Annoying / amusing use of completely irrelevant stock photos to illustrate press articles

[whole diary]

[Ollie]

Not a stock photo this time, but stock footage on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Breakfast Points West opt out this morning. On an item on a royal personage doing something regal at Kemble station (details passed me by) in amongst the images of FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) gilding in and out of the platforms was a close shot of a Crosscountry HST moving along a platform which could have been anywhere (but not Kemble, I submit).

Prince Charles opened the station garden: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-23446694

[LiskeardRich]

Non Railway, but transport related. ITV are reporting on Brittany Ferries having a successful year, and they've used stock footage from last years strikes with boards rolling saying "cancelled". Cancelled is the complete opposite if they are doing so well. Suggests last years strikes didn't have too much negative impact.

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2013-08-24/brittany-ferries-enjoy-best-summer-for-three-years/

[eightf48544]

Noticed another odd bit of clip animation in the title sequence of the hauiry Bikers new series on Restoring our Industrial Past. There's a disticntly Americacn loco appears a couple of times.

Tonights was on the 47xx being built at Llangollen. Althugh called Night Owls I saw  all 9 of the class through Slough. As they could get up to 60 plus they often appeared on empty stock,  holiday extras and excusions.

Not sure how it's going to look with a No 1 boiler rather than it's own larger  No 7 although 4700 was first built with a No 1.

[Red Squirrel]

Where does one start with this piece from the Daily Mule. It's about some little imbiciles playing chicken in front of a train, but:

1. Whilst I'd agree that the train was metres away when the kids got off the line, I suggest that the number of metres was probably around a hundred. Obviously it's stupid and dangerous to stand in the four foot when there's a train coming (or at any other time, for that matter), but not quite as extreme as the Mule would have us believe. Do they think their readers are so daft that they don't recognise the effects of a long lens?

2. What the blue blazes is going on with the final picture? It's plainly a different train going under a different bridge, but possibly a half-drunk half-asleep person might not spot that. But two tracks? Have Wallace and Gromit just passed through, persued by Feathers McGraw?

Edit: The Daily Murr has it as a high-speed train... Can anyone remind me of the definition of 'high-speed' in the rail context?

[grahame]

Edit: The Daily Murr has it as a high-speed train... Can anyone remind me of the definition of 'high-speed' in the rail context?

The sentiment of the article - THIS IS A STUPID THING TO DO - is spot on.

A high speed train is one that goes at 25mph or more in this context (not 125!). It will kill just as surely.

[TonyK]

Come September, the papers may have news to publish. Children have played on railways for almost 200 years in the face of advice to the contrary from "grown-ups", with a sad toll of killed and maimed to show for it. Sensationalist pictures and stories like this run the risk of starting a league table amongst the young people of wherever, who may not appreciate fully the danger they put themselves in. BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) and Network rail do much to try to inform the yoof of today, and to put them off such shenanigans, but there is no telling some people. Worse, they may not be aware that an oncoming HST^▸ (High Speed Train), as seen from dead ahead, grows slowly on the eyeball until the last moment, and cannot stop suddenly, and even less that a smaller commuter train, whilst smaller and slower, will still hurt.

[bobm]

Ironically I can remember at prep school the headmaster giving a stern warning after some pupils had been caught putting pennies on the line to get them squashed. I say ironic because until he mentioned it I had never thought of straying onto a railway line!

[TonyK]

Ironically I can remember at prep school the headmaster giving a stern warning after some pupils had been caught putting pennies on the line to get them squashed. I say ironic because until he mentioned it I had never thought of straying onto a railway line!

Me neither, although being an alumni alumnus of a junior, rather than prep, school, I could only afford to put halfpennies, and only under second class trains.

[JayMac]

being an alumni of a junior, rather than prep, school,

Was Latin available at your place of secondary education?

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/04/26/why-youll-never-be-an-alumni/

 

[Red Squirrel]

being an alumni of a junior, rather than prep, school,

Was Latin available at your place of secondary education?

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/04/26/why-youll-never-be-an-alumni/

 

The available datums suggest not.

[TonyK]

being an alumni of a junior, rather than prep, school,

Was Latin available at your place of secondary education?

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/04/26/why-youll-never-be-an-alumni/

 

Mea culpa, Sir, I meant almnus. That mistake would probably have got me beaten, and might still if the fearsome Mr "Spud" Murphy is a member of this forum.. Sic transit Gloria Swanson. Schoolboy error from a man who was top in Latin every term. Until the hormones kicked in.

[Red Squirrel]

Caesar ad sum jam forti
Brutus et erat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus sic in at

...or, for the true latin scholars:

Ubi ianua ianuam non est?
Ubi urna est!

[bobm]

For all the reasons above I prefer "old boy" when referring to my former educational establishments.... and as the years go by the term becomes more and more appropriate!   

[bobm]

Not railway related, but we are an internet forum, this photo to illustrate "rural areas" did amuse me in the context the story...

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

BT hangs up on dial-up internet access


Dial-up net access is still used in many rural and remote areas of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

BT will turn off its dial-up internet access service on 1 September.

The telecoms firm said it was taking the step because only a "tiny number" of its customers still went online using a dial-up modem.

It added that the vast majority of its 6.8 million broadband customers had switched to much faster connections.

However, a small number of people in rural areas where broadband will not work will struggle to get online after the change.

Cut off
 
Dial-up customers were first informed about the impending closure in May and June this year, BT said, adding that most of these people would be able to migrate to a broadband service.

The company said that the shut-down meant about 1,000 people who lived in remote areas would not be able to move to broadband as their phone line was incapable of supporting the technology.

These people were likely to be living in some of the most remote parts of the UK, said Oliver Johnson, chief executive of broadband consultancy Point Topic.

"They will be too far from the telephone exchange to get any meaningful broadband," he said. "The distance means that the broadband signal degrades."

Those who had to stick with dial-up would still be able to get such services from BT via its Plusnet subsidiary.

 Some phone lines will not support existing broadband technologies

"No-one is being left without the option of an alternative service," said a BT spokesman.

(story continues in link)

[trainer]

Since we seem to be willing to be amused by non-rail related poor illustrations, I think this may take some beating (although a picture of a cow on a story about IT is a good competitor!):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23850262

Design images of sci-fi favourite Battlestar Galactica were apparently used by a Chinese state website to illustrate an article about aircraft carriers.

Apparently a regular feature of state Chinese news sites is the copying of sci-fi images from western sources.

Perhaps HST2 could in future be illustrated by the monorail system from Thunderbirds (circa 1966 for younger readers).