Spare on Sunday, everyone was in so nothing for me to do. We had engineering works at the weekend and the whole of the line west of MAA was closed.

Earlier this year when we were shut down between LES and LIS our TOps were having to get the replacement bus to STR then the mainline into LIS and drive trains. This weekend the TOps at WHC and WER were doing bugger all, just booking on and sitting around, watching TV, drinking tea, etc. Sometimes it does feel as if someone up there has something against us here at LES.

Another feature of engineering works was that my colleague booked to do what would have been the last WB to WER and the first EB from WER on a normal Sunday night finished at HAI and then was taken by taxi over to WER for the start of traffic Monday morning. The engineering works overran and he got stuck over on the west end of the line until the engineers handed back “possession” of the track to us.

Monday was quiet, I did have one sleeper when I got to WER who refused to be woken but stumbled off the train at RUG. There was one man who jumped off at SOR, jumped back on, then at NOR jumped off, on and off again. I was expecting him to shake it all about….

Apart from that the only things of note were that I got held at MIE to connect with the last EB District and while Wood Lane called up to tell me that THB was staffless they neglected to mention that there would be no one at LOU so I had to call them up to get the okay to carry on. As I left LOU station after putting my train in the sidings there was a member of staff shutting the Boswick gates; very odd.

As I was coming back from EPP in the morning I heard that the first train out of WER had gone defective in Ruislip depot so once more the TOp doing the night shift over there was late. Oddly I offered to swap all my LOU and HAI turns this week with the TOps doing the WERs but they both turned me down. Lucky me.