The worst culprits for noise pollution on trains? The staff

Spectator

14-07-2025

Modern irritations seem to come in threes. No sooner do you trip over a Lime bike 'parked' on its side in the middle of the pavement than you discover that the self-checkout in the Co-op has a handwritten note stating 'out of order' taped to it and the man in front of you in the queue for the sole remaining human-staffed counter is attempting to buy (and scratch) 14 lottery tickets.
That's what happened on my venture out of the house this morning, anyway. The experience sent me scurrying home again to muse on whether I have had a more dispiriting, in the picayune sense, start to any morning this year so far. It turns out that I have. And call it a first world problem if you will, but the apotheosis of my 'tripartite of annoyance' theory was reached on a train heading from London to the Midlands recently.
The misery began at Euston, with the usual stampede caused by the announcement of the platform from which the train would be departing only being made around two and a half minutes before the carriage doors were shut. An old hand at this transport Darwinism, I elbowed and shoved with moderately successful elan, managing to snag myself a seat next to an, inevitably, out-of-order disabled toilet.
But my attempts to recover a normal heart rate were promptly stymied by an audio interruption far more effusive than anything the Euston station announcer could muster. 'Good morning and welcome aboard this 09.27 service to Birmingham International…' it began, the voice belonging to a man who it appeared harboured ambitions of being a radio disc jockey on a commercial pop station in the mid-1980s.
On and on and on he went, with the charisma of one of Ian McDonald's MoD briefings during the Falklands War, telling us things that I suspect a six-year-old train traveller would already know. Why do we need to be informed, over and over and over again, that 'tickets with other providers are not valid on this service'? Why do we need to be told which stations the train will be passing through four times? How many times have you seen anyone leap from their seat, hollering something along the lines of 'Maidstone? I thought this was the cross-Channel ferry to Dieppe!' before hurtling out of an already moving loco?
I wanted to get my breath back. I wanted to open my newspaper. I would have loved to have simply had some quiet time to try to unpick last night's horrible dream – that one about being stuck in a lift with Jools Holland again. But the final element of my rage tripartite only began after we creaked away from horrible Euston. The driver was, I presume, either busy driving the train or writing another job application to Smooth FM. In his place my fellow passengers and I got the adamantine cheerfulness of 'Tracey in the on-board shop' telling us she 'has a wide variety of sandwiches, cakes, hot snacks, hot and cold drinks, beers, wines and spirits'.
I only want to hear the voices of the train staff if there's a fire, hurricane or thermonuclear explosion
Incredibly, I'm already aware of what an on-board shop is likely to sell. So why are we poor customers, who just want to read our books or try to have a micro-sleep, subjected to this needless taxonomy? I don't ever recall employees of Greggs, let alone the Ivy, marching around outside their place of business with a loud hailer, instructing us that they have 'food on offer'. So why do it on a train, a place where I only want to hear the voices of the staff if there's a fire, hurricane or thermonuclear explosion? Even in those eventualities, I'm still quietly confident I could figure out these developments on my own without Tracey's help.
We live in an increasingly selfish society where the use of headphones to conduct a phone conversation or watch a YouTube clip on a bus, plane or train is now seen as somehow quaint. But noisy commuters are only taking their lead from the bodies who take us from A to B. Is it any wonder that there are parents out there who are happy to let their child watch an entire Harry Potter film on their iPad on loudspeaker from London to Birmingham when there are on-board staff who can, and will, be even noisier with their winning hand gambit of having access to a microphone and speaker system that reaches every corner of the train?
There is a growing, suitably sotto voce protest movement against noise pollution in this country. But we're way behind France, where a British traveller was recently given a fine for using his phone on loudspeaker on a platform. I'd feel much happier if we travellers could slap down our own fines (or at least start expecting discounts) if we can prove that our journey was ruined by staff feeling the need to use their microphone powers in a manner usually only abused by wedding reception DJs.
Am I being ludicrously atavistic in pining for a time when a train journey meant I could read my book, do a crossword and have a nap without being the victim of a barrage of information that neither me, nor anyone else, wants, needs or asks for? It would appear so. My horror dreams about Jools Holland will, no doubt, soon be replaced by ones about Tracey. And when you start feeling nostalgic for the strangulated adolescent tones of Jools, you know something has gone seriously awry.