A thoroughly uninteresting week was brought to an end with a fight at HAL; roughly halfway down the train two gentlemen spilled out of the car and onto the platform with fists flying. At one point they were both on the floor and for a moment I thought they were about to fall onto the track.

The Station Super and their friends managed to drag them apart with one on the platform while the other was hustled back on the train so I closed the doors and set off. When I got to WER the one I’d taken with me apologised for the blood in the car, which was nice.

To add to all this we had engineering work between LIS and WOO/NEP which meant that I started Saturday by getting a taxi to LIS to pick up the last WER train. After I’d stabled that I got another taxi to WHC, picked up my colleague who been on the last EAB, onto HAI where he got out and then onto LOU. In the morning I trundled up and down the line between EPP and WOO a couple of times before jumping into yet another taxi to take me back to where I’d started.

In all I spent as much time sat in a taxi as I did on a train and crossed Shoreditch High Street twice; it would appear that the late night bar and club business in the area is doing very nicely.

Very little to report apart from the rain on Friday making things very slippery in Auto and in Coded, the train missed the stopping mark at WHC WB and then I missed the stopping mark at WEA WB. Whoops.

The staff shortage continues to bite, I had to start a shift by getting a train out of WOO sidings when it should have been out on the line already, at WHC and LES trains were left in the middle platform and the service run around them because there was no one available to take over from the TOp who was finishing their shift, plenty of "No Cover Available" on the sheets at WER and LES.

The good news is that about half a dozen trainees started at Ashfield House this month and a few more are on trains under the supervision of the IOps. The bad news is that rumour has it they’ll only be here for the Olympics and then move to the Northern.

Further information on the “trespasser” at SOR, when BTP arrived they found that the gentleman was so “disturbed” that they called for back up with a taser. I’m sure I’m not the only one to see the irony in asking for a device that incapacitates someone with electricity when we have plenty around on the track.

The Bakerloo had it’s own trespasser on Saturday, the line was shut down for quite a while between Stonebridge Park and Harrow and Wealdstone for a dog on the track at Kenton. Awwwwwww.

Despite it being half term the Central Line was reasonably peaceful until yesterday. Wood Lane got a report of “youths” throwing stuff onto the track from a road bridge around EPP and we were told to make the journey up from THB in Coded “at a speed that allows you to stop short of any obstacle”.

Fortunately it was mid-afternoon with good visibility so we weren’t crawling along, THB to EPP is 2.54km (1.57 miles to us old people) and takes about three minutes doing 85kph. As the only road bridge on that particular stretch is the one that carries the M25 it wasn't much of a surprise when I didn’t find anything blocking the track.

Later we had a report of a “trespasser” up at SOR which not only shut the Central from NOR to WER but also halted the Chiltern Line out of Marylebone. This was a real incident and one of my colleagues suffered a “near miss”. The “trespasser” was eventually safely removed from track and I was one of the first trains through judging form the amount of people who crammed on board.

Many thanks to Ian Sergeant for alerting the world that the phantom balloon animal maker has struck on the Northern Line. And no, Ian, the identity of the perpetrator remains a mystery.

http://twitter.com/#!/crooked_cottage/status/168808521238982659/photo/1

I’ll be back next week but a little piece of travel related news caught my eye.

In a recent meeting at City Hall GLA member for South West Tony Arbour (C) stated that:-

“It is a fact, is it not, that relatively few Londoners actually use London transport in any way. Most people don't use London transport with any sense of regularity and isn’t it a principle of Conservatism and taxation that those people who pay for a service and receive a service are the ones who should pay for it.

Isn’t the great thing about a reduction and a freezing of the precept is that it goes to everyone rather than those who receive a specific service.”

He was heartily supported by another great friend of private motorists Brian Coleman, Barnet and Camden (C), but Boris said he'd need to look at the figures. When he does he’ll discover that every day there are around 8.4 million trips on Tube, rail, DLR, bus, tram and taxis and that over the last ten years the only forms of transport to see a decline are cars and motorbikes.

It seems to me that for a lot of people this year’s Mayoral Election will be a simple choice between Boris’s reduction of the Mayor’s share of council tax, saving every London household an average of £3.10 a year and Ken’s fares cut which he estimates will reduce annual ticket costs by around £250.

If the voters choose Ken in May then I would imagine Mr. Arbour will conclude that all those people who don’t use London Transport were unable to vote as their polling stations were too far away or they couldn't find anywhere to park.

Not well, chest infection, on meds and off work. I've got two weeks leave so unless something major happens I won't write again until Sunday 12th February by which time I will be a year older.

Safe travelling, everyone.

I’ve just read on the BBC website that London Travelwatch made 130 visits to 57 stations at the end of last year and found that 48% of the time there was no staff presence in ticket halls despite LUL’s assurance that following the reduction in ticket office opening hours staff would be redeployed to provide customer service. LUL dispute the survey claiming that its own research suggested that “staff are present in ticket halls in 98% of visits”.

Last week as I was walking back to the locker room after finishing my shift a passenger asked me where to go for the next train to EPP. When I told her she complained that the member of staff on the gateline had seemed very unsure when she’d asked and that we shouldn’t leave untrained staff on their own. I agreed with her wholeheartedly but did point out that the man I’d just passed at the gateline was a cleaner employed by an outside contractor.

When I returned about five minutes later he’d gone leaving the barrier unmanned. I suppose no information is better than the wrong information.

Despite being a bit warmer last night ATO was still about as much as a chocolate teapot and I ended up going Coded on the open sections but at least there was a bit of entertainment to brighten the evening. At EPP both the Super and I tried to wake the “suit” but he resisted all attempts to wake him so I took him back to LOU.

Sometimes when we reach our destination a member of station staff will help us close up the train and remove stray passengers, sometimes they just leave us to it. My job is to get the train into the sidings or depot asap so that the cleaners and train maintainers can get it ready for the morning but also so they can switch off the juice and carry out any maintenance scheduled in that section. If the Super or a CSA is there helping me close up I will give them as much assistance as I can but I’m not there to deal with a drunk who’s ended up somewhere they didn’t want to be; once they are off my train they are the station staff’s problem.

While there had been a helpful Super at LOU the first two days this week the night shifts change over on Tuesday and we’d been left to our own devices. I managed to raise the suit in stages, like a strange inflatable doll with a slow puncture, every time I stopped shaking him or taking to him he started to slump back into his seat. When I finally managed to get him upright he stopped and surveyed the gap between the train and the platform as if it were the Grand Canyon before launching himself into infinity.

Having got him off I closed up the rest of the train before he could attempt to get back on and sure enough when I’d closed up the back end I could see him trying the door buttons in the vain hope that he could get home. I have no idea where home was as he never spoke a word the whole time. As I walked back the Super made a PA informing the gentleman that there were no more trains, the station was closed and that he should make his way down the stairs. And almost predictably he went and sat down in the waiting room.

When I reached the front end I looked back to see that he had resumed his forlorn wandering of the platform. The Super appeared at the top of the stairs shouting for the suit to come with him to the exit but then went back down without waiting to see if he was following. When I sat down in the cab I could see him on the CCTV still wandering about so I pulled out of the platform slowly until I saw him stumble back into the waiting room.

By the time I got back to the platform from the sidings there was no sign of him so I assume that the Super finally realised that if he wanted to get the man out of his station it would require his physical presence. Either that or he fell asleep in the waiting room and spent the night there. I’ve got a vague feeling that I’ve written a similar post before, about LOU, about this particular Super; strangely he's not popular with TOps.

As I said some Supers come up and give the TOps a hand closing up and making sure that the station is clear of passengers, some seem to prefer to sit in the nice warm station control room and do as much as possible with CCTV and the PA system. With LUL’s focus on “modernisation” and "automation" replacing staff I suspect that we’ll be seeing less of the former and more of the later in future.