re your comment Ian about not feeling safe on stations in daylight. Some years ago as part of my job I was doing some inspections of buildings on about 20 minor stations around North London. I never left the public areas of the platforms, but "they" decided I needed a Lookout
and a PICOW.
I felt really stupid with three of us, standing there in full hi-viz and hard hats on the platform. That was until I we went to inpect some of the quieter stations out of rush hour.
I dont mind the tramps or winos, but some of the other shady characters hanging around looked really mean with obvious minders and lookouts of their own. I had to take lots of photos of the buildings, but I always take care because have learnt from past experience that some people just dont like being caught on camera,
and make it very clear to me what will happen if I dont put the camera away.
Then I was really glad to have the couple of tough looking blokes with me. Steel toecap boots and all.
"Lookout" took on a whole new meaning, not covered by the Rule book.
(I am not saying this was any worse than any other inner city area. But usually if you dont like the look of a dodgy situation you can just carefully walk away. In this case I
had to be there for an couple of hours per site and do the job, standing there like a mug waving about the company's posh digital camera. )