Apologies for the lack of recent updates. I haven’t vanished off the face of the earth (well, not yet anyway).

It would seem that the endless practice that we had earlier this month has stood us in good stead, as we all passed our traction assessments (and not before time). Thanks to the excellent preparation that we had received at Hornsey, the biggest challenge facing us was how to avoid getting sunstroke or, for those who had their assessment on the Friday, getting soaked to the skin.

Unlike all the other assessments we’ve had so far, the traction assessment is a two part affair with a written and a practical part. The other difference was that, while the written part was administered at the Hornsey training school by our instructor, the practicals take place at the driver depots and are carried out by driver managers. Even so, both parts were fairly relaxed affairs.

Now that the traction course is complete, we have reached the end of the main classroom phase of the training. Although there are a couple more courses that we need to take, the emphasis is now on getting some hands-on experience. For two weeks starting from today we are allowed out with an empty train to play on the mainline between Cambridge and Stansted Airport . At last, we have started to actually drive trains. It was quite a weird experience being able to drive at up to 90mph with other trains around and having to obey signals and speed restrictions when all we’ve been used to so far is pootling about in the depot.

My own driving turn was fairly unspectacular. Taking over the train at Newport on our way up to Stansted Airport , I was only able to attain a maximum of 70mph. However, I did make a pretty good fist of stopping at the 8 car board at Elsenham and only ran a few feet past the DOO monitors. It’s going to take a little while to get used to the way that the train handles and how to control it, but I feel we’re well on the way. The only small fly in the ointment was a sour-faced Central Trains driver who was waiting for us to clear Stansted North Junction so that he could get the road up to Cambridge . He couldn’t have been there for very long, but he certainly made sure I was aware that he wasn’t a happy chap. I shall have to look out for him tomorrow.

At least I don’t have to buy the cream cakes tomorrow, unlike two unfortunates who failed to cancel the AWS in time.

Since last week’s entry there’s not been much to report. It would seem that we have now covered all of the required knowledge on our basic traction and are spending our time mopping up any points that we feel we don’t fully grasp and endlessly practicing things like coupling and uncoupling units, train prep and fault finding.

Although the practice is good and helpful to get the various procedures set in our minds, I’m just beginning to get a little bored with the course. I guess I’m just getting a bit impatient now. Maybe I’m overdue a break. We’ve all started talking wistfully about the possibility of taking some leave so that we might be able to have a holiday. If there is one criticism that I could level at the structure and administration of the driver training programme it is that each element of the training follows hard on the heels of the one before and there’s no chance to stop and have a breather. There’s an awful lot of hard work involved in taking on board and understanding all this new information, and I know that I’m beginning to feel tired.

Hopefully there will be an opportunity for some time off once we get to the minder driving stage, but that isn’t due to start until mid-September. Until then we’ll keep soldiering on.

Yesterday was the day that I and my classmates had been waiting for all these months. Almost four months after starting employment with the company we got our first taste of driving.

OK, so the journey only lasted about 300 yards and did not exceed 5mph, but it still felt like a major milestone to us all. I can’t say that I was too worried or overawed by the experience as it was in the safe confines of Hornsey depot. The first time out on the mainline will be a different matter, though. Naturally we all made our fair share of silly learners mistakes like forgetting to reset the DRA and getting muddled up with the directions in which the brake and power controllers move, but no-one dropped the DSD (except at the instructors prompting) or bashed into anything. The other thing that we also all failed at was correctly picking braking points to correctly stop at chosen landmarks, but that will come with experience.

Today’s driving exercises were a bit more practical as we practiced coupling and uncoupling, or “controlled collisions” as the instructor called them. Hopefully with practice the various stages of each operation will gradually sink in and the elementary errors will stop.