A group of Sydneysiders on the r/Sydney Reddit page have answered the question to one of the city’s greatest mysteries: where do the little handles on our train seats go sometimes?
If you’ve ever caught a train in the city of Sydney (after probably enduring a fucktonne of delays) chances are you’ve noticed that sometimes the little handle is missing from some of the seats.
Where do the handles go. Some sort of eshay trophy?
by u/badAdviceYouCanTrust in sydney
Are eshays going at them with little hacksaws they stole from wood tech class? Is someone committing an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist of the city’s most useless piece of public transport paraphernalia? Is the Transport Fairy taking them back to her workshop to fix up? The mind oft drifts in wonder, you know?
Well, turns out we have the real answers after u/badAdviceYouCanTrust posited the question to a bunch of knowing Sydneysiders.
According to one Reddit user, the handles have deteriorated thanks to cleaning chemicals.
“COVID cleaning chemicals were too harsh and they started to deteriorate,” wrote the Reddit user.
What are they cleaning the trains with, forbidden acid?
“They cut them off as a safety precaution to prevent any sharp plastics. Source: partner works on train maintenance.”
Another individual backed up this statement.
“Can confirm: worked in train maintenance and cut many of these handles off,” they wrote.
“Previously we just taped them if they weren’t too bad but it was decided that no trains were allowed to leave Auburn with tape, so they all had to be cut.
“Part of it was also a supply chain issue as they were made in China. They eventually sourced a local supplier and slowly but surely they are fixing them across the fleet.”
There we have it, a bit of public transport tea for our evening. I feel more informed than I was before.
Basically, the Redditors mostly agree that COVID chemicals are doing some damage to our handles, and there’s been a delay in getting them replaced.
“The yellow part seems to deteriorate, goes brittle, breaks and they removed the sharp plastic bits,” wrote a third individual.
“Never known them to be cut. From what I’ve heard they couldn’t get the replacement parts due to covid shortage. Source: crew.”
It’s a shame to realise the eshays aren’t galivanting from train to train to see who can collect the most seat handles. I can already see the Daily Mail headline that would’ve come from it and it would have been GLORIOUS to make fun of.
Alas, I’ll persist with the less exciting truth that cleaning chemicals are wrecking our lovely handles.
For more Reddit-based shenanigans, you can read up on the best AITA (Am I The Asshole) threads of all time.
