I notice from my last entry that I was bemoaning the fact that this week was going to be rather dull. Well, I have been proved wrong in spectacular style. Still, according to some of my colleagues I am now a proper driver.

Unfortunately, I don’t feel at liberty at the present moment in time to go into any details on such a public website just at the moment. However, it does mean that I won’t be doing any driving for a little while during which time this weblog probably won’t get updated very often. So, apologies for that. Don’t worry though, dear reader. I will be back very soon.

They do say that you should be careful what you wish for.

Although it’s now been over a week since passing out, I’ve still only completed three solo driving turns. This is mainly down to me taking the last of my annual leave left over from 2005 (which also explains why I’ve not updated the weblog recently). However, today was a veritable cornucopia of happenings.

Because of engineering work I was let off the Stansted Express duties and put onto the London to Harlow shuttle. Some of these trains would have been Cambridge or Bishops Stortford services, which meant that I spent the first couple of trips sliding around trying to get my eye back in for braking at stations that the faster Stansted Express services don’t call at. It all came back to me eventually, although I did manage to give myself a bit of a scare first time into Roydon and Ponders End stations. Fortunately, I managed not to go skating past the stop board.

I also had the opportunity to do something for the very first time.

When our routes were resignalled a few years back, no-one thought to put in any bi-directional signalling at Harlow Town station to allow for trains to be turned back to London . This means that trains terminating there have to make an unsignalled wrong direction movement at some point to be crossed back onto the correct line through manually operated points. This means taking instructions from a handsignaller. Fortunately, as I had to travel as a passenger up to London before taking my first train out, I got to see the movement being done by an experienced driver before I was expected to do it myself. It wasn’t actually as difficult as I thought it might have been, but it was nice to know that I wasn’t going to make a fearful mess of the thing when it came to my turn.

As if that wasn’t enough, Spurs were playing at home this afternoon which meant that I got my first experience of a football train. I am continually amazed at the number of people that can squeeze themselves into a train when they are motivated to get somewhere. I thought that weekday peak loadings were impressive, but commuters have got nothing on football fans. I can only assume that they must have been wedged into the overhead racks and sitting on each other’s laps for everyone on the platform at Northumberland Park to have managed to get onboard. The train certainly felt fatter as a result, but on a positive note all the extra weight gave amazing grip on the rail in drizzly conditions and cancelled out all the slipping that I’d been experiencing up until then.

Unfortunately, today looks to have been a glimmer in an otherwise dull week. From tomorrow I shall be back on the Stansted Express. While these runs tend to be fairly routine, they are at least quite easy with few stops and a train host to deal with the punters and the PA. On the downside, it does mean that I am likely to come back into contact with my Nemesis. The same unit that suffered the faulty cab radio on my first day decided to take a “sicky” while I was driving it on day two. I had sensed that the traction power was ebbing away until the train felt like it was on half power. Unfortunately, there were no fault indications on either unit to diagnose what the problem was or even which unit was suffering from it. It was only when I handed the train over to a colleague that I realised what was wrong. As he was pulling away, I couldn’t hear any noise from the traction motors on one unit. It’s a good thing it was working in multiple with another unit or I would have been stuck somewhere with no power and no hope. I’m sure that unit doesn’t like me. If it looks like I have to drive it again I shall probably just go straight home again.

Who says train driving is dull…?

Well folks, I survived my first solo turn.

It was a bit weird being in the cab all on my own. I found that I kept looking over to the secondman’s seat expecting a comment or remark only to find it empty. It wasn’t just the cab that seemed empty, as the messrooms had a similar feel too. I also seemed to spend an awful lot of time talking and singing to myself, which is worrying. Then again, when there’s no-one else around you can’t feel embarrassed about it.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I didn’t feel as nervous as I thought I might. I made sure that I didn’t rush about and gave myself plenty of time to change ends so that things didn’t get forgotten or otherwise overlooked, and I drove as I always had done when with my minder (but then, I know no other way). This, combined with being in my own little bubble insulated from the rest of the world, actually made for a surprisingly relaxing day. That said, I did have a scare on my second trip when the cab radio went wonky and I had to stop and get instructions from the signaller via a signalpost phone. That certainly got the old heart pumping as I mentally scrabbled around trying to remember if I was doing the right thing.

All in all I had a really great day and I’m looking forward to my next turn of duty on Monday. I don’t expect that every day will be as cushy, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

Today is the day that I have been waiting for. A little over ten months ago I walked in off the street knowing absolutely nothing about what being a train driver involved. At every stage along the way I was sure they would tell me that I wasn’t good enough to make the grade, and yet they kept asking me back. And now, having completed my final assessment, I am no longer a trainee.

Obviously I’m really pleased to have finally passed out, there is a sense of anticlimax about it. After all these months of work leading up to this point I was expecting to feel more elated, but I guess that this is just the start of my career as a driver. As good as the preparation has been to bring me to this point and as helpful and knowledgeable as the various instructors have been, I still feel that there’s so much more that I don’t know and will only start to learn once I’m out there having to rely on no-one but myself. However, I would like to publicly thank everyone who has provided me with even the least bit of information, advice or encouragement. At the risk of turning irretrievably mushy, I feel very privileged to work with such a great bunch of people from whom I will no doubt continue to learn.

So, where does it all go from here? Well, in the true tradition of chucking people in at the deep end, I have my first solo turn tomorrow morning. As I’ve only passed on the core route, it will be a fairly bland day of airport services. However, being the first time out on my own it won’t be dull. I would imagine that “terrifying” would be a more accurate description. I’ll have twenty of these solo turns before I then learn the rest of the routes. Once all that’s out the way, I shall be fully into the roster and have a more varied workload.

As for this weblog, I intend to continue to add to it as it would be a real shame just to end it here. I hope that it has been interesting and possibly even amusing on occasion. Above all, I hope that it has inspired other would-be drivers out there that it is possible to achieve your ambition.

Heck, if I could do it, what’s stopping you…?

As a driver, it’s not very often that you get the opportunity to mix with or talk to any of the many professions that keep the railways running. As a result, each grade tends to have a slightly jaundiced view of everyone else. Therefore, it was rather nice to dispel some of these myths today.

Because of the way that things have worked out with my assessment, I have indeed managed to wangle an extra day’s route learning so that I can “sign” the diversionary routes. However, there are no scheduled passenger services over one of these routes, which meant that it had to be walked. Given the biting cold of the wind I guess I couldn’t have chosen a better day, so I was glad that the route to be walked was only a mile or so long.

It also benefited from a lovely warm signalbox at about half distance in which we could shelter and pick the signaller’s brains. Although the precise workings of the signalbox are still as arcane to me as they were when we visited Cambridge IECC and Kings Lynn box all those months ago, the signaller himself was friendliness personified and a mine of useful information. It almost made me feel bad for all the nasty things I’d said and thought about his colleagues at Liverpool Street IECC. He talked me through all the possible shunt moves and signal indications while skillfully juggling passenger and freight movements coming through his patch. He didn’t even mind answering lots of questions that probably all came at the most inconvenient of times for him. What a lovely man.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about a look-out for a worksite we passed. Just as we drew up to him he started firing off lots of daft questions about why we weren’t wearing hard hats and didn’t have a look-out. He didn’t seem to understand who we were (even though I was wearing the uniform coat) and why we were out there. He even earned us a reprimand from the site supervisor who yelled at us to “Stop distracting the look-out!!”. So I yelled back to make clear that it was him talking to us and not the other way around.

Other than that, the assessments so far have been OK. I’ve had the written assessments for PTS and the core route together with a few hours driving. This still leaves the biggies of rules and traction, together with the additional diversionary routes and yet more driving. Still, I now have a nice long weekend in which to relax (although I fear I may spend a significant amount of that time fretting).