UEA student’s train conductor video has gone viral

Second year Law student Alex Smith was made famous when his YouTube video of an eccentric train conductor went viral last week.

Filmed last summer on a Southern rail train journey to Epsom, Surrey, the clip shows hilarious commentary from Steve Copley, as he attempts to lighten up the moods of weary commuters.

One example includes: “The ambassador would like to apologise but unfortunately the Ferrero Rocher has run out this evening, but he is spoiling you by giving you eight coaches and 620 seats”.

He then continues to urge customers to space themselves out to “make the train look a bit more busy”.

The conductor then turns out all the lights and starts making ghost noises as they go through a tunnel.

Wacky Steve continues: “A trolley service of drinks and light refreshments will NOT be provided” and advises customers that reporting anything suspicious to Ghostbusters may be problematic as “I don’t think they’re available at this time of night”.

Alex’s friend Chlöe Packer, who sent the clip to him didn’t realise at the time he was such a local celebrity when she filmed the clip on her way home from work in Victoria.

She said: “I didn’t know he had a huge following until I saw the video go viral, and it’s cool to see him get more recognition. The driver had been cracking jokes the whole time, so I thought I’d record one of them. He definitely put a huge smile on my face after the long, tiring day I’d had and I saw all the passengers behind me were feeling the same.”

Steve has earned the adoration of commuters through his unconventional commentary and often conducts a morning quiz and urges passengers to answer with the #timetunneltrain hashtag on twitter.

He’s also known for his impersonations of his favourite singers including Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” as the train speeds past the trees of green in suburbia into the concrete jungle.

UEA student Alex couldn’t believe it when his video suddenly went viral, as it had been uploaded over seven months ago.

Alex before his video went famous

He told The Tab: “I edit videos as a hobby, late one night I was bored and just did this one, didn’t publicise it, just chucked it on my YouTube channel.

“It was insane, I got a few emails about comments being left on the video, then someone from UNILAD messaged me asking to put it on their Facebook.

“Then I went on Reddit and saw it on the front page and saw the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Daily Mirror and BBC News had also published an article on my video. Everything exploded from there, floods of comments, tons of views, tweets asking from people asking to license the video.”

“One company even found my home phone number and called my parents about it.”

The video has been viewed over one million times on YouTube and over nine million on Facebook. As Alex enjoys his celebrity status there have been calls to get Steve to win driver of the year at the 2016 Rail Staff Awards.

As Steve used to work as a nightclub DJ, it seems the next natural step is an LCR appearance.