Thursday 24 November 2011

"Each New Train Has A Smoking Lounge"

How very civilised it is going to be travelling on Austrian trains from Salzburg to Vienna soon. The head of a prominent private train operator has unveiled a new service being rolled out from December.

It's all very posh, so it is. Free WiFi throughout, separate ladies and gents toilets, all in a rather fine polished shell.

Company Chairman Benedikt Weibel also unveiled one other customer service.

What other surprises has Western Railway in store for passengers?

[...] In addition, we have built a smoking lounge into every train, like in the airport.
So, just another day in tolerant Europe, where there are still allowances made for a quarter to a third of the population - and another reminder of how isolated the UK is in pursuing an appalling 'denormalisation' programme.

The arguably first class rolling stock is supplied by Bombardier, meaning the smoking lounges may well be made in Derby by workers who - if they smoke - are treated like second class citizens.

Quite ironic, I thought.

H/T Les Dissidents de Genève


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice looks more stylish than a Basil Fawlty jacket.

Richard Allan said...

In a game called Victoria:Revolutions, Austria always gets an event called "Public Smoking Ban" in/shortly after 1836. I think it may have been one of the first countries to enforce this. Funny how things change, eh?

Anonymous said...

So, if they ever offered a direct Vienna-London service through the Channel Tunnel, at what point during the journey would the happy smokers be ejected from their cosy haven ?

Also, under our liberated train system, there's nothing to stop this operator bidding for a franchise here, e.g. the East Coast main line - if EU rules say that service providers cannot discriminate between residents of any other EU member state, then that same service should be dellivered here. Come on, Aussie, come on, come on....

Mark Wadsworth said...

Ah, that takes me back... about four years.

Anonymous said...

Put a bed in part of the train. One person buys a sleeper ticket and invites anyone who wants to smoke into his bedroom.

tim said...

I'd love to vape my electronic cigarette there in the train! Just like Johnny Depp vaping in the movie "The Tourist"!