Yesterday we managed to tick off a few more boxes - Hammersmith to Acton Town on the westbound local, and also coming into the middle platform at Uxbridge instead of platform 1. We also went over a lot of theory - all the moves around Acton, Northfields and Boston Manor. I also finally got hold of my wage slip, and we had a pretty clear run the whole time. Three days in a row with no major problems at all - surely we’re due a suspension fairly soon!
The actual driving is not really causing me too many problems at all - there will be an occasional misjudged stop at a station, but we still stop in the right place, just a little more abruptly than one would normally expect! The only place I recall missing the monitors lately was South Ealing on the local line - having never stopped at the station before I couldn’t figure out *where* to stop. Some of the ground level stopping marks are not easily visible, and although I tried to stop where I could see the train in the mirror, I misjudged it. Still, it *was* the first time I’d ever tried to stop there..!
We’ve had a few trains with dodgy air conditioning lately, although we’ve been able to fix all of them so far. The second train we had yesterday had a faulty M-door - it wouldn’t close correctly at the top, meaning there was the constant whistling of wind coming through it where the seal wasn’t complete. The I/O got me to fill out the defect book for it so I could have some practice doing so.
Going through my book it looks like I should be able to have a fairly easy time, there’s a large lot of it ticked off now and most of the things that aren’t are things like preparing a train or stabling it, which’ll be covered as soon as I have a shift that involves it. The one time we should have stabled this week was the train that was cancelled, unfortunately.
Another fairly decent day. We got to go down the local - including the test track - between Northfields and Hammersmith, so that’s at least been ticked off in my book. I also managed to leave my training log in the train when we handed over at Acton for our meal relief, so we had to call a DMT to get the driver to leave it in the eastbound Acton cabin and pick it up once we’d swung round Rayners Lane!
Speaking of which, we were held at South Harrow and, had the Rayners cabin got onto the line controller a bit quicker, we might have been able to reverse at SH due to a lot of blocking back. Unfortunately by this point a train was already at the inner home behind us, meaning reversing was impossible. Annoying, because that move doesn’t come up often.
We also had another train with knackered air conditioning, which we managed to fix, and on our second train it stopped working at South Harrow at some point while we were waiting for the signal to clear. Luckily we didn’t fuss about it too much since we were about to change ends at Rayners Lane after all..!
The day went far better than I thought it would - I was honestly worried I’d have forgotten how to drive, but it wasn’t that bad. The first part of the shift went pretty quickly - we went from Arnos Grove, to Rayners Lane, up to Cockfosters and back down to Arnos where we came off for meal break. Since I am supposed to be able to drive now, we mostly talked about route knowledge - reversing points, cabin codes, how to do certain reversing moves, and some procedures such as CSDE override and passing signals at danger. I was pleased that I’d remembered most of the cabin codes (I probably should have revised at some point…). Most of the reversing moves we talked over were the ones from Cockfosters to Kings Cross, which is the easier end of the line from me because I’ve been watching the trains there for a while and I therefore have a lot of my stations experience to draw on when remembering where trains can go.
After meal break we spent half an hour sitting in the cabin at Arnos Grove waiting for our train to materialise, mostly going over anecdotes of things that had happened to my I/O previously to try to learn lessons from them. We eventually called the DMT to ask where our train was, to be told it had been cancelled - nice of them to let us know! We did ask if there were any stablers we could take over just for the last bit since I could have done with being able to check the move off, but there wasn’t so we were allowed to escape early for once.
During the first half, when we changed ends at Rayners Lane, the radio was making an annoying whistling noise, the air conditioning wasn’t working, and the DVA kept turning itself off once the radio logged in. Judging by the defect book, it’s a recurring problem with the unit, but after attempting to fix it by ‘rebooting’ the cab at a few stations, we gave up and called the Line Controller, asking him to get us a train technician at Acton Town. Of course, we then tried tripping and resetting the Gassing Switch MCB, which fixed the problem, so we cancelled the call once we got to North Ealing. But that train *really* needs sorting out..!
And so the neverending, stress-inducing Annual Leave finally comes to an end. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a holiday so much. The last thing I feel right now is relaxed; on top of sleeping really badly last night I’ve been having a lot of trouble concentrating and I’m suffering a self-confidence crisis. I’m hoping that simply getting back behind the handle and realising that I haven’t forgotten everything may help but, well… we’ll see, won’t we?
Published on July 20, 2008
in Other.
2am, and I probably ought to be asleep since I haven’t really got weird shifts next week. And L passed her stock training, so I may get to see her on Monday morning.. she’s getting to hike, which I haven’t actually done yet.
Published on July 18, 2008
in Other.
I’ve put up a small pictures page. There’s nothing too exciting on there, mainly because I don’t take all that many pictures and my camera isn’t too good anyway! The pictures should be mostly LU-themed, but there may be some general London pictures and other railways. I’ll probably add a few more of the pictures from the 38TS trip later.
I’m due back at work on Monday, which I’m mostly looking forward to, except I haven’t been very well over the past few days, so I’m not entirely sure what is going to happen. I was supposed to go to the doctor today and wimped out of making an appointment.
Published on July 12, 2008
in Other.
Oops! Someone broke Oyster.
Have I mentioned I don’t miss stations much?
Published on July 10, 2008
in Other.
Yes, thank you, I am still alive - just on a rather dull annual leave. I haven’t done anything much of interest at all except sign up for the gym, which I’ll probably do for a couple of weeks and then give up again.
Yesterday I had to travel into London for a get together with some online friends. Having made the bold decision to walk from Moorgate down to St Paul’s Cathedral, the weather of course decided to laugh in my face and I once again ended up on the Central Line from Holborn at rush hour, which is pretty much a definition of hell. On the way back, a couple of the others were getting a train from Bank so I decided to go along with them (when your train leaves from Kings Cross, you’ve got plenty of options…!). I think it was quite possibly the first time I’ve ever actually *caught* a train from Bank. I was quite familiar with the Northern-DLR interchange thanks to my ex-partner working in the Westferry area, and I’ve used the Waterloo and City a few times from it, but never actually left/entered the station there. So that was fun.
Published on July 6, 2008
in Other.
Last weekend I went on the 1938 stock tour. In one way, it was a good experience. In another, it was incredibly frustrating - we were stopped from taking pictures by a supervisor at Clapham Common. Never mind that we weren’t using flash or tripods - the only things forbidden by the conditions of carriage as long as the photography is for personal, non-profit use, and that if I felt like doing a spot of terrorism I’d be exploiting the fact that I have full access to depots and trains. Here’s a couple of pictures; the first two are at Clapham Common (including the back of the SS trying to stop us), the third is during the stop at High Barnet (of the run I was actually on) and the last is of the train at Morden.
For far better pictures, check out Chris W’s site - the pictures of the ‘38 Tube Stock run can be found here, along with other pictures from that day - I was also along for the Sloane Square photography trip.
… as far as the company’s concerned, anyway. I still have to do road training and pass my road test so that I can go out on my own, but having passed consolidation I’m theoretically now on T/Op wages… well, I’ll believe that when I see it.
Consolidation should probably have been dealt with in about fifteen minutes. Thanks to not really being warned what to bring, neither of us had completed both our progress logs, assuming that one was enough. Some bits were also dragged out, basically consisting of the LSM reading off a sheet to us and stating the obvious. The test itself took about five minutes, I think.
And of course we went in about 40 minutes after we were actually supposed to…
Still, it’s done! And now I have two weeks off to sit around and be pathetic in. Hurrah(!). Expect considerably fewer posts than usual.
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