Sunday 28 November 2010

Balloon animals on the Tube. Are they deer or dogs? No idea but when I changed ends at WER today there was a whole car full of them. I love this city.














Saturday 13 November 2010

My profuse apologies for not writing but things have been rather fraught in my personal life. Today, Saturday, is my last working day for two weeks so there will be nothing to report until the end of the month. Hopefully I will come back refreshed and in the right frame of mind to delight you with further tales of everyday life on the Central Line.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Tuesday was good for observing the Platform Train Interface, simply where train meets platform. This is where the overwhelming majority of injuries sustained on the Underground occur so you’d think people would take extra care when getting on and off. You’d be wrong.

First incident, TCR WB, a group of teenagers boarding the train, one at the back totally engrossed in their mobile/ipod/whatever, goes to get on the train, his foot finds the gap between train and platform, he half trips and then scuttles on board. Obviously not good at multi tasking.

Second incident, later that evening, HOL WB, woman with small child hurrying to get on the train, child struggling to keep up, as she gets on the child stumbles and is only kept from falling down the gap because she’s holding on to it’s hand. Lifts it up like a bag of shopping and whisks it into the carriage. Our future generations are safe with granny.

Other than that not much to report other than the usual ATO/ATP failures, was a little late because I got held at WOO while two trains went over the points in front of me and because of the strike the last WB train left LES at 22:02, about two hours early. Tomorrow will be fun.

Monday 1 November 2010

After a busy start to the week Wednesday passed without incident, Thursday I was spare and there was nothing for me to do other than sit and wait for something to go wring; it didn’t. Friday I was handed a job the moment I booked on, riding to WHC, picking up a train there, taking it through to EPP and into the sidings at WOO. London was heaving for Halloween, the platforms packed with people in costume and when we got to WHC the train waiting on the EB platform.

Just the one sleeper at EPP, a suit, who was already awake by the time I got to him and asked if we were going back to BUH. The DMT had booked a taxi to take me back to LES and it turned up about fifteen minutes after I’d stabled the train but after a while I noticed that it was taking a rather strange route. It seems that rather than going straight to LES we were picking up a H&C or District driver at Barking. Well I was getting paid so I didn’t complain.

Saturday was reasonably dull, I was on the last EAB, stabling at WHC for the night, with an extra hour as the clocks went back. As I changed ends at EAB I saw someone in the one of the cars asleep and stepped inside to wake them. I was greeted by a very friendly and utterly gorgeous Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy and I will admit that I delayed waking her owner for a minute of two while I fussed her. This job does have it’s good moments.