Here’s the graffitied train I mentioned back on Wednesday 12 May 2010.

I finally downloaded all the photos off my mobile so here are a few Tube related ones. This was at about a month ago, it wasn't so much that it was a huge panda, what disturbed me was that it appears to have been the recipient of a frontal lobotomy.

We have a useful programme on the LUL internal system called Trackernet which displays a map of any given line and shows the trains moving along, very useful for keeping tabs on your next train.

I have no idea what happened to my fellow TOp and the manager who went into HAI dept but ten minutes before I was due to relieve them on the WB they were nowhere to be seen on Trackernet. The DMT had a look for my train on the Predictor, another bit of kit, and that confirmed that my train was indeed missing. A call to Wood Lane confirmed that there had been a few problems and I was told to take over a train due to go out of service at RUG and make it into mine, a piece of news very welcome to the TOp I took over from as it saved him a long, cold walk out of RUI depot.

So once more I was late picking up and each time I reached my destination I had just enough time to change ends before I was back off again. Despite this by the time I started the last trip before my meal break (EPP – WHC) I was back on time. Just as I was about to pull away from HOL we were told to hold on platforms for a train with door problems so I ended up being ten minutes late which just gave me enough time to squeeze in my meal break before I had to pick up my second half which thanks to a bit of switching around was on time.

Off till Monday, try to keep warm.

I’m doing the same shift as yesterday and obviously I was wondering if I’d have another wasted hike into HAI yard but I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me when I booked on. One of my colleagues is being assessed under Competency Management, the system LUL presents as evidence to the Office of Rail Regulation that our staff are capable of doing their jobs.

Part of the TOp’s examination is to bring a train into service and as luck would have it the assessing manager chose my train for this purpose. So here I am sat in the rest room again waiting for a train to drive. It snowed quite heavily through the night but we seem to be running all right at the moment.

Nothing much happened yesterday and the dead train at Debden is as yet unmolested. My highlight was about half a dozen magpies hoping around the track between LES and SNA, it reminded me that we see a fair amount of wildlife trackside, especially the EPP branch. Loads of rabbits between DEB-THB and occasionally up towards EPP, wood pigeon especially between LOU-DEB, squirrels anywhere there are trees and plenty of crows.

There are a fair amount of foxes around, I saw one excellent specimen in the summer sunning itself on a patch of grass just past SOW who barely raised its head to acknowledge the train’s approach. And a few days ago while sat here at a PC a blue tit perched on the window sill and peered in at me. Mustn’t forget the huge rat that crawled out of a bush at NOA and then scuttled back or the mice that inhabit the platforms in the tunnel sections.

This morning I was meant to start by getting a train out of the yard at HAI, I got the “road number” from the DMT on the desk and jumped on a train. When I walked into the yard I found my train had a “target” on it which basically tells us that someone is working on this train and not to touch it under any circumstances. I checked with the DDM who happily told me that he’d phoned the DMT shortly after I’d left to say that the train was unavailable so I trudged back out of the yard in the snow and rode the cushions back to LES. They’re going to reform a train due to go out of service in about an hour and I’ll make that into my train.

On the subject of broken down trains there’s one currently stuck in the siding at DEB which we are informed is in such a bad way that it will be staying there for a few days. I went past it yesterday; completely dead except for a single red light on either end, effectively 150 tons of scrap metal. Considering that recently we’ve had ne’er-do-wells sneaking onto the track at night and stealing signal cabling I wouldn’t be surprised if the local tea-leaves eyeball it and start taking it away in stages.

After Strike day we had snow day. All the trains were running late and every time I reached the end of the line I had just enough time to change ends before the signal cleared again. After my meal break there was a further delay while the PWay sorted out a track problem between HOP and NHG which left me stood waiting for my train on the EB platforms at WHC with a train either side.

Being a helpful sort I suggested that it would be nice if we shifted the passengers from the train due out second onto the one out first, the TOp made a PA and the passengers duly trooped over to the train on the opposite platform. Predictably Wood Lane then switched the order and we had to herd them back across the platform. So much for being “pro active”.

Monday was strike day, I’d been monitoring the Central Line at home while I got ready for work and when I left we were running EPP and HAI into HOL on the east end of the line and WHC to EAB and WER on the west. By the time I’d got in, booked on and been handed a job someone had decided to run LES to WHC. I have absolutely no idea of the logic behind this decision, I am but a mere TOp and have no insight into the workings of the higher minds that run the Tube.

Half the stations were closed and nothing was open between BOS and WHC. This doesn’t mean that there were no staff there rather that there were insufficient numbers to meet the legal minimum staffing level. If any of these properly “under ground” stations had been totally unmanned then we would have had to tip the passengers out at the last open station and run through empty. Fire Regs.

The other minor problem was that Auto can only handle one station closed at a time, if there are two consecutive stations closed it goes through the first one but stops at the second so we had to drive the trains manually. So much for us Central Line drivers being nothing more than “door openers”, yah boo sucks GLA Tories!

Anyway after I’d done my first WB trip to WHC NHG reopened. Unfortunately I was changing ends so I didn’t hear the radio message from Wood Lane informing us of this so when the signal cleared I cheerfully announced that the train wouldn’t be stopping till BOS. When I pulled into NHG and saw passengers on the platform I had to call Wood Lane to ask if the station was really open. During a previous strike a Jubilee Line TOp opened up the doors at Canada Water when it was closed and the poor punters were stuck in there for 40 minutes. Whoops.