It seems that I was right about my reputation within the group as a train breaker sticking. Although I’ve had no further incidents, I’m still referred to as a Jonah.

In fact, this particular title could just as easily apply to one of our number who got a bit keen when exploring the differences between the Mark 1 version of the Class 317 and the slightly less old Mark 2. Despite warnings that the units we were exploring had been prepped for service and that we should leave them exactly as we’d found them, he noticed that the passcoms were different and decided to pull one. Cue several minutes of consternation as his group tried to work out how to reset it. Unfortunately, being the first I fear that this is not going to be enough to shift the attention away from myself.

Away from the diverting subject of breaking trains, we’ve been getting down to the minute details of our units. As a commuter I’d always dismissed them as being old, basic and a bit naff but, as a trainee driver, I’m learning a new respect for them from their hidden complexities. For example, I’d never known that the air suspension could sense the weight of each coach and automatically adjust the brake pressure in each brake step accordingly. That this is all done by air without any electronic intervention is quite amazing.

The flip side to this is that there are some daft design touches, particularly in relation to the positioning of air isolation cocks. Some units have an internal and external cock for some air systems, but these are in different places in the circuit for each system. Some parts of the air system don’t have an isolating cock at all which would require the isolation of the entire coach from the rest of the train in the event of an air leak (e.g. the supplementary main air reservoir on Mark 2 units). A bigger headache is the positioning of a passenger bulkhead inside refurbished Mark 2 units which makes access to the isolation cocks all but totally impossible.

Still, it’s nice to be outside in the fresh air after all those weeks stuck inside a classroom all the time. It certainly makes things a lot easier to understand when you can go out to a unit and see the systems and practice the procedures (or “play”, as our instructor would have it).

Having spent all yesterday looking at the dirty underside of a Class 317, we spent most of today inside the unit looking at cocks. It all sounds a little bit sordid but, in order to pass our traction training, we need to know all about them. The cocks in question related specifically to the pantograph and the other equipment up on the roof that carries out the job of collecting juice from the overheads.

It all seemed fairly straightforward when the trainer was there to explain everything, but it is beginning to dawn on me the extent to which traction is much more abstract than the rules course was. For example, there are quite a few different things that could prevent you raising the pantograph and not many indications to help you track down exactly where the problem might be. At least with some of the rules questions if you didn’t actually know the answer you could deduce most of them. Unfortunately it seems that, at this point at least, I’m going to have to put in a lot of effort to learn each part.

At least I’ve managed to get my first train fault out of the way quickly. Once we’d all had a go at cutting in the auxiliary power and raising the pantograph under supervision and been shown the whereabouts of the various MCB’s and isolating cocks, we were all going to have a go at doing this unsupervised. Being nearest the cab I went first. All went swimmingly with the pantograph going up and giving power until *phutt*, and out went all the lights. At first I thought I’d been stitched up but tried again anyway with the same result. I realised later what I should have done (press ‘Aux Set’ and ‘Pan Up’ together), but by then it was too late. The others wouldn’t let me off the unit until last in case I broke the steps as well. I have a nasty feeling that this might have been a reputation forming event.

The first day of the traction course was a real breath of fresh air after being stuck inside a classroom doing rules.

After some quick pieces of admin, we were lead outside for what seemed to be the first time in absolutely ages and allowed to wander around the outside of our basic traction, the Class 317 EMU. Even though we are only looking at and identifying all the mucky bits below floor level that the carriage washers never reach, it was still interesting and very informative. Once we’ve covered a bit more about the various air and electrical systems and how they all relate to each other I’m sure it will begin to make sense, but I’m not worrying about that at the moment.

I must remember to buy either some disposable latex gloves and/or wet wipes before I go out driving in case I have to isolate anything in service.

Since ending our rules course, our numbers have also swelled from six to eight, which is nice. I’m not sure quite how well the two new guys will fit in with the rest of us, as we’ve become quite a close-knit group. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m a very happy chappy today, as I have passed my rules exam. Having actually sat the exam yesterday I spent most of last night as a ball of nerves until I heard the outcome this morning by text message from our trainer.

One of the things that I was most worried about was that there appeared to be a couple of spurious questions in the last weekly assessment where the expected answer was different from that given in the handouts and, in one notable case, the Rule Book. It was all a bit hard to explain, especially given that the bloke who wrote the course material also wrote the assessments and is supposed to be hot on rules. It certainly made me worry whether there would be any similarly ‘odd’ questions in the final exam.

The question that caused all the problems was: “If your train is involved in a train accident what are your four main priorities?” The handout listed them in the following order:

• The passage of trains is stopped on each obstructed line.
• The signaller is informed and the emergency services are summoned if required.
• Carry out protection where required.
• Ensure the passengers are safe.

As we had all studiously learnt this, this is what we all wrote on our assessments. When we got them back we were amazed to see that contacting the signaller had been relegated to below carrying out protection. When I checked the Rule Book it backed up our conviction that we had answered this question correctly, as Module M1 says that emergency protection is only required if the signaller cannot provide protection by any other means or you are unable to contact the signaller. If you waited to contact the signaller until you had carried out protection it’s likely that he’d be doing his pieces trying to work out why you’d stopped and be trying to contact you himself.

Still, while we all understood what we would actually do should this scenario ever arise, we were smart enough to know to give the answer that was expected of us so that we got through the assessment.

Although the thought of being passed competent is a little scary, having completed this part of my training I shall be kicking back and relaxing tonight. If I may be forgiven a little immodesty, having been asked a total of 452 assessment questions throughout the duration of this course, I’m hugely chuffed to have only had eight marked for review.

The real world came crashing into the classroom in the most jarring of manners today following the terrorist attacks on London ‘s transport network.

Although we were shielded from the full impact of these atrocities by distance, the knock-on affect on the railways were still felt. We managed to struggle on with our training for a while (which, ironically, was on train accidents, emergency protection and train evacuation), but we had to give up after our trainer vanished at the behest of the depot manager. Instead, we drank tea in the messroom and watched events unfold on TV in the company of many ‘one’ and WAGN drivers. After a while we were told that we might as well go home, and so we did.

Being serious, I just don’t have the words to express the sadness and outrage that I feel as a result of these attacks. The deliberate targeting of innocent civilians at the height of the peak is nothing short of cowardly and simply cannot be justified to further any agenda. However, I do feel a lot of pride and admiration towards the railwaymen and women of all grades on both National Rail and London Underground who did sterling work today to ensure that a bad situation was not made any worse. I honestly can say that I feel honoured to be joining a profession that conducts itself in this way and just hope that, should the time ever come, I can measure up to the example that was set today.

The speed at which the weeks are passing is getting a little bit scary. I’m trying desperately not to think about the fact that the final rules exam and the end of the course is now just a smidgen over a week away. Because of this, I don’t really want to dwell too much on the course content.

That said, I will just briefly mention the level of clairvoyance that it appears is required for the job of driver. Normally everything is fine and life is a bed of roses. However, as soon as the balloon goes up it is a different matter. A pulled passcom is a fairly quick and easy problem to deal with but a train fire (even a small one) is extremely serious. Quite how you deal with a passcom which has been pulled because of a fire that you are unaware of is something that I’m hoping experience will show me how to deal with. In the meantime, I just hope that it never happens. [This is something that happened to a Great Western HST near Maidenhead some years ago with appalling results. There was also a disastrous sleeper train fire near Taunton in the ‘seventies. The trouble is that the situation can have escalated out of control before the train crew is properly aware of what is happening].

In the meantime, I’m using that great internet resource eBay to make up for what I feel are deficiencies in my equipment. So far I’ve bought a natty ‘one’ leather wallet for my PTS card and travel passes and a belt holster for a carriage key and ’21’ key. It sounds a bit naff, but it will make my life a lot easier if I know that these keys are secure and that I can reach them easily when needed.