Thursday, December 22, 2022
If you find yourself at a mainline station over Christmas, prepare to meet Safety Santa.
He's Network Rail's figurehead for a festive campaign to keep travellers safe over the holiday period. Yes these are important messages, and yes winter does bring additional risks to stations, and yes seasonal travellers aren't necessarily familiar with how mainline termini work. But if you step back and think about the character - Safety Santa - he makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Santa is a figure of jollity, not a fingerwagger. Santa lands on your roof, which is probably on a slope, risking death atop every house. Santa manoeuvres down your chimney, a dark space with no handholds, rather than making a sensible entry via your front door. Santa sneaks into millions of bedrooms to leave presents, not public health messages. Santa may have a vested interest in you being nice not naughty, but caution is not his middle name.
So full marks for being red and getting noticed, Safety Santa, but what a baffling character to draft into our stations at Christmas.
<< click for Newer posts
click for Older Posts >>
click to return to the main page
