Monday and Tuesday were very quiet even for mid March weekdays, everything ran to timetable, no stations were lacking staff, there were a couple of ATO failures but other than that nothing of note. I even got a bonus, rather than having to take the train all the way into Ruislip depot the shunter took the train off me at the “cabin” on the way in and saved me the walk.

Of course it couldn’t last, at MIE WB I got held waiting for the last District Line train to catch up so I was running late from then on. Bicycles are not allowed in the deep level tunnels though the exact reason is unknown to me or anyone else I’ve ever spoken to but at one deep level station there was a passenger with a bike on the platform talking to the CSA waiting to give me “the right”.

Maybe the CSA didn’t know about the “no bikes” rule, maybe the cyclist had a puncture and the station staff took pity on him, what I should have done was to have asked the CSA to come to the front of the train and tell me what was going on as if I’d stuck to the rulebook I should have refused. I didn’t because I was running late with a load of other passengers on board and I didn’t want to further delay them getting home.

Predictably there was no helpful shunter to take the train off me at the cabin plus on the way back the next morning I had three ATO failures and had to reset the ATP at MAA. I’m spare tonight though there does appear to be a lot of duties uncovered so I might be busy but if I get a chance I will explain later why the Tube is officially the best mass transit system in the world.