Am Alive, Really

Published on October 30, 2009 in Driving. 0 Comments

Annual leave and a house move - plus laziness! - primarily account for my lack of updates lately.

I’ve had a few compliments from passengers lately - a few weeks back a couple on a Saturday afternoon, getting off the train at Cockfosters, thanked me for the smooth journey, and not long after that I had another (female) customer who, also at Cockfosters, asked if I was the driver and expressed surprise at there *being* female drivers..! Yesterday I had a thank you from a passenger for keeping them updated on the delays going on (and it turned out she lived in the same area as me), and later that day also ended up chatting with a couple who got off the train at Arnos after misunderstanding the driver’s PA messge. I also had a rather sweet toddler waving frantically at me at Baron’s Court last night..! Today I had a thank you from a chap at Cockfosters, as well.

We had utter chaos on the line on Monday evening after a person under a train at Manor House. I was coming back east at the time - the incident was on the westbound - and it happened shortly after I’d dropped off a District line driver at Earl’s Court. We didn’t hit any major delays immediately.. a few more reds than usual, but that had already been the case between Acton and Hammersmith anyway. By the time I got past Piccadilly Circus it was starting to get bad, though, and I was held outside Russell Square for quite a while, then *at* Russell Square. The platform was packed and there was a DSM on the platform at the headwall, who wanted to know if I was going through to Arnos or not. Several trains were being turned at Kings Cross to enable us to run some sort of westbound through Central London, but I was going through as far as I knew, so on they all tried to squeeze. We got held again outside Kings Cross due to two reversers ahead of us, but the advantage was, of course, a fairly clear run through to Arnos after that, and even picked up a DMT at Finsbury and dropped her at Manor House. In fact, I don’t think we got held again until we were nearly at Arnos. There was also, thankfully, a train waiting to go east to Cockfosters (mine was an Arnos terminator), so I didn’t even have to deal with any questions or complaints on that front. Not so luckily, there was no one to take my train from me. I headed down to the other end of the train to see if the driver was there but, on arriving at the west end, turned back to see that the signal had been given for the train to go east. I knew there were no drivers up there whatsoever, so ended up having to call up the harried DMT to let him know that there was no relief and also the signalling complication.

I was late for meal relief by this point but, given how destroyed the service was, that wasn’t really a major problem. I was eventually sent over to the eastbound and told to await further instructions, and when I got there the train that I should have originally been on (albeit about an hour earlier!) was in the middle platform with nobody on it. I called the DMT and asked if I should take it, but was told no, so I settled down to wait and was eventually given an eastbound train with no idea a) what its new number was, b) where it was going after getting to Cockfosters (and couldn’t find out myself due to not knowing the new number…) and c) having no idea when I’d be relieved. As we’d had several trains turned and this had been sitting in the platform for several minutes before I was given it, I took it to Cockfosters and then set about finding out the answers to a and b at least. It turned out to be a Terminal 5 train that, according to the timetable, I could bring back as far as Arnos Grove on the east without going into overtime. Assuming, of course, that there was no late running… except that the train should have left Cockfosters ten minutes prior to the time it did and there were still severe delays to the line!

I got to Acton Town without major incident, although it was slow going Hammersmith to Acton. However, at Acton, the signal for the Uxbridge branch was lowered (I’d been semi-expecting this.. the platform describers had been showing T5 correctly until about Kings Cross, and then started showing Uxbridge). Luckily there was a DMT on the platform who looked at my train (showing T5!) and the signal (showing the Uxbridge branch!) and was on the problem almost before I’d got the doors open.

The singal was changed and I trundled off down the Heathrow branch, and was eventually told to reverse Terminals 1, 2 & 3, which was a new experience for me… and one that luckily went off without a hitch. I was, however, still running late, and was also utterly exhausted. I picked up two other drivers at Northfields, which turned out to be a saving grace as it made the journey go a lot faster and helped me stay awake.

The train was, I believe, meant to go to Cockfosters and stable, but on arriving at Oakwood - already about 25 minutes over my finish time - it was given the signal for the depot, so I took it. I detrained the first car, another driver did the second, and then two knights in shining armour (or supervisors in white shirts, anyway), came and dealt with the rest.

So, train finally stabled safely, I put in a docket for half an hour’s overtime the next day, and went home for some much needed sleep - and that’s my Monday in far more detail than you ever wanted to know.

Earlier in the month I had my first ever person overcarried to the sidings - Rayners Lane, in this case. He’d leapt on the train as the doors were closing and the supervisor detraining that car hadn’t noticed until I was getting back in the cab, and didn’t manage to get my attention in time, so I knew nothing about it until I made my way through the middle cab (my train had a double ended unit in) and nearly leapt through the roof in surprise. I called the Met controller who already knew about the situation as the supervisor had informed him, and the Rayners Lane cabin managed to let us out early. Even so, my the time I’d changed ends and set the train up and got the signal and drawn out into the platform it all took quite a while, and he still had to go up and over the stairs to catch the next Uxbridge train. He took it fairly well apart from a few grumbles, and I managed to bite my tongue and *not* say “Well, that’ll teach you to leap on as the doors are closing!” or words to that effect, so all round it could have gone a lot worse.

I also finally got to reverse at Hounslow Central a while back; there had been a recurring signal failure earlier in the day and the service never quite recovered, and I ended up being short-tripped there to try to get me back on time - much to the annoyance of all the passengers, although I thankfully heard very little about it, having made it perfectly clear in my PA that I had tried to find out when the next Heathrow was but my radio calls had gone unanswered, and that the best thing for them to do was to get off the train promptly and allow me to change ends and get the train out of the way so that if there was one behind, I wouldn’t be holding it up!

Anyway, I’m sure that’s quite enough from me for now..!

Bang!

Published on September 1, 2009 in Driving. 4 Comments

Approaching Southgate on the westbound last night, the home signals stayed red. I was a bit confused; you can see the signals for quite a distance and they really should have cleared by the time I got there. I stopped the train at the first red, made a PA about how the previous train must still be in the platform, and a few seconds later got a direct radio call informing me that they believed the train in front was on fire. Oops! New PA.

Sat and waited, and waited, heard a general radio announcement about the delay, and then control got back to me on the radio asking if my signal was still red - it was, as were the other two homes. Control’s slightly-worried response that he thought the train was out of the platform and that he would find out what was going on had me starting to revise in my head the procedure for passing signals at danger, and when he did get back to me a few minutes later that was confirmed - I was to pass A910A, A910B and A910C at danger and then pull just my cab into the platform and follow the DMT’s instructions.

I got into the tunnel mouth and saw the train ahead of me, just outside the platform - and white lights on the front, indicating that it was going to be brought back *into* the platform. This was confirmed by the DMT and supervisor, I handed over my train keys to the SS (so that there was no chance of my train moving) and then got caught up on the gossip while the DMT went back to the other train, traction current was taken off for him to remove something from the track, and then the train was finally moved back into the platform, stopping a couple of feet short of my own train.

It turned out that what had happened was that one of the compressors had blown out - with such a load bang that the station staff upstairs had heard it and come running down, initially suspecting someone had kicked it/knocked over some of the escalator hoardings, and with such force that a side panel had been blown off. The smell of burning on the platform was quite intense although, with Southgate being in its own little tunnel section, it was dispersing a bit - although maybe I just got used to it because I was there for about half an hour in the end!

The train was finally moved off and, once it was clear of the platform and the station starter had returned to green, I pulled into the platform and then set off myself. Due to still being under the rule from passing the previous signals at danger, I had to stay in slow speed until nearly the end of the tunnel, but the incident train was being driven fairly slowly anyway so it didn’t make a huge deal of difference. I was now running about 50 minutes late. I was due to pick another train up at Acton to go east, and assumed that it would have departed without me long before - but no, they’d kindly put the damn thing on the sidings so I could take it east late!

Catching Up…

Published on August 29, 2009 in Driving. 0 Comments

I keep meaning to write but when I get home I’m too mentally drained; I’ve been sleeping badly due to three health issues rearing themselves at once - one is over and done with (a bout of tonsillitis) but the others are still ongoing and neither are an easy fix. One is going to require a hospital visit and in the meantime, because I would prefer to keep working, I can’t take strong enough painkillers to quash it entirely. The third will hopefully clear up next week - unfortunately I had to let it run for five weeks to prove that it was enough of a problem to actually get something done about it. And although the course of treatment (which takes ten days) will clear the problem up immediately, there isn’t anything to say it won’t just recur at the end of the ten days… argh! Thankfully from the 6th I’m on leave for a fortnight so I may manage to recharge my batteries in between dashing all over London seeing people that I’ve had to put off because I’ve had no mental energy for anything but sleep and work.

I seem to keep getting spare shifts, which really isn’t helping much - since doing nights mid-July I’ve had four weeks with two spare shifts in, I think (including next week). Two I lost by getting them switched to running turns, thankfully. Today I sat around for two and a half hours before starting driving, which tends to kill my brain off - L ‘kindly’ came in and shared some details of a recent dream she had. Which was very sweet of her.. (!). Well, it made a change from sharing our usual SPAD dreams, anyway. I had one recently where, after having the actual SPAD (which was caused by two repeaters going blank), the brakes failed and the train started up again and derailed in a garden. It was supposed to be set on the eastbound between Arnos and Southgate but had that usual rather dubious geography that tends to occur in dreams - whereas in reality houses back the line just before the tunnel mouth, we actually ended up in a front garden in a small cul-de-sac.

I’ve passed the 1938 stock twice recently - once while it was stopped on the westbound local between South Ealing and Northfields (having glimpsed it coming out of the sidings at Arnos ahead of me). On this occasion it was stationary and I was able to coast the train past and make a PA for anyone interested in knowing what it was. The second occasion was in the dark a day or two back: it was on the eastbound local, presumably bound for Upminster where it will be on display this weekend for the depot open day. It was in motion, as was I, and I had a moment of confusion as I knew it wasn’t a battery loco but couldn’t think what else it could be until it got a little nearer!

I had a saloon intruder alarm go off today departing Terminal 5 eastbound, but nothing was obviously disturbed once I got to T12&3 and could go back to investigate. One of the panels seemed a little loose, but was secured enough that it should still have been making more than enough contact to register as closed - if we’d had a rough time pulling away from the platform I might have been inclined to think it had just lost contact briefly, but it was a fairly smooth departure, so goodness only knows!

I had my [url=http://www.coralleane.co.uk/wordpress/?p=289]nemesis train[/url] to drive for the first time since it wrenched my shoulder last August. Thankfully, everything went smoothly and there were no injuries this time! And how weird it is to think that it’s now nearly a year since I actually passed out. L had a P&D (Performance and Development) thingy recently and I don’t think I’ve had one as a T/Op at all yet - even though they’re meant to be done every year or six months (can’t remember which!). Still, given that I’m fairly content where I am, I’m not too bothered!

During the tonsillitis bout I needed to come back to work before I was fit to drive - well, I was fit to *drive*, but I wasn’t fit to make PA’s or communicate safely over the radio as my voice was weak and painful to use when it was working at all. I did a day of light duties, running round and collecting staff files for new starters at the depot for the admin office. The first place I went was East Finchley, and it wasn’t until I’d collected the file and was making my way to the bus stop that I realised that East Finchley was very nearly where I ended up working. I wonder how things would have turned out had I been on the Northern and not the Picc? It was definitely one of those moments where you can see your alternative life branching off, almost..!

…And Big Things

Published on August 1, 2009 in Driving. 0 Comments

First half went mostly okay - from an operational point of view, anyway. Not so sure about my mental state as I seemed a bit adrift, and heavy rain most of the way out to Uxbridge and back didn’t help much. However, around the time I got to Finsbury Park on the eastbound (getting off at Arnos on the east for meal break), Kings Cross was closed down due to a suspect package in the cross passage of our platforms there. Unfortunately, that meant no running trains through, either. The shutdown was probably about half an hour in total, meaning absolute chaos with trains stacking up and having to be sent to sidings/depots where possible.

Due to luck of the draw, mine and L’s meal breaks were aligned today, as were our pickups afterwards, so by the time we’d spent meal break chatting, perhaps bitching a little, and then wandered over to the platforms to wait for our (very late) trains, my mood was lifted quite a bit. I’m afraid I do quite enjoy disruption! I finally finished ten minutes late (and that was after the train was reversed at Arnos, instead of going through to Cockfosters and me getting off on the west where I should have done), so that’s some overtime. The platforms coming back east were absolutely packed - there were several stations which I spent a minute in just because people had only just started getting on the train after the ones already on had managed to get off.

I also had quite a sweet encounter at Acton Town on the west; a mother brought her young boy up to the train door to wave, so I opened it and commented on how I loved his Thomas the Tank Engine shoes - turned out he had Thomas on his jeans as well! I have to confess to being a Thomas fan (in fact, I’m fairly sure this has come up before…) so it really was genuine appreciation. ;) Apparently he is quite a train nut at the moment… I wonder how that will turn out? Someday when I’m doddering around waiting out my last few years before retirement he might be whizzing round driving a train himself while I sit around whining about the old days. Or he may just lose all interest.

Another spare shift tomorrow. Coverage is crappy at weekends at the moment (L wanted today off for a *very* good reason and couldn’t get it - there were 11 shifts uncovered and only ten spares to do them as it was) so I’m likely to have some driving to do, but I’ve arranged to meet J at Clapham Junction for about 5pm, which will be tight if I work right up to time, and probably impossible if I have to go over time.

Little Things

Published on July 31, 2009 in Driving. 2 Comments

Well, thanks to nights, snips and spares, today was my first full-length driving shift in about three weeks! The day seemed to be full of niggles - an intruder alarm, a whole rash of PEA’s, lineside fire at Arnos, delayed crew reliefs.. etc, etc, etc! Even so, I didn’t actually finish late. I did give a lift to a CSA from the Heathrow group, as there had been a huge gap between the previous Heathrow train and myself and my train was absolutely jam-packed as a result, so that was quite nice - she was thankfully very chatty. I always feel silly if I have to blather on.

Was very amused by the two little boys who, on passing me tipping out the train at Heathrow T5, pointed and squealed excitedly, “There’s the driver!”. Aww.

I have spares again *twice* next week, one on Sunday and I believe the other is Thursday. I hate them at the best of times but I’m finding them especially grating at the moment. If I sit around for a few hours before going to drive, I’m exhausted mentally and find driving a real struggle.

On Waterloo Bridge

Published on July 22, 2009 in Other. 0 Comments

I keep coming across this one in our trains as part of the poems on the Underground thing, and really like it:

On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
the head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across

-Wendy Cope

Want To Be A CSA?

Published on July 16, 2009 in CSA and Other. 2 Comments

CSA Role - Now Hiring

..but better apply quickly. Taken from that page:

Due to the expected high response to this vacancy we reserve the right to close this campaign once we have a suitable pool of applicants, which could be prior to the published application closing date of the 17th July

Emphasis mine!!

Nights

Published on July 14, 2009 in Driving. 0 Comments

Currently doing a week of nights, which is a new experience for me - I didn’t get to do any on training but thankfully got looked after by the regulars who showed me where to go and what to do. I was spare Sunday night and ended up running a few staff trains in the morning as we were so short, and last night I had a very bitty duty with lots of back-and-forthing, some of which was cut short by signalling problems in the Hanger Lane area. On Monday morning I encountered the deer between Oakwood and Cockfosters, which was a nice surprise. Thankfully, there was no physical contact! This morning I passed several battery locos, which always makes for an interesting sight. Unfortunately as the signalling problem had not been completely fixed overnight, at least one of them ended up trapped on our line and had to go to Northfields as it couldn’t reach Ruislip.

Just Things

Published on July 6, 2009 in Driving. 1 Comment

Got caught up in a backlog of trains today after a large branch fell on the line between Hounslows Central and West. Several trains were reversed in Northfields depot, but I did end up running through. I think I lost about twenty minutes in total but as I was covering as a spare it didn’t really make much difference to me at all. Traction current had to be taken off so that a supervisor could go down and drag it off. I was held at two signals on the approach to South Ealing - one for over ten minutes, the other for a few minutes, and then in South Ealing itself for another few minutes, which passed fairly promptly as they’d sent a CSA down to the platform so we had a natter.

The other day I stabled in the depot and the rabbits seem to have been breeding like, well, rabbits - they were everywhere. I was getting fairly close to some of them, a couple of feet at most. The depot staff were also busying themselves over testing the trains; there was one waiting to board mine at the opposite end the moment I came in. I wasn’t even out of the cab before the ‘other cab on’ light illuminated on the CDU, indicating that he’d already got the control key in. As I headed down towards the autophone to call Arnos and let them know I’d not been squashed in the wilds of the depot, I could see the doors on my train being opened and closed and a voice was announcing something about a radio test.

Saturday, we had engineering work. This necessitated travelling through Baron’s Court sidings and on into the eastbound platform at Hammersmith. Unfortunately, at least two people passed the signal in the sidings at danger, and messages popped up on various T/Op noticeboards to remind people to be careful of the signal there. In addition, the service update message that is periodically put out over the train radios acquired the slightly sarcastic - to my mind - message reminding us that “Drivers should take care when reversing in unfamiliar locations.”

In an ideal world, we’re supposed to be retrained on each move every six months. Now, we have several hundred drivers on the Piccadilly line and there are several different moves that simply aren’t done on a regular basis - Kings Cross reversers, Down Street reversers, the sidings at Hammersmith/Baron’s Court and so on. I’d never done the exact move in question before - I’ve reversed in Baron’s Court sidings and reversed in Hammersmith sidings, but never run through. However, there was a printout showing the move in detail available at the booking on point last weekend, and it’s been up in the late notice case all week, so there has been the chance to read up on it.

Anyway, this has gone all rambly and unfocused (I think I’m overtired..!) so I’m shutting up now.

Invisible Train

Published on June 29, 2009 in Driving. 0 Comments

I was bringing a train out of the depot this afternoon, one of the afternoon peak ones. The list of where to find trains in the depot wasn’t available when I turned up, so I had to wait. I was eventually told it was on one of the cleaning roads, so over I trundled to pick it up. As I headed down the walkway, I realised I had been assigned a very special train: London Underground’s Top Secret Stealth Train. Well, either that, or my train wasn’t there! I veered off towards the shunter’s cabin but, while I was still a few paces short, my own train did glide into position, so off I went to sort it out ready for service. The railing alongside the train was festooned with a whole load of cleaning rags, and there were pallet-wrapped stacks of seats beside it as well, which all made for a rather odd scene.

Coming into South Kensington I saw one of the girls in my CSA group waiting on the platform. I’d not seen her since then, so that was a nice surprise. She’s currently going for Supervisor, apparently.

I was going out to Uxbridge and looking forward to a nice long run with the door open, given the heat, which meant of course that somewhere round about Alperton it started absolutely chucking it down with rain. The intensity varied, but it was torrential at several points. It cleared up between Hillingdon and Uxbridge (luckily, since I didn’t have my raincoat!), but after I’d changed ends the heavens opened again, even worse than they had previously! I ended up doing selective door close and we made very quick stops at Hillingdon through to Ruislip, where it started to ease up again. It was so heavy that the spray was causing a fog-like effect, making some signals a bit difficult to sight, and there was water cascading off the platforms at Ickenham like waterfalls. Truly, truly odd weather!