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Melbourne

The Dumbarse, in three acts

Act 1: He went to stand between the carriages for a smoke. (It was a Hitachi. Very retro.) It should be pointed out that this doesn’t stop the smoke smell drifting through the carriages, though obviously it’s better than doing it in the carriage. Apart from the fact that smoking anywhere is dangerous for your health, the last time I saw something like this attempted, the half-a-dozen undercover Authorised Officers in the carriage that I had clocked when I boarded the train wasted no time in moving in to fine the person.

Act 2: “Does this train go to Richmond?” Someone pointed out, possibly without trying to smirk, that we’d just a minute ago gone past Richmond. Australia is said to have a 99% literacy rate, and those new signs on the stations are fairly readable, so the chances are this guy had nobody to blame but himself for not paying attention.

Act 3: Upon arrival at the next station, Flinders Street, did he bother to look at the platform display to see where the train would go next? No. I did glance at it. It was headed straight back to Richmond. He instead headed across the concourse to some other platform — I think it may even have been 4+5, one of four platforms where none of the trains departing go to Richmond.

Dumbarse.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

5 replies on “The Dumbarse, in three acts”

So the big question is.. what did the dumbarse look like? Did he look like a typical CBD office worker?

Pity there wasnt someone around decent enough to help him out.Probably too busy giggling to themselves.

You are assuming that the guy actually wanted to go to Richmond. He may have been a spy trying to throw people off the scent. He might have just been thinking out loud, musing about things in general. He may have had mental health problems.

The best thing appears to be his ability to ‘try’ to avoid inconveniencing by smoking between carriages, obviously at personal risk. Walk a mile in his shoes.

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