Information Appeal! TEAR?

[whole diary]

[Sprog]

Posting this here on behalf of a colleague, would be very grateful if you could take a few minutes to your time to read it:

Hi people:

Just a quick question for you all:

Over the past 3-4 years on all First Great Western rolling stock, particularly the 'West Fleet' DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit), we constantly have some little scrote scribing "TEAR" into windows, doors, panels/paintwork & mirrors. This criminal damage must have mounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds in repair bills, plus the labour put into repairing/replacing the vandalised components.

Since CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele Vision) cameras were installed to the 'west fleet' the amount of tagging has decreased but now it is only  seems to occur in the camera 'blind spots' (half of each vestibule area the 158s and all of the DMU Toilet interiors, especially the Mirrors.

We have a dedicated team of 'vehicle building/trimming' staff at SPM^▸ (St Philip's Marsh (Bristol depot)), and one unfortunate member of staff in particular seems to have the monotonous job of constantly changing/repairing all these windows, mirrors and panels on 'B' exams. Suffice to say, it is growing clear that after all this time, he is getting rather p***ed off with the situation! (and is often heard stating that he wants blood!!)

Just wondering if anyone has any information on this?? Its happened to both West & HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) fleet so this 'tagger' is obviously well travelled. There was even rumours circulating recently that 'Tear' was a member of Staff due to the regularity and amount of attacks, plus the knowledge/awareness of the CCTV blind spots. (although this is hardly difficult to work out for someone with a small degree of intelligence!)

It would be great if we could catch this person in the act, then hopefully get a conviction and stop it from happening. I'm sure if we put a stop to this there would be a huge amount of grateful maintenance staff. As well as taking this strain off the maintenance teams, the other benefit would obviously be improving the quality of the train interiors by removing this mindless scrawl and as a result improve customer experience and staff working conditions.

I don't personally get the point in tagging anyway? It looks cr@p and its not art (unlike the (in)famous Bristol Banksy etc.) that anyone would look at, so why the hell would you want to do it? It is just pointless, mindless criminal damage.

Cheers,

Jim
FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Maintenance Engineer

Any information that you have would be well received by us, and also this is a request for all FGW Passengers/Customers/Train Crew to keep an eye out whilst travelling/on duty and report anything suspicious immediately to the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) (Although I appreciate for most this will probably go without saying!)

Many thanks,

Tom
FGW Maintenance Engineer
SPM T&RSMD, Best in the West!

[smithy]

another scrote to add is KNOE that is getting very common aswell these days mainly on west but also some hst.
from experience it seems the 158's are worst hit.

also worth pointing out the little sh1ts are starting to use an acid substance aswell as scratching,so if anyone notices a tag which has a melted kind of appearence (basically not scratched/drawn on) then keep away and inform staff same goes for discarded bingo pens(they fill them with acid to carry out the attacks)

[Tim]

the little sh1ts are starting to use an acid substance aswell as scratching,

nitric or hydrofluoric acid.  As someone who once worked in a chemistry lab, I can tell you that it is really really nasty stuff (Not many chemicals are so corrosive that you can't store them in a glass bottle).  I cannot believe that someone could be so stupid to use this for tagging.  I am sure that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have issued proper safety advice to their staff but my advice would be....

It will burn your skin (and deeper tissue) badly if you touch it or even the apparantly dry etched window if it has not be thoroughly washed.  It should only be cleaned up by someone properly equiped and trained.  Be really careful.   If you do get it on yourself wash with plenty of water but do not assume that that will be enough you will still need to be seen by a medic as soon as possible- dial 999 and get to hospital (being careful to warn ambulance crews and hospital staff of what they are dealing with).  If helping contaminated colleagues or other victims be very careful to avoid getting the stuff on yourself - wear gloves from the first aid kit as a very basic minimum.

The best precaution is to avoid getting it on yourself or anyone else in the first place.  If that means evacuating carriages or terminating trains I can assure you that such action is infinately preferable to hydrofluoric acid burns. 

The damage done to the window is signifant but gradual.  The acid eats into the glass over a number of hours during which time the tag becomes increasingly visable.  Freshly applied acid is most dangerous (because less of the chemical has been "used up" attacking the glass), but unfortunately is also less visable (when first applied the window just looks wet).  .

[inspector_blakey]

Heaven only knows where graffiti vandals are getting hydrofluoric acid from...as far as I'm aware it's only available to purchase by legitimate registered laboratories/companies who have a verified purchasing account with the chemical supplier.

Now, I don't want to cause alarm or upset but just to reiterate what Tim said, it's seriously nasty stuff. It can be insidious because it interferes with nerve function so you wouldn't necessarily immediately be aware of any pain or burning sensation. It's also toxic if absorbed through the skin and although I'm not 100% sure I would strongly suspect that normal latex/nitrile/rubber gloves would not protect against it.

If HF really is being used for window etching then I hope that all train crews and cleaning staff have been thoroughly briefed about what they need to do if they suspect contact: just rinsing it off is not sufficient, and medical attention should always be sought.

[JayMac]

Access to potentially dangerous substances by young 'uns may not be as difficult as you think. Most secondary schools have a supply of chemicals and substances that can be dangerous if they get into the wrong hands.

I speak from experience. When I was 13 I purloined some magnesium ribbon from a school lab and whilst skiving, I, and a friend set fire to some of this ribbon in a stations' toilets. We couldn't put it out by stamping on it so we scooped it up with a metal dustpan and dumped it in a toilet bowl. Big mistake! Both I and my friend were nastily scolded when the magnesium reacted with the water. Trips to casualty for both of us, banned from the station, suspended from school, a police caution, and worst of all, grounded by our parents.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Ah, schoolboy days, eh?

To the possible disappointment of my father, who was an industrial chemist, I showed no interest in chemistry at school.  However, the one thing I remember, from a chemistry lesson (probably when I, too, was about 13!) was, 'don't mix magnesium with water!'

C.

[JayMac]

Ah, schoolboy days, eh?

To the possible disappointment of my father, who was an industrial chemist, I showed no interest in chemistry at school.  However, the one thing I remember, from a chemistry lesson (probably when I, too, was about 13!) was, 'don't mix magnesium with water!'

C.

I learnt exactly the same lesson, albeit the hard way! If memory serves we had actually watched a video the week before showing how certain alkali metals react with water. Fortunately there wasn't a ready supply of Caesium to nick!

[inspector_blakey]

I'd be pretty horrified if any school lab has any hydrofluoric acid kicking about! Haven't seen the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for that one but I bet it's scary. Nitric is just about feasible though, in an A level chemistry lab at least.

On a tenuously related point, my old lab in Oxford used to order ultra-pure water from a chemical supplier (when you're working with DNA and RNA you need to make absolutely sure there aren't any contaminating proteins in there that could degrade your precious samples!). Unbelievably, this came with an MSDS sheet. Even more unbelievably, in the toxicology information, it said "lethal dose, human, 180 g per kg body mass, colonic". I promise you that every word of that is true!

PS I know this is a bit anally retentive* (actually quite a lot anally retentive) but the alkali metals are lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and francium, all monovalent. Technically magnesium (and beryllium, calcium, strontium, barium and radium) is divalent and an alkaline earth metal... That's the first opportunity I've had to use my chemistry degree in a while... 

*in the context of the paragraph above, I really shouldn't have said that, sorry 

[JayMac]

I was fully aware of the difference between alkali metals and alkaline earth metals when I made my follow up post to my experiences of 'experimenting' with magnesium ribbon in Taunton stations' bogs. Just be glad I didn't have access to a bit of caesium . To keep my post succinct I decided against explaining the difference between group 1 and group 2 elements and their valence electrons .

Oh...and BTW^▸ (by the way) I failed GCSE Chemistry by the simple expedient of not turning up for the exam!

[Tim]

On a tenuously related point, my old lab in Oxford used to order ultra-pure water from a chemical supplier (when you're working with DNA and RNA you need to make absolutely sure there aren't any contaminating proteins in there that could degrade your precious samples!). Unbelievably, this came with an MSDS sheet. Even more unbelievably, in the toxicology information, it said "lethal dose, human, 180 g per kg body mass, colonic". I promise you that every word of that is true!

IICR my undergrad chemistry lab had a book (it may have been a compitation of MSDS sheets, but it was properly bound and I think it came from Sigma Aldrich or one of the other chemical suppliers), where the precedure following accidental contact with water was "rinse area with plenty of water".

[Btline]

Fortunately there wasn't a ready supply of Caesium to nick!

I was going to say, good job you didn't use Potassium, Caesium or Rubidium!

There is something addictive about burning Mg though...