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No play station, say Metro bosses
Clarissa Satchell7/ 3/2006
METROLINK has been forced to cover up a poster on a tram platform reading: "Take a running jump from here".
The poster, advertising Playstation, was spotted by a railway worker and Metrolink was ordered to take it down for fear it could encourage people to leap on to the line.
Metrolink says the poster was the responsibility of JC Decaux, which is in charge of billboards at the station, and they were told to cover it up as soon it was realised what it said.
The poster, on the platform in the underground station at Piccadilly, was covered over with tape and was due to be taken down today.
A spokesman for Network Rail, which runs Piccadilly station but not the Metrolink platform, said: "An employee spotted it and said it was a bit inappropriate.
Safety
"The message goes completely against all our safety messages, particularly because Playstation is aimed at youngsters and we are constantly telling them not to trespass.
"We don't have this poster anywhere in the station itself because we are very careful about the safety messages we put out and wouldn't want anything to contradict that."
There have been several incidents where people have been hit by Metrolink trams in recent months.
Most recently, a 60-year-old woman needed hospital treatment after being hit by a tram in Piccadilly Gardens.
A spokesman for Metrolink said: "As soon as we were told about this we contacted JC Decaux. We told them the message was inappropriate for that location and they covered it up very quickly."
A spokesman for JC Decaux said: "We leave it to Metrolink and the Advertising Standards Agency to decide whether something is appropriate, that isn't our role."
Sony, which makes Playstation, said they did not want to comment.
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10/03/2006 at 20:08
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