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.

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.

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.

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.

My deepest apologies for my unforgivable tardiness but I have had various personal and domestic upheavals to deal with since last writing and subsequently the muse deserted me. Not that much has happened, last week while the rest of the Tube seemed to go into complete collapse the Central Line carried on serenely. Oh yes, we are “The Man”

Sunday started off quiet enough, a single body asleep, woke him up and had to explain just where EPP was; ahhhhh, an “overshoot” virgin. At LOU I directed him towards the buses and saw him boarding the 20 heading back into town as I left the station.

In the morning I took the first train up to EPP, changed ends and when the signal changed pushed the Auto start buttons; nothing. I switched into Coded, tried the handle for brake release; still nothing. Even though I was getting codes I tripped the ATP MCB just to be sure but still nothing. I closed down and opened up again; yet more nothing. I tried Restricted, ah, brake release. I called up Wood Lane, they asked me if I done all of the above, were equally bemused and gave me authority to proceed down to THB in RM.

EPP to THB is 2.54km, a journey of two and a half minutes if you get up to line speed, 85kph. It takes a bit longer if “overspeed trip” activates the emergency brake if you venture above 15kph and as EPP to THB is all downhill this means you have to keep applying the brake at regular intervals. When I arrived Wood Lane called up to say they’d had a word with the train maintainer who’d prepped the trains at LOU that night, they suggested that there might be a loose connection on one of the brake test buttons and I should give them a few prods. I dutifully did and hey presto, we have forward movement in Auto.

And my immediate question was if the Train Maintainer “suspected” there was a loose connections on one of the brake test buttons why the hell didn’t they fix it when they were working on the train Sunday night?

Monday night went smoothly enough but Tuesday morning after I’d crawled into RUI depot I got onto the train, completed the brake test and only realised I’d got onto the wrong train when the shunter called me up. A quick hop next door, brake test and off we go, fortunately I always walk in a bit early so no time lost.

But it was Tuesday night that the fun really started. Going WB I was held at WOO while an empty train came over the points and went into the sidings. Had I not been held I wouldn’t have seen the man walking along the path at the side of the EB track. Now he could have been P Way but he wasn’t wearing a hi-vi and on the whole P Way don’t wear suits. I opened up the cab door and asked him where he was going.

Obvious drunk he demanded to know why there wasn’t a gate for him to leave by so I informed him that he was on the track and directed him back towards the platform. This was greeted with a torrent of abuse regarding my parentage and my sexual orientation, some of which may or may not be true, I have done many things while under one influence or another some of which I can only vague recall but as I am the second of three children I think it fair to say my parents were most certainly married when I entered the world.

After that things went fine although I was running around 4 late until I reached MAA. Ahead of me the last EAB had been stopped by signal failure and had lost codes over the points E of QUE. As it was a “controlled” area the TOp needed authority from Wood Lane to continue but Wood Lane couldn’t confirm that it was okay to proceed as they had lost control due to the signal failure. The normal procedure at this point would be for the Super at QUE to get onto the track and physically secure the points but they couldn’t do that as the train was already over them. With all this going on I was told to hold at MAA and they worked things out. I kept the passengers informed the best I could and we finally got moving around 01:00 by which time NHG and SHB had closed as all the staff apart from the Supers had finished their shifts and gone home. Larks, eh?

The West End of the line is definitely less boisterous that the East, three nights at WER and not one sleeper to show for it. I have nights again next week and I’m going to see if anyone wants to swap my last WERs for last EPPs just so I’ve got something to write about!

Over the weekend we had engineering works closing the line from LIS to LES. Friday night I was spare and the DMT told me that I might have to cover one of the early turns up until my duty finished around 07:00. When we checked we found that even though the first four booked on around 05:00 they were being sent in a taxi to WER to get trains out of the depot, the earliest coming out at 06:45. That obviously didn’t give me enough time to get back to LES to finish so I couldn’t cover anything.

Saturday night I shared a taxi to LIS with another night shift TOp as I was on the last WER again while they were taking the last EAB and then stabling at WHC. After that I was getting a taxi to LOU to bring out the first train in the morning while other TOp was going from WHC to HAI. We assumed that we’d be in the same taxi but we had on one each. Until last week the plan was to shut the line all the way out to LOU and I was booked to take a third taxi at the end of my shift to get me back to LES so I could go home.

All these taxis would seem a tad extravagant at a time when we are being told that we need to save money but what really makes us laugh is that during the day TOps from the East End depots who were booked to pick up trains at LIS were told that they would have to use the replacement buses to get from LES to STR and then get the mainline service into LIS. It was fortunate for everyone that the mainline didn’t develop any problems otherwise there would have been TOps arriving at LIS expecting to go home and finding no one to replace them. They would have had to take the train back to WHC, get relieved there and only then head back to their depots.

If we ever needed further evidence that the people making these plans up at 55 are somewhat out of touch with the people working down here then this is more than enough.

Last week was thoroughly uninteresting and I started nights Sunday.

When I got to EPP there were two sleepers both of whom resisted waking and so I took them onto LOU. The first case was a homeless bloke with all his worldly possessions in a rucksack and collection of carrier bags. The second was a lad in a suit who was laid out along the seats face down and snoring. When the SS finally woke him he asked where he was but he’d never heard of LOU. I later saw him getting on a bus and could here him asking the driver for the destination. It would seem he had no idea where Walthamstow was either. When I went back to the station to get the first train out in the morning the man with the carrier bags was still waiting outside and he boarded the train as it came back WB from EPP.