Actually, there are only ‘treats’ to report so far.

Last week, the wife and I had ourselves a little holiday in a cottage in the Highlands of Scotland. The idea was that we would rest, relax and recharge our batteries after what has seemed a very long and busy year so far. From my own perspective, it was just the tonic I needed.

Today’s turn was my first one after our break, and I was feeling a little nervous. However, I didn’t need to worry as the job was a nice gentle one to ease me back into driving. A round each to Chingford and Hertford East, then empties to Ilford. It was the same job that I observed from the secondman’s side a few weeks back (see Funky Moves: Friday 9th September) but, from the driver’s side, it wasn’t quite as hard as I’d expected. With the exception of one that is hidden behind a bridge, it was actually quite easy to see which signal applies to which line and where everything goes. They are even nice enough to throw in an extra double yellow aspect to compensate for the tight signal spacing between Stratford and Ilford. Even so, there is still plenty going on that can cause distraction and a fair bit to learn before I could ever ‘sign’ that route, especially with all the possible moves that can be made around Stratford and the length of line signalled for bi-directional movements.

I’m still not back with my own minder though, as he’s now on leave. Still, this week’s minder seems nice enough and pretty much just left me to get on with things, which I’m taking as something of a compliment.

Having had the ‘treat’ I think the ‘trick’ comes later in the week, as it looks like I’ll be rushing about on airports and suburbans.

Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve failed a train. Given my previous ‘Jonah Complex’ I’m surprised it’s taken this long. It was actually something of an anticlimax when it finally happened. Predictably it had to be a door fault on a Class 315 rather than anything more spectacular, but safety first…!!

We were at Hackney Downs on our way down to Hertford East when I noticed that people were having trouble getting into the leading coach and that the orange hazard light on the side of the carriage was not coming on. Given the number of times you have to shout “Press and hold” at punters because they can’t operate the door buttons correctly and the frequency with which hazard lights fail, I initially though nothing of it. However, the minder I was with jumped out at the next stop to investigate and found that there was no door release on that coach at all. A phone call to control later, and I’m turfing everyone out at Seven Sisters, changing ends and heading back to London empty as the unit cannot continue in service.

Ironically, I’d just been speaking to another trainee before setting out who was telling me that he had lost all his main air after hitting a large bird between Ware and Hertford East (he wasn’t sure whether it was a swan or a goose). Perhaps I should have taken that as an omen and gone to somewhere less risky, like Enfield Town . Still, it meant that I got a nice early finish to round the day off. What a result!!

Things have been fairly quiet of late, so there hasn’t been much to report. I’ve been shuttling up and down the West Anglia routes at the control of various services, making my stops, doing PA announcements and generally keeping out of the way. It’s been quite nice. There was one day last week when the (ahem) excrement hit the airscrew which resulted in some impressive delays and one of our trips to Enfield being cancelled, but that’s about it.

Unfortunately, this week I have been chopped and changed around a fair bit because my minder is unwell. In the last three days I’ve had two different minders and will have yet another tomorrow, this time from a different depot. At least it’s kept me out there driving, as I had feared that I’d be bumped back down to front-end turns again, but it’s meant that I’ve had to get acquainted with new minders and they with me. Still, it’s quite nice to have my driving assessed by other people as well as my regular minder so that I can get a balanced view on my progress.

Hopefully by the time I get back from my week off (to which I am very much looking forward) my minder will be well again.

Apologies once again, dear reader, for not updating the blog over the last couple of weeks.

I have been busy racking up the hours at the controls, which I am still pleased to report is going well. As I’m getting familiar with the actual driving of trains I’m having to concentrate less on it, which means that I’ve been able to gradually add in extra bits, like PA announcements. As all of our services are driver-only operated, making announcements is part of our job. I’m beginning to get into the swing of it, although I’m having to think about the best time to make them so that they don’t distract me from the more important job of driving safely.

Stopping at the boards is still causing some problems, though. I feel like I’m making progress on this and am developing my own braking technique, but my minder is concerned that I make too many adjustments to the brake on the run up the platform to the stopping point. Maybe so, but I’m getting more accurate with my stopping points and am able to keep to time, and don’t necessarily see my technique as being bad. I understand what he’s saying, but I still feel like I’m learning and getting a feel for what’s what. For example, I’ve learnt now that a heavily loaded train behaves very differently from a lightly loaded one and will adjust my braking accordingly. When I get to a point where I know with some level of confidence exactly how any given train will behave and where it will stop, I won’t have to make so many adjustments. However, until I get that experience and confidence I am either overestimating or underestimating and need to adjust for that accordingly.

Last week I got my first look at Hornsey depot from the driver’s seat. I’m sure that it’s actually quite straightforward, but there are a number of traps to catch out the unwary such as “stop” boards that are faded or missing altogether. It doesn’t help when the shunters’ handsignals are not always clear. I had one chap signalling me off the wash road in the depot with an unlit bardic lamp. Needless to say I couldn’t see him and sat there like a prune for some little while until he spotted what was amiss.

One other miscommunication that caught us out was the altered workings. It turned out that the arrangements that had been published for drivers was a complete work of fiction which caused us some confusion over our stopping patterns on two of our trips. It worked to our advantage on the first affected trip, as we weren’t actually booked to stop at some of the stations shown a stops in the notices. However, on the second trip the notices said that we had a fast run back up to London , even though the station information screens at various intermediate stops suggested differently. We got a few odd looks and exasperated waves as we blatted through non-stop, but we were just doing what we had been told. Thankfully nothing has been said about it since.