British Rail Network South East -- London, Tilbury and Southend line -- Quality training
The video starts with the obvious, a Continental airlines 747 landing at Pitsea International to the background of a music hall-esque ditty. We learn the reason for this is that despite planes frequently having 'overcrowding, long and unexpected delays' passengers still love them. Oh the pre Ryan Air halcyon era of plane travel.
This also introduces the ubiquitous Paul Tyreman into shot. Paul is the stalwart of 1990s BR training videos, before going onto fame with two episodes of Coronation Street, a Swedish beer commercial and was last seen hosting the class 180 drivers fault finding video, which in hindsight should probably have been a feature film.
The next customer service is analogy is buying some spotlights for 'the boys', although he doesn't define which 'boys' he is talking about; his children, his testicles or a group of heavies he owes money to. Paul arrives at the DIY store in a Citroen DX that appears to be running even rougher than a class 142 after a farewell tour. He heads to the lighting section where, unable to find the correct bulbs, he is lucky that Rick Astley has decided to give up on the music business and is now working at the Westcliffe branch of Texas Homecare.
Unable to find what he is looking for, and encountering some text book surliness from the DIY store staff, our hero embarks on a fairly extravagant quest to go to London to buy the bulbs, because Oxford Street is so well known for its B&Q.
At the ticket office, Paul encounters the first two gruff voiced middle aged fat geezers with beards, as he queues for a ticket. He then hears that the 0932 service to Fenchurch Street is formed of a pair of required unrefurbished 302 units, so rushes to catch them, but is bowled by the guard who is on the last leg of a four tripper so dispatches before the booked arrival time. Paul returns to the watching TE to give him a strict lecture on incorrect Trust berth offsets.
By now, Paul has heard that it was the last run of those particular sets as they are off to MC Metals to get their blue asbestos removed. He therefore buys a guards uniform off eBay, and picks an argument with a random gruff voiced middle aged fat geezer with a beard. Paul sees the error of his ways and therefore gets the station staff involved, that way the delay can be V coded and split 50/50 with stations external. However, the chargeman is having none of it, with yet another random gruff voiced middle aged fat geezer with a beard getting involved with such chronic acting that it makes Eldorado look life Bafta quality performances. At this point, Paul is in despair 'What the hell do I do now' he asks the camera. Well Paul, you do what everyone does, claim it was a door fault, put a really spurious entry in the defect book, and give the minutes to fleet.
Next we look at face to face dialogue between staff. At Pitsea box, a Christmas jumpered bobby is a veritable jean michel jarred on his NX panel, and manages to Cat B a passing 308. At this point it is a lesson in rule book conversation. As we know, a driver, on contacting the panel, should state their headcode, location, signal they are speaking from and confirm it is the correct controlling signaller they are speaking to. Or in this case, you could speak like a camp 1960s TV policeman, and say 'ello mate, what's your bloody game, you put this peg back infront of me', and thus ensure much ire and confusion from our knitwear bestowed bobby.
The video ends with a longing look at one of those fashion icons of the 1990s, the Campri ski jacket, before Paul reminds us all how an obscure quote can kill the ending to any video with the deity 'You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar'.