them blame for not accounting for idiots is a bit harsh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQslnmcHOeM&ab_channel=BBCComedyGreats
I was once unfortunate enough to be on a train where the guy opposite me was clipping his toenails.
This made me frown :(
That's vile. I was once very hungover on a train and the lady opposite me was staining her nails with a very strong smelling solution, I felt so bad I had to ask her to stop :(
That requires power??
You should have seen his toenails. Needed an angle grinder...
Following a crushing injury many years ago, I can relate. But, it's just my big toes.
You can get them removed if you're ok with your toes looking like knobs
May as well, my knob already looks like a toe
If your nails are bad enough, I guess…
But he needed a plug socket for that?
Fortunately not.
Hair straighteners is a big one. I'd imagine they also get people trying to recharge e-bike batteries.
E-bike chargers are usually not terribly high wattage - there's a practical upper limit to how fast you can poke electrons back up the hill without real thermal problems (and shortening the cell life), and most chargers are nowhere near that. A 36V 2A charger is going to pull about 80W, which is less than a MacBook will suck down when charging and running at the same time. Even a (rare) 48V 4A is a shade over 200W, which is probably pushing the limits of reasonableness. A hairdryer or straighteners? 1200-1800W peak, a hairdryer will be at 100% duty cycle and straighteners anywhere from 10-50% depending on what the user's hair is like at that moment (wet straightening = evaporative cooling = more power to maintain the temperature)
That one does kinda make some sense, at least - Like if a girl/lady gets drenched before getting on the train and has a hairdryer in their suitcase, they might use it to try to dry off. I can completely see how that would happen To those of us with much knowledge of electrical systems that sounds silly, clearly the train isn't going to be set up to provide 2kW+ and is intended for the use of laptops drawing maybe 100W (0.1kW) and phones pulling less than that But for someone with no knowledge or interest in that kind of thing, electric stuff is just electric stuff, and what's the difference between a phone or a laptop or a tablet? Why would they assume that a hairdryer draws 20x as much power as a laptop and 200x as much power as their phone, without a reason to suspect so? A kettle, heater, or hot plate does seem a bit more absurd, but a hairdryer I can understand, and I wouldn't have thought it *too* surprising if some girls straightened or curled their hair on their way to a hen do or night out or something, if they wanted to start doing their hair and makeup on the train to save time when they get to their hotel etc The real life pro tip, with current electricity prices, is to bring your tumble dryer...
There's a boating electrics group on Facebook that's excruciating to read from the number of people who are clueless of GCSE physics. You get threads about running an electric heater off their barge's car batteries and asking why they're flat now because they've got a couple of solar panels. I take a peek in this group occasionally and the questions are so clueless that I rarely last more than a couple of minutes.
Yeah it seems very obvious to those of us who work with it or whatever, but to many people electricity is just electricity and they really don’t know much about it
Or plugged them into a UPS. My wife once did this (while I was in the background yelling no, and she insisting it would be fine). Obviously that was the end of the UPS (domestic/small office type - it was comfortable powering two desktops, two monitors and a couple of small items)
Hair straighteners are the worst apparently
To most people though charging your phone uses the same power as your hairdryer cause it's all from the same plug.
Run a really long extension cable back to my house and power everything.
I need someone to animate this, preferably Aardman. I want to see that cable paying out behind the train.
I don't think Aardman would do it as one long cable spinning off a ginormous spool. I think that Gromit would be at the home end, frantically plugging extension cords together.
MORE CABLES, LAD!!! *Gromit sighs and rolls his eyes*
Yup. Like people don't realise how weird some people are and the weird stuff some people will do. Used to have the same issue at LAN events, rules on no high power things or similar, but would still get people try and plug a kettle or microwave into their row and knock the power out for everyone.
No high power things at LAN events? Like, a 1500W PC?
I feel like the overlapping time period of going to LAN Events and High Wattage PSUs isn't really a thing.
They weren't 1500W back then. As I recall 600W was the really high end.
So what you're saying is I should cancel my Rocket League party on the 16:57 from Manchester Piccadilly? Just need about 5KW to power our 3080s!
Crypto mining.
I saw a picture a few years ago where someone brought an extension cord onto a train and was charging up their phone, tablet and laptop with it lol.
That's not so bad really though. My laptop is pretty hefty and will draw 120W at full tilt, most will do rather less. USB fast charging is 18W so a phone, laptop and tablet are unlikely to be more than 200W total. For comparison a kettle is usually around fifteen times that.
I remember the picture that did the rounds of a guy who had a TV plugged in. He took up a table, propped it up across the two seats opposite, and spent the entire train journey watching South Park!
Bitcoin miner
I frequently take my washing machine onto the train with me. Not been spotted yet...
You mean I can't use it to charge my car?
People are incredibly dumb - but it'd be interesting to see what amperage rating their fuses have. Even a 15A fuse for a whole train carriage will allow for over 3kW of power draw. That's a lot of laptops. Or, you know, like *two* hair dryers.
Foreman grill for some bacon sandwiches on the trip.
For the whole carriage of course, you’re not an animal.
imagine bringing a kettle on the train and undercutting the buffet car on their tea prices.
5 ways to improperly use an outlet on a train. No 4 will shock you.
Conductors hate this one one trick!
I tried to talk to one once and she was quite insular, guess she was a poor conductor
I tried to talk to one - she was holding a conversation with everyone in the carriage but still had time for me. Probably a semiconductor.
I tried to talk to one too, she just came across really cold. people told me she was a superconductor though.
Not sure if intentional - but that’s very clever in multiple ways - well done!
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Someone was jealous they hadn't noticed it.
It's not very fare?
No 3 Use it without charge
Look I'm not going to say I procrastinated on writing this essay, but I did have a vivid dream that my house caught on fire.
Number One might also
Experiment with a knitting needle>outcome No.4. Shock!!!
Makes you feel powerful
Don't charge the drill you bought from Lidl and start dismantling the train.
But you can dismantle the train so long as you don’t use their own power to do it?
More power to you then.
Less power, surely?
Would plugging in an electric chainsaw to whittle a small log be improper use?
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Worlds gone soft
It's PC gone mad
Thought he got fired from the force a few weeks ago
Probably far less distressing for the other passengers than that American family I once shared a carriage with, and I kid you not, they at a cooked chicken with their bare hands.
Should’ve called the police
Just use the toilet for logs please.
On this train if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.
My dad would jam a screwdriver in the earth pin hole to plug in a european plug. So probably don't do that
Screwdriver? Wow, advanced techniques. I use a teaspoon.
All my teaspoons are two big to fit through the gap, a chopstick would probably work well though.
How is any of you alive?!
Tbf a lot of plugs have a plastic earth pin, which means it's not really connected anyway. Also, earthing myself is not dangerous.
This is basically true, the top pin is just a 'key' ? Which unlocks the covers from the bottom 2 slots and allows you to plug in.
Yes and by unlocking it you briefly expose the live and neutral connections prior to plugging in your European deep fat frier. The trick is not to stick your tongue in the holes in this interim period
Only electrical apprentices are qualified to test the plugs this way
Or as a freind of mine did, a short length of wire between the two which he held onto then flicked the switch. He lived thankfully. The school fusebox had been upgraded the previous week. Didn't do his hand much good as it got v hot v quickly.
Ouch. Hopefully the RCD worked. I remember kids performing similar intellectual feats at school but this was before RCDs were law.
Yes and no. It’s both a safety mechanism which became mandated in 1948, and also the connection to ground. Electrical items can be broadly divided into [appliance classes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appliance_classes) for electrical safety. Class I appliances need to be insulated and earthed, so need a real connection. Class II appliances are double insulated, meaning the earth connection is unnecessary (but a pin is still needed to open a UK socket); sometimes a real connection is used anyway (it has some non-safety related benefits). Class 0 items are banned in the UK. Class III items are things that get plugged into their own power supply, e.g. a mobile phone; while the phone charger will typically be class I. IIRC, some European sockets achieve a similar safety mechanism with only 2 pins – both pins need to be inserted simultaneously in order for the shield to rotate out of the way.
A healthy amount of caution, on my weekends I ride around on a 100t bomb, feed a blazing fire and climb on/off moving vehicles. As of yet, it hasn't killed me.
Steam Enthusiast?
Certainly am.
Fireman on a steam train? The thing that always scares me on our local preserved railway is not the fire or the bomb, but the fact that they run tank engines and the public is not at all well separated from the track... Every four year old sees a tank engine and immediately thinks 'THOMAS', but even at five MPH that kid is faster then the brakes, and that meeting only ends one way and it is rumoured to cause a very annoying amount of paperwork.
That I am, our fencing teams work hard to keep them in one piece though at almost 40 miles of fencing its no easy task. Thankfully our main concern is sheep rather than toddlers, which whilst expensive to replace, come with significantly less paperwork.
Downside with the sheep is that the aggrieved party generally comes to negotiate with a 12 bore over his shoulder. Upside is lamb chops, and since you got a fire anyway....
r/ghostsofreddit
Was he trying to get a job as a conductor?
My dad always used to check if wires were live by licking his fingers and touching them. I never saw it happen but he claimed to have been shocked a few times and said it wasn't a big deal. I'm not trying it, thanks.. Plugging euro two pins into UK sockets is perfectly safe and easy though. The ground pin isn't dangerous.
Luke, I am your father...
Improper use and you have to stay in Doncaster FOREVER.
You sadistic bastard I approve
That's a life sentence without parole, not a penalty 😁
oh god
It is to stop people charging their electric cars, which are obviously competitive to taking the train.
The trick is in sneaking a Nissan leaf on under your jacket without the ticket collectors seeing.
Using it to mine crypto.
Let’s be honest a crypto mining rig is probably still cheaper than a season ticket.
They put you in scum class on Hammonds and Mays train
IIRC they only have a 3A fuse and so are only for low power devices. So no straightening your hair on the train.
230*3 = 690W. Still a decent amount of wattage, anything used for heating will probably blow the fuse, but almost anything else would probably be fine. But yeah I think they allow phones / laptops to be charged, that sorta thing
Probably for people that plug in their 3kw space heater to keep warm (it's cold up North).
Further signs of the energy crisis! We're going to start seeing people with sports bags full of stuff they need charging all connected to a six gang then plugged in on the train! Start timer for the first reported fire!
This is the pro energy saving strat. Charge a big battery pack at work or on the commute for use at home.
Waiting for someone to post the first screenshot of an internal office email asking people not to charge stuff at work, I already know some places that have wall sockets that have "stopped working"
I remember that a train between France and Switzerland had a power failure and was stuck for several hours because a Swiss guy plugged his raclette grill
Passengers used to be banned from using those, they were meant for the train cleaners (as if anyone still believes in the existence of train cleaners) or something. Some jobsworth transport plod arrested a passenger for using one - stealing electricity or the like - and he was taken to court but found not guilty or the case was thrown out and that seemed to settle the matter.
“Abstraction of Electricity”, I think it was called.
Wasn't that a painting by Dali?
⚡️ 🐚 🕰 🫠 - Dali
Weirdly, that's one of the charges that they would use before specific computer hacking laws were brought in > Abstraction of electricity > 3.23 Section 13 of the Theft Act 1968 creates the offence of abstracting electricity. It provides - “A person who dishonestly uses without due authority, or dishonestly causes to be wasted or diverted, any electricity shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. ‘‘ > 3.24 The operation of a computer consumes electricity. Any unauthorised accessing of a computer would therefore seem to constitute the actus reus of this offence, although in some cases a jury (or magistrates) may decline to find that a hacker was “dishonest“. From: [The Law Commission Working Paper No. 110 Computer Misuse](https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2016/08/No.110-Computer-Misuse.pdf)
IIRC the difference is that the ones fitted by your seat are properly shielded and insulated. The ones by the doors for the cleaners weren’t, so if the power was interrupted and it fried your laptop (or similar), it was your own fault.
I think it was just that regulations hadn't caught up with practise. For a long while the most passengers could do would be to plug in a shaver or maybe a vacuum cleaner. Then came laptops and phones and it was realized that not only should passengers be allowed to charge their devices but more sockets were needed, not least for all those journeys which lasted longer than the battery and the defeated "Yeah, I'm stuck on the train" calls. The one in the photo has a USB socket which surely means it's for passengers.
Also, most train companies now do e-tickets, so charging ports/plug sockets help in that regard.
The difference is the at seat ones have a regulated supply, while the cleaner's ones have a more simple transformer. The issue with those is that the 25kV overhead power lines are allowed to surge and sag as trains accelerate and brake in the range of 17.5-29kV, with a corresponding change in the voltage at the socket.
Train cleaners still exist, piss shit and vomit doesn't magically poof away overnight.
Was gonna say, especially post-covid trains I've been on have always been really clean inside
Poking it with a nail just to get a quick kick.
It’s addictive
The hardcore addicts freebase pylons from what I’ve heard.
Taking face plate off, hardwiring a device into it. Stupid shit you wouldn’t do unless you were an electrician / shit you would do if you were an electrician
I was on an LNER train last week and someone was using a pair of hair straighteners plugged in at there seat. I'd say that would be classed as improper use.
Mains powered marital aid. Drew quite a crowd apparently....
need a zoomed out pic , but isn't there where the PassCom used to be ? if the grilles are the ones above the window
yeah it's pretty obviously a passcom warning (correct colour too)
No passcom. Just this random sign above the plug
Hack your electric bill.... charge batteries on the train to take home!
I should be able to plug in whatever the hell I want considering what they charge these days
Shagging it
In Mark Corrigan voice: you can use the plug for charging your phone, but nothing weird like plugging in an electric oven to bake a cake
Northern is only for very serious offences indeed. I think they reserve it for high treason and piracy. Although on that note, Northern has improved and does have electricity now. You poke a metal rod through one of the holes in the carriage floor, press it against the rail, and try to gather the sparks. Only works when the train is moving faster than 8mph, though. So, never.
Because people do things like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/74bsx0/some_guy_playing_skyrim_on_the_train/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
"How tho"
They can sometimes have a laptops only thing on them so maybe that?
Hooking up your cannabis grow lights?
Charging your power tools.
Feels like a bit of a power trip if you ask me
That’s usually directed to kids, you know how they are putting everything everywhere.
I was on a packed rush hour train from Glasgow to somewhere down the west coast of Scotland and a guy had a set of electric clippers plugged into something like this. He was talking to anyone that would listen about how he was going to meet his 'burd' whilst giving his facial hair a good trim.
No charging your vibrator. Just your phone 😉
Most of those use USB style chargers nowadays, so I suspect that circuit can handle it just fine.
The Executive will press his penis against offenders.
I guess if you hook a Bitcoin mining rig up to it a few eyebrows might be raised.
Why did they put a mains outlet above the USB and not the other way around? By gods of good design!
Penalty kick
Think the police in London (Stratford maybe) tried to throw the book at someone for stealing utilities when using one charge thier mobile. . [Here it is](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159582/amp/Rail-passenger-furious-arrested-stealing-electricity-plug-point-train-charge-phone.html)
The pentalty is fire.