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All Aboard the Prideful Virchoo-Choo Train!

At long last, the LGBTQ+ community finally has its own ‘first fully-wrapped Pride train entirely staffed by an LGBTQ+ crew’.

Launched this week by Avanti, it will whizz up and down the West Coast line between London and Glasgow, flying the rainbow flag, educating the public and raising awareness.

And possibly ocassionally getting them from A to B.

As the press release states:

With a strong focus on LGBTQ+ education, the train will be filled with literature, stories and colourful posters and will feature Pride related information and fun facts during the onboard announcements.

Yes, but will poppers be available from the refreshment trolley? And will they be playing Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’ on the PA?

But this isn’t a joking matter. It’s yet another sign of the blatant and systemic homophobia rampant in the UK that it has taken until now to provide the LGBTQ+ community with eleven carriages and 265 metres of fully-wrapped prideful parrot sick.

Of course, the Pride train isn’t for ‘the LGBTQ+ community’ – many of whom would probably rather stay at home sticking pins in their eyes than be seen on such an eyesore. I mean, how do you colour co-ordinate with that?

It’s not even for heterosexuals, who aren’t allowed to work on it. No, it’s a shiny, high profile vehicle for yet another company to advertise its ‘progressive’ and ‘diverse’ corporate credentials.

The train operator Avanti has adopted the most recent iteration of the Pride flag which sees the addition of the colours black, brown, light blue, pink and white to bring people of colour, transgender people and those living with or who have been lost to HIV/AIDS to the forefront highlighting  Avanti West Coast’s progressive commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Avanti humbly put themselves at the back of the Pride train, but of course its their train.

The rainbow flag and Pride have for some years now been assimilated by companies keen to virtue signal as a way of conveying their corporate messaging. It’s almost impossible to tell now where Pride ends and feelgood financial institution advertising begins.

In the age of social media, virtue signalling is the fastest, most cost-effective, smoothest form of advertising because your corporate messaging will be publicised by a public also keen to virtue signal. The punters push your gravy train for you. And ‘proudly’.

The Pride train represents the latest, biggest, fastest, longest – and most horrifying – weapon in the corporate virtue-signalling race. I’m sure Avanti are feeling incredibly ‘proud’ of themselves and the wide press and social media coverage their dayglo doomsday machine generated.

And indeed, how can anyone resist a 265 metre, 500 ton rainbow flag and re-education camp travelling at 125mph?

But somewhere an ad agency creative is already pitching something even more ambitious on Zoom to their corporate client. ‘I’m visioning we paint a whole city and everyone in it in the latest iteration of the rainbow flag! It would look totally amazing and would just be so incredibly inclusive and diverse!’

The rainborg flag will assimilate you. Resistance is futile.

Which reminds me, Avanti’s Pride train has the same number of carriages, eleven, as there are initials in the ‘latest iteration’ of the LGBT acronym -LBGTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual).

That ‘+’ in ‘LGBTQ+’ is doing a lot of work. But it’s not just an abbreviation – it’s a promise. ‘More initials soon’.

So when the acronym inevitably grows even longer and ‘more inclusive’ again, Avanti will likely go bankrupt. The bill for platform lengthening at every station on the West Coast line will be ruinous.

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1 thought on “All Aboard the Prideful Virchoo-Choo Train!”

  1. Should not have told you aboot this, Mark! Knew it would cause trouble! Laughing. If you need an undercover faux-gay-train interloper to report on this debacle by, er, riding it, I will volunteer. For a small fee. We’ll see who and what blows their whistle! Still, good to see positive discrimination in not allowing hetero people to be employed on the vehicle. Discrimination is evolving vastly and speedily and excellently these days! Hetero people deserve all the hate and discrimination we get! Nothing but homohater scum! 🙂

    Still laughing.

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