First day back on nights, very odd changing over from bed at 9pm and starting work at 5:30am to going to work at 9pm and going home at 5:30am. Very quiet, perhaps a mixture of too many days off to enjoy themselves, the impending VAT rise and the nervousness about the future has people staying in watching TV. One poor soul at the ticket office window at EPP, as I walked past I heard “So I take that train to Loughton, then what?”; something you don’t want to find yourself asking at half past midnight on a Sunday when your final destination is obviously not LOU.
Otherwise not much to report other than I managed to swap my rest day Friday week (14) with a colleague who had Tuesday (11); I’ve been offered a ticket for West Ham v Birmingham in the League Cup Semi. Come on you Irons!!!!!!
Monday, 3 January 2011
Saturday, 1 January 2011
The moment I got into work there was a job for me; one of the LOU earlies had blown out, there was a train in WOO sidings due out at 05:33 so I was told to jump in a taxi at 05:35, run it to LES then up to EPP and back again and then someone would take me off. I pointed out that the first EB left at 05:36 and would be quicker than any taxi, here we are trying to save money and there’s Wood Lane not even bothering to check the timetable!
Even so by the time I got to WOO and got the train prepped there wasn’t enough time to get it to LES so we did a shunt over to the EB platform and we were on time again going up to EPP. When I got back to LES I waited for a while for my replacement to show up and then called the DMT on the desk.
There had been a change over while I was away and predicatably I had been overlooked. All the spares that had been hanging around over the past three days were doing the extra night turns for all night running on New Year’s Eve so off I went to WHC where I was relieved and rode the cushions back to LES.
And that was it for the rest of the day, very quiet once more though I was told it livened up as the morning progressed. Happy New Year to one and all.
Even so by the time I got to WOO and got the train prepped there wasn’t enough time to get it to LES so we did a shunt over to the EB platform and we were on time again going up to EPP. When I got back to LES I waited for a while for my replacement to show up and then called the DMT on the desk.
There had been a change over while I was away and predicatably I had been overlooked. All the spares that had been hanging around over the past three days were doing the extra night turns for all night running on New Year’s Eve so off I went to WHC where I was relieved and rode the cushions back to LES.
And that was it for the rest of the day, very quiet once more though I was told it livened up as the morning progressed. Happy New Year to one and all.
Friday, 31 December 2010
I managed to get on the right train Thursday, everything went to timetable, not one call from Wood Lane, not even any serious delays on any other lines and if anything there were less passengers than Wednesday. I’m spare Friday so in all likelihood my next report will be even duller.
Even though I’m back on nights next week as it’s the week after New Year everybody will be partied out and I’ll be over at WER most nights so the possibility of amusing drunks will be greatly reduced. Shame I couldn’t get the last EPP on Christmas week, I did that a couple of years ago and it was a bonanza of oversleepers. The saddest case was the suit on Christmas Eve, I tried in vain to wake him at EPP and ended up taking him to LOU. Between me and the Super we managed to get him on his feet and then while I stabled the train in the sidings the Super shepherded him out the station.
Christmas Day is the one time stations are guaranteed to be unstaffed and one of the rare occasions the late turn Super gets the padlock and chain out to lock the gates. When I got to the gates the Super was waiting to close up and go home so I asked if he’d found out where the suit was trying to get to. Slough. Ouch, a good fifty miles round the M25, at half past midnight Christmas morning, wonder what the minicab fare was on that?
Even though I’m back on nights next week as it’s the week after New Year everybody will be partied out and I’ll be over at WER most nights so the possibility of amusing drunks will be greatly reduced. Shame I couldn’t get the last EPP on Christmas week, I did that a couple of years ago and it was a bonanza of oversleepers. The saddest case was the suit on Christmas Eve, I tried in vain to wake him at EPP and ended up taking him to LOU. Between me and the Super we managed to get him on his feet and then while I stabled the train in the sidings the Super shepherded him out the station.
Christmas Day is the one time stations are guaranteed to be unstaffed and one of the rare occasions the late turn Super gets the padlock and chain out to lock the gates. When I got to the gates the Super was waiting to close up and go home so I asked if he’d found out where the suit was trying to get to. Slough. Ouch, a good fifty miles round the M25, at half past midnight Christmas morning, wonder what the minicab fare was on that?
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Dead early, 05:25 start. I managed to turn off my alarm and only woke up with just enough time to get dressed and get to work. We’re running a Saturday timetable but on a weekday roster so we have loads of spares sitting around. More passengers around today but still not up to normal levels, a lot milder and very foggy early on at the extreme ends of the line.
On normal Saturdays and weekdays number 01 duty takes the first WB train to WER and number 02 takes the first EB to EPP. As this isn’t a Saturday but we are running a Saturday timetable someone decided that they would swap 01 and 02 around which I didn’t realise until I was sat in the cab of the first EB train. I had to walk all the way back along the platform while a couple of hundred delayed passengers scowled at me and I cursed the miserable desk jockeys who generate the timetables and rosters.
Apart from that everything went fine until the very end when a defective train at MIE WB shut everything down all the way back to EPP and had me sat at SNA for about 20 minutes. Eventually they tipped one out at LES and sent it up to the shunt signal so they could get my train in. The line was still suspended LES – LIS when I left.
Tomorrow I’m doing number 01 and I’m going to check which train I’m on before I get on it.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
London was pretty empty yesterday, the only time any platform looked remotely crowded was around 16:00 EB at BOS and OXO. Every time I saw a train going the other way the cars were sparsely populated, we are running a Saturday service and it certainly is more than we need.
Evidence of how quiet it was came at the start of my second half, when the train pulled in I noticed that the front double doors on the leading car hadn’t opened and on investigation found that some scallywag had carefully peeled one of the Central Line maps that runs above the seats and then stuck it across the doors. Damn they use strong glue on those things. One assumes that the front car must have been empty at some point on it’s EB journey in order for the culprits to perform their act of mischief and escape detection.
Despite the scarcity of passengers we still had enough delays, it seemed as if we’d only resolved one before Wood Lane were calling “platforms and hold” for another. An “incident” here, a “passenger alarm” there, all little niggling delays but nothing major. The major delay was down to a signal problem at BEG EB which I ran into on my first half, halfway into the platform Auto packed in and when I switched to Coded I couldn’t get a brake release. Now this could have been a “platform plunger” but I had codes which shouldn’t have been there if that were the case.
BEG is in a “controlled area”, one where the signals are semi-auto. Oh well I’d better explain basic signalling to you, I will try and keep this simple. Two types of signal, auto and semi auto. A signal tells you what’s going on in the section of track between it and the next signal. A green signal means the track is “clear” and that it is safe to proceed, a red signal indicates “danger”, that there is something ahead.
All sections work as a basic electrical circuit, if the circuit is broken the signal in front of them goes to danger, a trains wheels will break the circuit so any signal will go to red if there is a train in the section ahead. An auto is just a simple circuit while a semi has to be activated by the signaller or signal computer. They are used in conjunction with points and will only clear when the points are set in your favour and obviously there are no trains in the section ahead.
At an auto under a given set of conditions I can pass a signal at danger under my own authority but where there are semis, a controlled area, I cannot so four cars into BEG EB platform I had to call Wood Lane to get the okay to pull in the rest of the way while the bemused passengers on the platform stared in at me; now I know how Clive feels. The problem persisited for most of the afternoon but had been resolved by the time I came EB again.
9am – 5:30pm, stupid time to work. Who could possibly live like that? Rest Day today, West Ham on TV again and then three dead earlies, 05:30 starts, ahhhhh that’s more like it.
Evidence of how quiet it was came at the start of my second half, when the train pulled in I noticed that the front double doors on the leading car hadn’t opened and on investigation found that some scallywag had carefully peeled one of the Central Line maps that runs above the seats and then stuck it across the doors. Damn they use strong glue on those things. One assumes that the front car must have been empty at some point on it’s EB journey in order for the culprits to perform their act of mischief and escape detection.
Despite the scarcity of passengers we still had enough delays, it seemed as if we’d only resolved one before Wood Lane were calling “platforms and hold” for another. An “incident” here, a “passenger alarm” there, all little niggling delays but nothing major. The major delay was down to a signal problem at BEG EB which I ran into on my first half, halfway into the platform Auto packed in and when I switched to Coded I couldn’t get a brake release. Now this could have been a “platform plunger” but I had codes which shouldn’t have been there if that were the case.
BEG is in a “controlled area”, one where the signals are semi-auto. Oh well I’d better explain basic signalling to you, I will try and keep this simple. Two types of signal, auto and semi auto. A signal tells you what’s going on in the section of track between it and the next signal. A green signal means the track is “clear” and that it is safe to proceed, a red signal indicates “danger”, that there is something ahead.
All sections work as a basic electrical circuit, if the circuit is broken the signal in front of them goes to danger, a trains wheels will break the circuit so any signal will go to red if there is a train in the section ahead. An auto is just a simple circuit while a semi has to be activated by the signaller or signal computer. They are used in conjunction with points and will only clear when the points are set in your favour and obviously there are no trains in the section ahead.
At an auto under a given set of conditions I can pass a signal at danger under my own authority but where there are semis, a controlled area, I cannot so four cars into BEG EB platform I had to call Wood Lane to get the okay to pull in the rest of the way while the bemused passengers on the platform stared in at me; now I know how Clive feels. The problem persisited for most of the afternoon but had been resolved by the time I came EB again.
9am – 5:30pm, stupid time to work. Who could possibly live like that? Rest Day today, West Ham on TV again and then three dead earlies, 05:30 starts, ahhhhh that’s more like it.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Friday was as quiet as Thursday, it had a sort of Saturday feel to it, not the last minute rush the shops were hoping for. Tomorrow I will be on strike for the first time in all my years on the Tube and I’ll be manning the picket line at my local pub on the High Road watching West Ham v Fulham. As I said yesterday this could all have been avoided if LUL had offered to reduce the number of TOps working Boxing Day at any time over the past month and when they made the offer on Wednesday morning they knew full well it was far too late to do anything.
So if I wanted one thing for Christmas I would ask Santa to bring us senior management with a bit of imagination, a bit of vision, with an actual desire to provide the best service we could for our passengers and to treat the staff as a valued resource rather than something to be defeated at every turn. As I think I’ve mentioned before things definitely seemed to be improving under Tim O’Toole who worked in US rail freight before he came to LUL so maybe we need to attract the brightest and best from the railway industry rather than simply promoting from within.
LUL is part of TfL and the chairman of TfL is the Mayor of London so if you want real change on the Tube then in May 2012 you need to vote for a Mayor who is actually committed to improving the Tube. I’m not going to suggest one person or one party but have a good read of the section on transport in each each candidate's manifesto then ask yourself does what they say seem reasonable and more importantly is it possible. If all they talk about is buses, bikes, cable cars across the Thames, airports on islands and smashing the RMT then perhaps they aren’t really that interested in the Tube.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
So if I wanted one thing for Christmas I would ask Santa to bring us senior management with a bit of imagination, a bit of vision, with an actual desire to provide the best service we could for our passengers and to treat the staff as a valued resource rather than something to be defeated at every turn. As I think I’ve mentioned before things definitely seemed to be improving under Tim O’Toole who worked in US rail freight before he came to LUL so maybe we need to attract the brightest and best from the railway industry rather than simply promoting from within.
LUL is part of TfL and the chairman of TfL is the Mayor of London so if you want real change on the Tube then in May 2012 you need to vote for a Mayor who is actually committed to improving the Tube. I’m not going to suggest one person or one party but have a good read of the section on transport in each each candidate's manifesto then ask yourself does what they say seem reasonable and more importantly is it possible. If all they talk about is buses, bikes, cable cars across the Thames, airports on islands and smashing the RMT then perhaps they aren’t really that interested in the Tube.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
