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A just revenge for his late train?

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Railsigns

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That's quite good! Having read O'Toole's foreword in ATOC's "Growth and Prosperity" report, I think he deserves to be shown with an extended nose, Pinocchio style.
 

GatwickDepress

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It's about 98% less twottish (sic) than that bloke who would write into FGW's customer services every time his train was late.

Pat Butcher does suit old Tim... surprisingly the bald look does as well.
 

Domh245

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It's certainly entertaining, but is a 3/4 minute delay enough to justify spending at least 10 minutes making one of these? Granted the longer delays/cancellations/overcrowding could justify one of these, but these petty delays of 3 minutes, It's not as if there is a train every 2 minutes or so on the tube at farringdon.

It's also worth pointing out at this point that Tim is CEO of first group, and it is neal lawson who is CEO of FCC. I wonder what this chap is going to do when govia get the franchise?

I quite like this one: http://timsfaces.tumblr.com/post/91189987113
I think it's supposed to be Branson. Perhaps this lookalike could combine the best of both for the ICWC bid?
 
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Bald Rick

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It's also worth pointing out at this point that Tim is CEO of first group, and it is neal lawson who is CEO of FCC. I wonder what this chap is going to do when govia get the franchise?

Pedants' corner

Neal Lawson hasn't been at FCC for over a year. He is now at Network Rail.

Even when he was at FCC, he was 'merely' MD.

David Statham is the current MD of FCC, and he is a thoroughly nice chap.
 
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Surely the time taken to produce the photoshopped images outweighs the delay encountered, so it isn't really worth it?
 

455driver

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So the loss of time is twice the delay if you include the time it takes to do the photoshopping.
he obviously has far too much spare time if he has the time to do this so I dont see what his problem is with the delay in the first place.
 

richw

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What an exciting life this photoshopper lives.....

I wouldn't even know what the CEO was meant to look like and he could sit next to me on one of his trains and I still wouldn't know.

I would imagine in his position he has little, if anything at all to do with running a train.

It does seem a massive waste of time spending so much time on such a photo.
 

Clip

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Photoshopping someones face doesnt really take all that long and wouldnt surprise me if he done it on his tablet whilst being delayed.
 

bb21

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Am I the only one to feel glad that he does this? That is certainly one way to vent your spleen instead of hurling abuse at rail staff. This has probably saved a member of staff from being assaulted.

We can always look on the bright side.
 

Greenback

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Am I the only one to feel glad that he does this?

Yes! I find it witless and pointless!

That is certainly one way to vent your spleen instead of hurling abuse at rail staff. This has probably saved a member of staff from being assaulted.

But that's very good point so I may just change my mind!

We can always look on the bright side.

Cue Eric Idle...
 

talltim

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Surely its up to people how they waste their time. After all this forum is full of posts...
 

Tubeboy

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As a railway employee, I can't see the harm. It did make me giggle. Looks more jokey than nasty his blog.
 

bluenoxid

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Am I the only one to feel glad that he does this? That is certainly one way to vent your spleen instead of hurling abuse at rail staff. This has probably saved a member of staff from being assaulted.

We can always look on the bright side.

My time has been wasted. However, it is quite good
 

jon0844

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He's starting to post the details of the trains he's delayed on now, so I wonder if anyone will start checking to see who is actually to blame.

Given the nature of the upgrade work, and the lack of spare stock, I'm sure that many problems are either going to be down to Network Rail or train faults that come from running the existing trains so hard in the peaks.

Now, I am not saying that any ordinary commuter should know all this, but I wonder if this person has ever been told the reasons and has chosen to ignore them for his 15 minutes of fame as this site goes viral?
 

Katketty

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I find it quite surprising that people are calling him pathetic and questioning his use of time considering we are all posting on a forum dedicated to railway matters.

Is it more acceptable for me to post a trip report from a days spotting in the rain than it is for a little bit of light-hearted humour?

After looking at the pictures and reading why he does it, I say the guy has got a great sense of humour and I for one found it amusing at least.
 

455driver

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Odd that. I thought it was mandatory for mods to have theirs removed. :D

Now even I would disagree with that especially on this forum, I have had quite a few 'interesting' PMs with a couple of the MODs and they certainly were not PC about it! ;)

As to the person doing the pictures, it isnt something I would do but each to their own, it is harmless and at least there is something to show for the time expended on it. At least it has more of a purpose than that bloke from Oxford? who kept writing emails to the FGW MD every time his train was delayed, the chances of those emails ever being read would be about zero.
 
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talldave

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On the topic of FCC excuses for late trains, my service yesterday wss apparently late because the train was late arriving from the sidings! ! It sounded like an attempt to blame recalcitrant rolling stock rather than admit to any human failing!! And at times between Blackfriars and East Croydon it crawled so slowly I could have got out and walked faster.

Fortunately, I'm not much good with Photoshop!!
 

Bodiddly

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Now even I would disagree with that especially on this forum, I have had quite a few 'interesting' PMs with a couple of the MODs and they certainly were not PC about it! ;)

As to the person doing the pictures, it isnt something I would do but each to their own, it is harmless and at least there is something to show for the time expended on it. At least it has more of a purpose than that bloke from Oxford? who kept writing emails to the FGW MD every time his train was delayed, the chances of those emails ever being read would be about zero.

But they were read because he also kept a blog which became very popular. Add to this a book deal. I tried to read the book Dominic Utton wrote and subsequently called "Martin Harbottle's Appreciation Of Time" and had to take it back to the library as it wasn't very well written and in my opinion, was quite boring. It would be easy to bombard a Chief Executive with complaints and anyone could do it if they had the time and the inclination. This photoshopping seems to me to be one man's personal vendetta against Tim O'Tool and I found it initially funny. As you say, each to their own...........
 

3141

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Wow! People who work on the railways criticising a passenger for wasting his time when he finds a new way of drawing the owning company's CEO's attention to the regular delays he experiences. Perhaps he ought to spend his time doing distance learning courses to improve his qualifications so he can earn more and afford to live nearer to London. I'm glad at least one railway person thought the pictures were funny. So do I.

But if Tim O'Toole was looking for a sliver lining in First's failure to win TSGN, I reckon he's now found it - after this year First will no longer be running those services and someone else will be getting the treatment.

As has been pointed out there are probably many different reasons for the delays and not all of them are down to FCC. It's likely that some of them are the result of problems on one side of London affecting the through services to or from the other side. There will be more of that when Great Northern services join in and 24 trains per hour are trying to run through St. Pancras. Someone could make money by offering TSGN passengers on-board Photoshop courses and providing a gallery of the top brass in Govia for them to work on.
 

Tibbs

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But they were read because he also kept a blog which became very popular. Add to this a book deal. I tried to read the book Dominic Utton wrote and subsequently called "Martin Harbottle's Appreciation Of Time" and had to take it back to the library as it wasn't very well written and in my opinion, was quite boring. It would be easy to bombard a Chief Executive with complaints and anyone could do it if they had the time and the inclination. This photoshopping seems to me to be one man's personal vendetta against Tim O'Tool and I found it initially funny. As you say, each to their own...........

If you want a similar book that's actually good on a similar sibject, I recommend 'The Timewaster Letters' by Robin Cooper (www.robincooper.co.uk/). The lost shoelace is particularly good!
 
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