So this how things were supposed to be Saturday; I start work around 16:00, go to HAI, EAB, HAI, LES, get off on the WB for grub around 19:30, pick up again at 20:15, HAI, EAB, WOO via HAI, back to EAB, off around midnight.

Except some ragamuffin decided it would be a spiffing idea to grab some lady’s handbag/purse/whatever and make their escape down the WB tunnel at LAG. The Line was brought to a complete standstill in both directions while BTP waited at QUE and LAG for the villain to reappear. My first train turned after 20 minutes, around the time BTP finally accepted that he wasn’t going to come out of his own accord and set off to flush him out.

I got to HAI without any problem and then sat there for half an hour before we finally got the “all clear” and I started heading west. I got held at BOS for another ten minutes, no word from Wood Lane as to why. I’m making PAs telling the passengers that not only am I sat at a red signal but I can see the taillights of the one in front in the tunnel between us and MAA while the station’s automated PAs are blurting out their “we have a good service” announcements; au contraire. It was only after we were moving again that the signals answered my call and I discovered they’d been tipping a train out at MAA.

Another five minutes outside WHC, no word from Wood Lane but as I pulled in I could see a train going into the sidings and that the platform was crowded with very pissed off looking people. As I left WHC I could see the train in the sidings still had WER as it’s destination which would suggest that they hadn’t told the driver they were short turning the train until they’d reached WHC. At EAB I had four minutes to change ends before setting off EB at which the time I should have been arriving at HAI. At this point Wood Lane were telling us there were only “minor delays” to the line.

By the time I’d got to LES EB it was 19:55 and there was someone waiting to take me off for grub. Sadly for one of the spares my second train was on time, at CHA EB, a mere 19 minutes away, which didn’t give me the 30 minutes break that is legally required so someone got to do my HAI and back and I picked up on the WB by which time it was ten minutes late. After that everything went timetable.

In conclusion I think the only thing I can offer is that the platform of LAG is possibly not the best place to commit an act of robbery.