Lighting up at London stations to end

You can just imagine a lot of pent up and frustrated passengers standing around at some of London’s busiest train stations after 1 July this year. That’s the day the law changes to make smoking in enclosed public spaces illegal and train company Southeastern have decided to include all their open air train platforms as part of the ban from the same date.

Southeastern runs trains in South London, Kent and East Sussex, over 1,700 a day with about 1,400 coming into London. They have 182 stations that will be effected by their ban and they handle more than 120,000 commuters a day who come into London.

I’d like to see what happens in the middle of rush hour if a couple of trains are delayed or cancelled and people start stressing about getting to work, are they really going to try an enforce the non-smoking rule. Staff on trains and the Underground already complain about the number of assaults they suffer and passengers who start experiencing long delays can get really irate. If have a cigarette at the end of the platform calms them down I think the rail staff will turn a blind eye.