First Great Western passengers beware: Passengers make horrendous discovery

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

I'm posting this in 'the lighter side', but perhaps we should have a new board for 'the darker side'. 

From the Daily Mail:

First Great Western passengers beware: Passengers make horrendous discovery on train when they pound the seats and create a DUST storm

- Boy puts his feet on the seat and begins kicking his legs
- A huge dust cloud emerges and swirls around in the air
- Video maker runs finger through filth and shows camera

A group of boys made a horrendous discovery while on a train and captured their findings on camera.
Sat on a First Great Western train, the video maker films a lone chair and then his friend, who says: ^Try this.^
Motioning in the direction of the seat, the boy waits for the camera to pan around and capture it before he rests his feet on it.
The boy kicked his legs up and down and caused the dust to move to the surface and create a huge cloud
He then proceeds to kick his legs up and down and beat the chair with his feet, which causes dust to move to its surface.
Suddenly a huge cloud of dust emerges and begins swirling around his feet.
The video maker can be heard laughing as his friend continues to kick his feet and the dust continues to circulate.
The video maker examines the dust that has settled on the chair of the First Great Western train
The filmmaker runs his finger through the dust on the chair and shows the filth to the camera
The boy then stops kicking his feet and brings them away from the chair ^ left behind is a large patch of dust on the surface.
Leaning towards it to get a closer look, the video maker then rubs it with his finger and shows the dirt on his finger.
According to the group, they discovered the same amount of dust on almost every seat while on board the train.
The group said that they discovered a lot of dust on a number of seats on the First Great Western train
Dust in a domesticated area like this generally contains human hair and skin cells, textile and paper fibres and small amounts of plant pollen.
Airborne the dust can pose a serious health threat to children, older people, and those with respiratory illnesses.

[bobm]

That's why they tell you not to put your feet on the seats. 

[Chris from Nailsea]

I would be interested to hear Mark Hopwood's personal view on that incident - as he is a very frequent traveller on his own company's HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) ... 

[Surrey 455]

I saw something similar on an FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) train last year. A man sitting on the other side of the aisle saw a friend get on and patted the seat as if to say sit here. I think we were all surprised¹ to see a dust cloud appear.

¹Can I use the word "shocked"? I'm not sure if that's copyright Daily Mail 2015 or not.

[Chris from Nailsea]

'Outraged' is surely ^ Daily Mail. 

[chuffed]

I wonder whether 'the dustier side' might be more accurate. Any of us old wrinklies who travelled as I did. between Bristol and Birmingham on the alternating Leeds /Newcastle trains in the 60s and 70s,  will remember the immense cloud of dust created merely by sitting in the bouncy seats in the 6 person compartments on corridor trains. I also remember that special yellow grey gunge that obscured the windows and settled in the rounded corners as a marmite type paste. I think the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) staff used to collect it, water it down and sell it back to us as coffee in those days!

[PhilWakely]

I remember my school railway society running day trips from Exeter to London in the late 60s and early 70s. We usually had four compartments reserved on the 06:15 Exeter Central to London Waterloo. Of course, the Waterloo route was not particularly well maintained, so dusty and grimey Mark I's was very much the order of the day. I distinctly recollect the favourite pastime of the first and second formers (year 7s and 8s in todays money) was bouncing on the compartment seats as well as standing on them to get to the racks above the seats.

[trainer]

This thread seems to be drifting into some kind of suggestion that things are no better in terms of cleanliness than they were in the 60s/70s.  I wonder if this morning's challenge to the Government in the High Court over air quality in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) will deal with dusty train seats.