Caught smoking

As I've previously blogged, the train trip from Sydney to Melbourne takes 11 hours or more.   Obviously a long time to go between ciggies if you're a smoker, even if you're not going the full distance.   At many stations, only one or two doors are opened, and even at the bigger stations, passengers are strongly discouraged from getting off the train.  In fact, early in the trip an announcement was made that, because it's illegal to smoke on station platforms, it was no use smokers even trying to get off the train to have a quick light up.

A no smoking zone

Evidently all this was too much for one fairly young traveller on our train.  I happened to be moving about the train at the very moment that the train crew confronted him with the information that a remotely-monitored smoke detector had gone off in the toilet from which he had just emerged.

His denials didn't carry much weight as the crew (and I) could readily smell that he'd just had a cigarette.


He was escorted to the train manager's office, so I don't know what happened.  However, a few minutes later, a "final reminder" announcement was made that anyone caught smoking on the train would be fined and/or off-loaded at the next station.  Being off-loaded?   An option on the train, but wouldn't work so well for an airline!