Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Goodness Gracious

Great balls of...concrete??

From TheJarkartaPost.com: PT KAI to use concrete balls to scare passengers off train roofs

Well, isn't this fascinating.

In a bid to take a bite out of the never ending conflict between rail companies and the freeloaders that steal the service, PT KAI is looking to take an interestingly new approach to the problem.

The railway firm will be installing large concrete balls, called Goal Bola-bolas, or "Goal Ball", which are to be hung from a goal post like apparatus by chains to the precise height of the on-coming train. The goal here is to make it impossible for freeloaders and hobos to ride on the tops of these trains for free without being pulverized by this Indiana Jones-esque defense system.

This new method of approach is being tested after the admitted failure of using personnel to carry out raids of the train roofs. In a delightfully Orwellian comment from the spokesman for PT KAI, manager Akhmad Suyadi said the goal balls were "intended to provide safety and comfort to passengers and not to cause harm".

Now of course, all of this is happening in Indonesia, on the other side of the world. But I don't see it taking too much longer before these systems get installed on commuter rails all over the world.



Three Monkeys Say: The Hooligans are loose! The Hooligans are loose!!

1 comment:

  1. Dr. BirutÄ— GaldikasJanuary 19, 2012 at 7:59 PM

    I've seen these psychotic train-gauchos in both India and Indonesia, and the PT KAI is horribly mistaken in thinking they won't just somersault between those chains for fun.

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