London was spookily quiet Thursday, at 8am it felt decidedly off-peak which was made even odder by the Evening Standard announcing that shoppers were flooding into the West End; not on the Central Line they weren’t, matey. Despite being the only London paper ES does seem to restrict itself to regurgitating press releases rather than actually looking for substance behind the claims and this seems to have been a bit of wishful thinking on behalf of the West End shops which some hack had written up as factual.

And on that note I can confirm that the Boxing Day strike will go ahead despite LUL trying to get it stopped in the courts. We all got a nice note from Howard Collins telling us that at ACAS on Wednesday morning LUL had generously offered to reduce the number of TOps working on Boxing Day and that nasty ASLEF had refused.

Actually ASLEF should have agreed if the amended timetable, roster, etc could be in place by start of traffic Friday in accordance with LUL’s own rule that any alteration to duties must be made at least 48 hours in advance. LUL would then have to admit that it was impossible as these things take weeks to check and double check and then send out to the depots where local alterations can be made.

This was what we wanted from the start and it is a fine example of how frustrating management can be that they only make this offer when they couldn’t possibly give it to us rather than when we first asked for it over a month ago or even after the strike ballot had been announced. With the Royal Wedding coming up expect LUL to avoid talking to the Unions about arrangements until mid-April.

The first half of my duty finished with me stabling a train at HAI so when I arrived at Plat 3 I went through the train closing up and checking that the train was passenger free. As I sat back down in the cab and waited for the shunt signal to clear I got a call on the “cab to cab; there was a TOp at the other end if the train who informed me that he had been sent to take this train west.

As I headed off to the train crew accommodation for my meal relief a passenger complained that they’d been directed up to the train on Plat 1 for the first WB and there were still a lot of passengers sitting there waiting despite the station PA announcing the change of platform.

I was going to pass this information onto the station staff when I got to the DMTs desk but when I got there the DMT informed me that Wood Lane had been trying to contact me over the station PA as they now wanted me to take the train sat on Plat 1 into the yard.

As I closed up on Plat 1 several passengers expressed their understandable frustration at being sent to a train and then being turned off. They have my sympathy but communication of "real time" information with staff and passengers remains one of LUL’s failings. Sadly if Wood Lane decide to swap trains around at short notice it's not them that get the grief it's those of us out here on the "front line".

After the chaos of the last few days Tuesday was going quite nicely until an hour before I was due to finish. With just a run up to EPP and back to LES to do there was a “next platforms and hold” call for the entire line as Wood Lane had lost all control of the signals east of LIS due to a power supply failure. Thankfully power was restored after a couple of minutes but as an after effect the escalators at BEG weren’t working and a few platforms didn’t have any CCTV.

Now as I have explained before if we don’t have CCTV in the cab we get Wood Lane to “watch” us out but if they don’t have it either then a member of station staff has to come down to give us the “right” and stand by an emergency platform plunger or “code buster” in case something goes wrong. What this little device does when activated is to put the signal code at the platform to zero, effectively giving the train a red light.

What the Line Controller instructed us to do was to “self despatch” if the platform was straight, without the failsafe of a member of station staff which is a big no-no and as we have seen up on the Bakerloo just because the Line Controller or the signaller instructs to do something doesn’t mean if something goes wrong you will no be offered the chance to join the fastest growing club in the UK, the dole queue.

So when I rolled up at DEB EB to find my screen blank I hit the whistle to attract the attention of the station staff and when none appeared I got on the radio to Wood Lane. Sure enough the Controller asked me to “self dispatch” and I refused, insisting on someone being there on the platform before I moved. I tried the whistle again and this time the Super appeared, I closed up, received confirmation that it was okay to go and set off again. I got a quick turnaround at EPP and when I reached BUH WB there was a member of staff on the platform waiting to give me the right.

With cuts to station staff coming in February and a leaked memo admitting the possibility of some stations being without any staff at certain times what will happen if we have a similar CCTV failure. I for one will certainly not be risking my job and my pension to keep the service running.

Other than that Auto was just not happy with the weather conditions. I gave up after we’d pulled up halfway into the platform for the third time and just stuck the train into Coded Manual for the rest of the trip. What with that and the CCTV I was only five minutes late getting to back LES. Wednesday is my rest day, I’m off to buy sprouts.

Air is not only essential to humans it’s also very important to trains. The doors and brakes are operated by compressed air, the whistle and the windscreen wipers too though obviously not as vital. Central Line trains, 92s, are made up of four two-car units and one car in every unit has a compressor. With every compressor there is a governor which monitors the air pressure and the whole system is linked throughout the train by pipes so if a compressor on one unit isn’t working the governor can start the compressors on the other units to feed it’s tank. This will be important later.

Monday was meant to be very simple; LES to EPP, EPP to WER, WER to LES, grub, then repeat and go home. To start with my first train was running ten late and when I relieved the TOp he explained that he had a governor stuck in which meant that all the compressors we running at full whack. Obviously if they are constantly working they will eventually overheat and then things get all flamey and generally unpleasent so he’d isolated it and a train technician should catch up with me on the way back. They never did.

As I headed up to EPP Wood Lane informed us that a train at HOP EB had suffered a mainline burst, the pipe that connects all the air tanks. This is a very bad thing because without air pressure on a pair of switches we cannot get the brakes off on the unit with the burst, so we have to isolate it from the healthy units, turn off the compressor and governor so we can empty the compressed air tanks to get the brakes off.

At the same time the air pressure holds back the Emergency Spring-applied Brake, a bit like a hand brake, so this will jam on once all the air is bled off. When we do get moving we have to drag the train through the brake pads, making progress very slow. All in all mainline bursts are considered to be the worst defect that you can suffer.

The absolute worst is a mainline burst on the lead unit as without those the pressure switches I mentioned earlier you cannot get the train moving, so you either need a train behind to push you along or another TOp will be ferried to the back of your train and they will drive in reverse while you instruct them from the front. And the computer was telling the TOp at HOP that the burst was on the lead unit. Not good.

Anyway I got away WB at EPP only a few minutes down and was expecting to be turned around at MAA but when I got to LOU Wood Lane announced that there had been a second mainline burst, this time on the WB between LEY and STR. Now thankfully MLBs are rare so to have two in the space of thirty minutes was incredible and I’m sure I was not the only TOp wondering if it was something to do with the weather and praying that I would be next.

I was held at LOU for a while, then moved up to WOO before being cleared up to SNA and then we got very lucky. The MLB at HOP was actually on the coupler between the first and second units, not on the first unit itself, which mean that the pressure switches were working and the train could move as normal. While I was making my way to SNA we got the all clear at LES-STR too so I guess that was a similar situation; a bullet dodged.

Regardless of our good fortune I was running 20 minutes late by now but Wood Lane decided to “stock and crew” me at SOR. I pulled into the WB platform, another train pulled into the EB platform, we swapped trains, I changed the number on the train I got on to the number of the train I’d got off and hey presto train 666 and it’s driver are back on time. My lunch break was saved.

Except I’d not reached NOR EB before I got a call from Wood Lane asking me to check the id number of my rear car. When I confirmed this the Line Controller informed me that the DDM at the depot did not want that train going through the pipe (I was never told why) and I should turn it around at WHC. As I was due to get off for my meal relief at LES in less than an hour the LC said they’d call WHC and get a spare to take me off. Sadly there were no spares available so there was no choice but for me to take it back to RUG and stick it in the yard which would naturally mean that my meal break and my second train were going to be messed up.

Anyway I got as far as SOR before there was yet another “next platforms and hold” call for a points failure at WER so when I should have been making myself a cup of tea I was sat on the front of a train staring at a red signal. Ten minutes later we got the all clear, I tipped out at RUG, stabled the train and walked out of the depot. I presented myself at the DMTs desk for instructions 30 minutes before I was due to pick up my second train at LES, obviously that wasn’t going to happen especially as my second train had been put away in the sidings at LOU.

I jumped the next available train back east and finally got to LES around the time I should have been leaving there for my second trip up to WER. By the time I had my meal break the line was running smoothly but due to the lack of stock available my train didn’t come back into service until after I’d finished. What really made me laugh in all of this was while I was closing the train up prior to going into the depot the automated PA at RUG was announcing that there was a good service on the Central Line which was at the very least woefully optimistic.

On Saturday it snowed. Lots. When I booked on the job was completely up the wall not so much due to the weather but because of a signal failure. While we could send trains from HAI to LES we couldn’t get them LES to HAI so all HAI via NEP trains were being sent up to WOO, round the loop and then back WB; fine if you wanted HAI but a long haul for anyone travelling to stations between NEP and WAN.

In order to ease the congestion caused by all the trains going up the EPP branch to WOO I was instructed to take over a train coming into Platform 3 and reverse it back WB to EAB. The only problem is that for some strange reason when you go WB off Platform 3, normally the EB platform, you get Platform 2 on the CCTV. As I was unable see what I was doing I had to call Wood Lane to observe my departure in order to ensure that there were no accidents while I was leaving. So I was late starting and got later as I made my way to EAB, finally getting there 20 minutes after I should have left.

When I came back EB the signal failure had been sorted but even so by the time I reached HAI I had lost another ten minutes and was made even later by a points failure. After a hold up between LES and LEY I was a long way behind the train in front and the platforms were filling up. By the time I’d reached MIE my train was full and passengers were having to wait for the train behind me. I was getting later and later and still had to go to EAB before I got off for my meal break at WHC.

As I left MAA Wood Lane called up and announced “White City only for relief” which I understood to mean that I would be relieved at WHC but when I came out of the pipe and was directed to the middle platform I realised that they’d meant that the train was terminating there too. I don’t think my passengers were too impressed when I told them that the train would not be going any further. Sorry.

I had slightly over the half an hour minimum for my meal relief before I was due to pick up my second train but when I checked to see where it was it was noticeably absent. I asked the nice helpful DMT on the desk what they wanted me to do and he told me that he’d find me a train to take back east. Sure enough about an hour later he called me up to tell me that I should get a train out of WHC sidings and do my last EAB and back to LES.

So off I trudged in the snow down Wood Lane and then down deep beneath the Westfield Centre. Thankfully I came out on time, got to LES on time but the TOp who was due to take me off was somewhere else on the line and there were no spares available. Now we can’t just leave trains sitting on the track so if was no TOp to relieve me I would have to take the train onto HAI, put it into the depot, walk out and then get a train back to LES, at least another 40-45 minutes to my day. While I would have been paid overtime at that point all I wanted to do was go home. Fortunately there was a TOp waiting to go west in need of a train so they made mine into theirs and I made my escape.

As well as the weather effecting the Tube there the two strikes on the Northern and Bakerloo. As predicted the Bakerloo Line was the worst effected, only running north of Paddington while with only the RMT drivers at Morden Depot on strike the Northern Line was running a “good service”. Still no word on Boxing Day.

There were a lot of hold ups on the Central Line and elsewhere on the Tube for passenger caused problems, either “incidents” or “passenger emergency alarm” (PEA) being activated aka "handle down". Fortunately it was either far behind me or in the other direction but the one that did slow my progress for a mere two minutes has to have had my all time top announcement from Wood Lane. This, as far as my memory goes, is how it went:-

“All eastbound trains, White City to Liverpool Street, next platforms and hold. We are currently waiting for a passenger to be removed from a train at Bank following the earlier fracas, about 20 minutes ago, at Queensway westbound”.

“Earlier fracas”?!?!? So the passenger had previous? My mind was full of visions of some drunken nutter, banned from every pub in London, reduced to cruising Zone 1 trying to pick a fight. And yes, the Control Room person actually said “fracas”, I can only hope that in future we will be encouraged to say something like that on our PAs.

“This train will be held here while staff deal with an altercation at Chancery Lane” or “delays to the Bakerloo Line while honour is satisfied at Edgware Road”.

One can only hope……

It couldn’t last, the first half went timetable but after my meal relief at WHC I got as far as SHB EB and then got held while a train went out if service at LIS. When I came out of the pipe it was snowing, Auto kept failing so eventually I put it into Coded Manual for the rest of the way up to EPP.

I had just enough time to change ends before setting off WB but just as I was about to leave LES Wood Lane put out a "next platforms and hold" call due to an incident at…..LES. The EB train stopped about two cars into the platform so whatever the incident was it was happening on that side but I had no idea what it was. I later learnt it was a passenger “causing a disturbance” and we were instructed to enter LES at caution speed in both directions; nutter or drunk, take your pick.

Eventually the EB train pulled all the way into the platform and after another few minutes we were told to carry on by which time the platforms ahead of me had started to fill up. By the time I reached STP I was packed out and passengers were being left behind. When the platforms are that crowded the passengers trying to get on block the passengers trying to get off which slows things down so my train was getting further behind the one in front while the ones behind were getting closer. This is when we “regulate” the service, get the trains ahead to hold for a minute or so to enable the packed train behind to catch up so that it isn’t arriving at packed platforms.

Despite all this when I finally got to WER I still had seven minutes before I was due to go EB and I finished on time. Which was nice......

I was busy yesterday so this one is a day late. Monday was timetable which makes four days in a row without any major delays to my train and with no incidents to report this is a very boring post. The result of the ballot was announced, 1025 for and 127 against so unless LUL and ASLEF can come to an agreement sometime in the next ten days I shall be on strike for the first time in my thirteen years on the Tube.