The toe is much better so the night spare did my WER and back while I went through the “return to work” interview with the DTSM. When I took over the train at LES it was only a minute late which isn't bad for the last EPP on a Friday night. I could see on the CCTV that the CSA on the platform was involved in something on my rear car but I made the assumption that if there was anything serious I would be summoned to the back of the train.

After a lot of gesticulation and animated conversation between him and whoever he was in discussion with along with a few PAs on my part to explain the delay to the other passengers I was given the “right” to leave. As I left SNA Wood Lane informed me that the delay had been caused by a passenger who had intended to leave the train at HOL but had resisted all attempts to wake him and that the Super at WOO be waiting to remove him.

This raises the obvious questions of why wasn’t he removed at LES and if his fellow passengers were aware that he intended to get off at HOL why they didn’t alert someone there? Sadly I suspect the reason was that they didn’t want to delay their own journeys and only mentioned the poor fellow’s plight once they were safely at their destination. Back when I was working stations I was once called up to deal with a passenger lying unconscious on the floor of a train at STR and he’d been there since MAA.

The milkman of human kindness needs to leave an extra pint on a lot of doorsteps in London.