So here I'm sitting in the house next to the railway station and can hear a crowd of folk shouting and probs pissed/stoned for the past 30mins plus who are messing about on the platform no soical distancing etc full view of the CCTV and where are the plod nowhere to be seen despite their offices at the staion 30mtrs away
Just before Christmas someone went missing in the area the night before reports might be on or around the railway line, Found dead curled up in a platform shelter 70mtrs from the office if that, Then ask if members of the public have seen anything regarding the missing person and to report it into them rather than them walking about and checking the platform /station area perhpas they might have found the person in time to safe their life?
My uncle stays opposite and regularly gets shit from the platform thrown over into his garden (needles/bottles/platform maintance rubbish by contractors etc despite raising it and asking for the CCTV footage to be checked to ID whos throwing the building rubbish in to the garden he's chinned off told that they wouldnt entertain it at the control office to shift through a number of days of footage he'd need the approx time(despit telling them what night it happend) He was told though if he threw it back onto the platform he'd get done for it under reckless endangerment but if they caught who was throwning the bottles over they would just send them round to pick it up with no further action by the duty Sgt when he complained to them and the station manager.
Reported what they thought was a stolen suitcase thrown into a neighbours gardern and never came for it think it's still there a few years later
He's phoned them up direct at the station before to report an incident and been told they wont investigate the aggro on the platform unless they get the nod from their control office in Inverness to intervene.
I've tried to chap them at the station up to report an incident and couldnt even be arsed to answer the door despite the vans being there outside it, Left me wondering how do I engage with them.
Even the Police Scotland copper who was looking in the empty yard next to the station didnt seem to impressed by them one day when he was searching for something thrown off the platform and I asked why wasnt BTP doing it.
Not saying all BT coppers are idle but these ones here seem to be well workshy and can't be out dealing with line jumpers etc and pissed up fights on trains from Glasgow for most of the year.
What do they actually do or have we just been unlucky and got a real life version of Cheif Wiggum and his deputies?
Moan over
So here I'm sitting in the house next to the railway station and can hear a crowd of folk shouting and probs pissed/stoned for the past 30mins plus who are messing about on the platform no soical distancing etc full view of the CCTV and where are the plod nowhere to be seen despite their offices at the staion 30mtrs away
Just before Christmas someone went missing in the area the night before reports might be on or around the railway line, Found dead curled up in a platform shelter 70mtrs from the office if that, Then ask if members of the public have seen anything regarding the missing person and to report it into them rather than them walking about and checking the platform /station area perhpas they might have found the person in time to safe their life?
My uncle stays opposite and regularly gets shit from the platform thrown over into his garden (needles/bottles/platform maintance rubbish by contractors etc despite raising it and asking for the CCTV footage to be checked to ID whos throwing the building rubbish in to the garden he's chinned off told that they wouldnt entertain it at the control office to shift through a number of days of footage he'd need the approx time(despit telling them what night it happend) He was told though if he threw it back onto the platform he'd get done for it under reckless endangerment but if they caught who was throwning the bottles over they would just send them round to pick it up with no further action by the duty Sgt when he complained to them and the station manager.
Reported what they thought was a stolen suitcase thrown into a neighbours gardern and never came for it think it's still there a few years later
He's phoned them up direct at the station before to report an incident and been told they wont investigate the aggro on the platform unless they get the nod from their control office in Inverness to intervene.
I've tried to chap them at the station up to report an incident and couldnt even be arsed to answer the door despite the vans being there outside it, Left me wondering how do I engage with them.
Even the Police Scotland copper who was looking in the empty yard next to the station didnt seem to impressed by them one day when he was searching for something thrown off the platform and I asked why wasnt BTP doing it.
Not saying all BT coppers are idle but these ones here seem to be well workshy and can't be out dealing with line jumpers etc and pissed up fights on trains from Glasgow for most of the year.
What do they actually do or have we just been unlucky and got a real life version of Cheif Wiggum and his deputies?
Moan over
As a former railway signaller with Network Rail Ive had experience of dealing with BTP operationally.
Individually there are some good officers but operationally, as an organisation they can come across as incompetent. From my own experience it was better to call the civilian police first when there was a need for police involvement in incidents.
A numbers of years ago, when dealing with a potential suicide, I first dealt with the civilian police in managing the incident; later on the BT police turned up, called myself and told me to disregard whatever info was relayed to me from the civvy police as they had no authority regards railway incidents. And that I was to let the trains run normally.
I had to then remind the BTP officer that only the signaller has final authority to determine if its safe for trains to run and how they should run based on the information they have. The episode then descended into a total farce with counter information coming into my self and our operational control centre from both police forces. Fortunately, in the end the person was found and no harm came to them, which was more due to our own control centre than the police.
On another occasion, when contacting BTP control centre in Birmingham. They had difficulty in finding the location of an incident on their computer even though they were given a six figure grid reference, street names and road numbers from a railway map. Unbelievable !
The money given for funding the BTP would be better spent on funding the civvy police to do the same role.
