Stop & Examine

Railway trespass.

George Dent, Deputy Editor of RAIL’s sister publication Model Rail, sent us the photograph below with the following explanation of how he came to take it…

“I’m aware that there’s a certain romantic ideal about railway tracks as a backdrop for fashion photography, but this image certainly caught my attention.

“Displayed prominently in the window of the Vans clothing store

in Newcastle city centre, the short series of images begin with a young woman standing outside a railway station. In the second frame, she’s climbing back onto the platform from the tracks, camera in hand, under a slogan of ‘GET THERE’.

“How these images serve to promote a pair of sneakers is an interesting question, but the depiction of the woman climbing up from the tracks made me feel very uneasy.

“Without wanting to patronise fans of this clothing range (which is aimed at younger people), the nature of the image struck me as wholly irresponsible and portrays railway trespass as a viable activity.”

We wholeheartedly agree with George that this is an irresponsible image to use in any advertising - but especially for a brand aimed at the younger generation, and particularly at a time when trespass incidents are on the rise.

Just last month, Network Rail warned that there had been a 25% increase in trespass during the first month of lockdown, with an average of 34 incidents across the country every day between March 23 and April 26.

Not only did those situations put many lives in danger, they caused 380 hours of delays to key workers relying on the railway to get to work, and to freight trains transporting essential supplies to hospitals and supermarkets.

RAIL felt strongly that the advertising on display by Vans undermined the hard work of NR and others across the industry to combat the type of behaviour pictured in the photograph, so we forwarded the image to the Office of Rail and Road’s Chief Inspector and Director of Railway Safety Ian Prosser CBE.

He promptly took to Twitter and asked for the “irresponsible” advert to be removed, tagging Network Rail and the British Transport Police Twitter accounts to put the issue on their respective radars.

Within a matter of hours, NR Chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE and the BTP had also responded, asking for the advert to be removed (see screenshots).

People from across the railway community then started to respond to voice their own concerns about the photograph, including Freightliner Driver Heather Waugh who tweeted this:

“The 15-year-old boy who lay in front of my train to end his life would have been 21 this year. EVERY single day I think of him, his family, and his friends. And then I see this. ADVERTISING showing a teenager taking photos on tracks. PLEASE stop romanticising the railway.”

At the time of writing, Heather’s tweet had received 755 likes and 325 retweets, sending the message far and wide across the Twitter network. ORR’s press office then confirmed to RAIL that joint efforts were under way between themselves, NR and BTP to write to Vans.

To the company’s credit, it never got that far - Vans Europe’s Twitter team acted very quickly and confirmed that the advert was being removed (see screenshot). We’ve asked

Model Rail’s George Dent to check for us next time he’s in Newcastle…

This is a perfect example of the whole Railway Family coming together on an important issue… and once again, we succeeded together.