I’m a little cross today, as I’ve just had confirmation that our rules course is to be delayed by a week. Added to the week that we are already behind because of the corporate induction at Ipswich , we have lost two weeks in as many months. Next week should have been the second week of our rules course but instead we will be getting an extra week of front end turns.

I guess it’s understandable that someone wants to take some leave, but it does grate a wee bit when we’ve been told that we can’t at least until the classroom phase of the training is over. My view is that what’s good for the goose is surely good for the gander, and that we should have been presented with the option of also taking some leave. Not a happy bunny.

In an interesting twist on life imitating art, I was subjected to the worst delays so far. ( Liverpool Street signallers should look away now.) For some reason that neither of us could fathom we were delayed getting out of Stansted Airport on a slow ‘up’ train and were put inside virtually everywhere to let every man and his dog pass. Five late at the airport had grown to almost twenty late by the time we arrived at Liverpool Street with a train groaning with people. This then became ten late on the way ‘down’, and even then a slow train was let in front of us as we were stopped at Bethnal Green, at which juncture my driver made an apt comment (the exact phrasing of which currently escapes me) that evoked a picture of the two of us being forcibly made to participate in an unnatural sexual act with a salad vegetable.

This train driving lark is great fun!! OK so I’m not actually doing anything yet, but I’m still having a great time. Apart from a couple of signalling failures which caused a fair bit of delay, the days have been uneventful. Speaking to the drivers I’ve been placed with, this is just the way we like it.

As well as getting a good view of the driving I’ve been picking up quite a bit of information about the more mundane things work out on a day-to-day basis, which will be really helpful. I must admit to being really mystified by all the rosters and notices on my first few visits to the depot and wondering how I would ever get on, but once someone has explained what it all means and how you can swap turns between drivers it’s a whole lot less daunting. Quite a few drivers seem to have swapped all their unwanted shifts and have managed to get themselves onto permanent earlies, afternoons or nights depending on what suits them best, which seems to be fine. In fact, with some negotiation and a bit of judicious swapping with other drivers, it seems that you can pretty much suit yourself when you work and when you don’t as long as all the turns are covered.

It’s going to be quite a shock to the system when I have to go back to the school for rules at the end of the month.

No, I’ve not been given the sack. Well, not yet anyway.

This week I have been playing at being a train driver and doing everything that a train driver does (er, except actually driving any trains obviously). For the last couple of days I have been up at 4am to sign-on for an early turn, drinking tea and reading discarded newspapers in messrooms, and answering the daft questions of the travelling public (“Yes this train is the Stansted Express, as it clearly says on the departure board, the platform monitor, the train destination indicator and in big orange lettering on the side of every coach you myopic muppet…!!!”). Oh, and I’ve also been riding in the secondman’s seat to observe the railway.

So far it’s been really interesting, with trips to Chingford and Stansted Airport ad nauseum. I’m hoping that I’ll have the chance to visit a few of the more exotic destinations as the weeks progress (Hertford, Cambridge…?) so that I can get to see as much of the West Anglia network as possible. I’m not yet sure in exactly what way it’s helping me in my training. While talking about and drawing things in the classroom are all well and good, I imagine that actually seeing them out in the real world will help to make them more memorable. Thanks to a track circuit and points failure at Hackney Downs this morning I’ve already seen how signals are passed at danger with authority, and feel confident that I can remember the procedure.

On another note, the new uniform is causing some hilarity. Unlike most of the drivers I’ve seen so far, I have retained my youthful figure and still resemble a giant matchstick (slender body and large bonce), which means that everything is far too baggy on me. The blazers have already been returned and replacements ordered, although there’s nothing that can be done about the tent-like shirts. Still, as the driver’s uniform is identical to those worn by ticket inspectors, I now have the uncanny knack of emptying a carriage of fare-dodging schoolkids and other riff-raff and enjoying a quiet and relaxing ride home.

Someone once said that a little knowledge can be dangerous. As from today, I and the others in the class have the piece of paper as proof of that. Having passed the final assessment for the “Introduction to Rules” course, our little knowledge and us are being allowed to progress to the next phase of the training.

The next stage is three weeks of ‘front-end turns’, where we will each shadow a driver to see how the basic theory we have learned is carried out in practice. In some respects I’m quite hoping that the network will fall flat on it’s face at least once so that I can see things like signals being passed at danger (with authority, naturally) and assisting failed trains. It would be quite dull to spend the whole three weeks just shuttling up and down on greens the whole time and never seeing what happens when the excrement hits the fan.

Today also marks the last day for us in civvies, as we have finally taken delivery of our uniforms. Some of it is OK, but I’ve got a particular bugbear with the shirts that we’ve been issued. At first glance they have the sheen of fair quality kit, but on closer inspection this sheen is revealed as only superficial. The shirts are truly awful. Had it been my own money they would have been straight back to the shop to be exchanged. I spent two and a half tortuous hours trying to iron my six shirts, none of which appear to have a straight seam between them. (Before anyone comments, I’m actually a bit of a Domestic God and a dab hand at ironing shirts.) And as for the sleeves…!! By the time I’d got to the last one, I’d been reduced to a Basil Fawlty-esque rage and had more than once bent double over the offending garment in a rictus of fury, silently shaking my fist at it as if daring it to crease in the wrong place. At the least my wife had the decency not to dissolve into gales of laughter.

Well, not quite.

Well, I was warned that things might get a bit more complicated as time went on. Having spent all last week being introduced to the basic concepts of signalling (basic…?!), we’re now getting into the somewhat murkier waters of passing signals at danger with and without authority, temporary block working and train failures.

Everything was going swimmingly last week. We had a cab-riding exercise on one day with task books to complete and an out day to Cambridge Integrated Electronic Signalling Centre (IECC) and Kings Lynn signalbox to show us how the theory translated into practice. Frankly, Cambridge IECC was a bit of a waste of time as the signallers didn’t tell us much and we were left to fathom things out for ourselves (“So, tell us what it all does”. “Er, well the red lights are the trains. Any questions?”). Kings Lynn signalbox was much better with the signaller giving a full description of what he was doing and even letting us throw some points. I can’t pretend that I understood absolutely everything, but I think I’ve taken in enough to stand me in good stead for my rules course. I even managed to get my head around TPWS, which our trainer had warned us was not an easy subject to understand, so I thought I was doing well.

I think that this week might be a bit more of a challenge for me. Having grasped how things work when everything is running as it should and what all the different types of signals and aspects mean, there is still an awful lot more to understand. Given that it’s one of the few things that stops us all bumping into each other I can see why a good understanding of signalling is vital. Doesn’t make it any less complicated, though.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to put the kettle on before settling down with some light reading.