As First Capital Connect launches a guide to train etiquette, we ask what annoys you the most about other passengers

The guide features how not to overdo the Christmas cheer when travelling. Picture: FCC (Image: Archant)

A rail company has launched a Modern Day Guide to Train Etiquette, in a bid to put passengers on the right track when it comes to behaviour.

First Capital Connect, which runs services from King's Lynn to London King's Cross, is targeting anti-social customers who eat smelly food, listen to loud music and leave litter behind.

Cartoons featuring model passenger Edwin Tickett are now appearing on posters at stations and have been made into a booklet.

In the foreword to the booklet, the dapper Mr Tickett notes: 'As a frequenter of this sceptred isle's great and British Railways I have had increasing occasion to observe - something that has also been noted by my agent and publishers - that the railway traveller of today often lacks for some kind of explicit guidance as to the correct and proper way to conduct him or herself.

'Whether their journey be undertaken for the purposes of leisure, to conduct commercial business, or indeed (as is so often my own happy circumstance) to visit one's maiden aunt at her cottage on the outskirts on King's Lynn, the inexperienced rail user can find themselves perplexed and discombobulated by questions of etiquette.'

The guide warns people visiting stations to walk, not run on stairs. Another reminds passengers to arrive at the station in time for their train, with a cartoon character limbering up on a running track, stopwatch in hand, and the warning: 'Do your sprinting somewhere else.'

Another adopts the timeless advice to do unto others as you would have them do to you.

'Treat fellow passengers as you would like to be treated,' it says. 'Don't assume they share your taste for kebabs and dubstep.'

Keith Jipps, First Capital Connect's customer service director, said: 'We care about our passengers' safety and comfort which is why we are leading a campaign to encourage safer and more considerate behaviour. We know from research that we need to use humour to grab people's attention.

'Some of these messages – such as don't leave your rubbish behind for the 'train fairies' – also support the £350,000 investment announced earlier this week to give our passengers cleaner trains.'

The £350,000 initiative involves new equipment similar to that used in hospitals, which is being used to deep clean the entire fleet of FCC trains. Extra staff are also being employed to clean trains while in service.