It was a really lovely day today. I'm quite lucky, in some ways, since my timetable has now changed and I only have one class today, which is 16:00-17:00. Since my commute works out to a ≈2-2.5 hour trip, this is a bit of a nuisance - and it means a journey home at rush hour - but it also means a lie-in and a nice, relaxing afternoon journey in. I wasn't feeling that terrific when I got up, but I looked out of my window to a truly beautiful sky, which really lifted my spirits. I then had a lovely journey in on a glorious winter's afternoon. Therapy :). Actually, there's nothing like a tube journey to cheer me up, I once took a trip up to High Barnet and back after a good friendship sort of collapsed.
Anyway, I arrived at ROV with 5 minutes to go till the WOO train and 3 minutes until a "special" arrived. "Special" usually means the train is out of service and, sure enough, another out of service train came through ROV 3 minutes later. My title for this entry is obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek and it may not have been a dud, but I'm pretty sure it was, since the seats in one of the carriages had been lifted up to allow access to the various electrical equipment there. Well, either way, it actually had a bit of a wait at the starter signal until the train from BUH (Buckhurst Hill) had cleared Woodford junction, but it was soon on its way. By that time, the WOO train had arrived and, having been held just short of ROV, pulled in shortly after. We then followed the out of service train onto WOO, where it was performing a main line shunt (see Woodford station and, also, yesterday's blog post, where I describe a similar move at LES (Leytonstone)). This means that it had continued out of westbound platform 2 and stopped on the main line. This, of course, leaves 21 road free for our WOO train. Our train was duly detrained and proceeded into 21 road. Clearly, the out of service train couldn't move into eastbound platform 3, and then round to HAI (Hainault) (where I assume it was going), until our train had stopped in the siding. When the WOO train was safely out of the way, the out of service train got going, but not before the NOR (Northolt) train was pulling into westbound 2. This train, obviously, had a bit of a wait while the out of service train made its way over the crossover into eastbound platform 3 (which I stood and watched), before it got me on my way.
Now, I'm sure I'm missing something, but I've gotta confess this does strike me as a little odd and I'll tell you why. After everything I said yesterday about reversing at WOO being the thing I would do, you'd've thought I'd be applauding this as the sensible move. (It has just struck me (and I've added a quick edit just in case) that the train I was talking about yesterday could have carried on through WOO and reversed at LES, to go back round to the depot via WOO. This would allow Wood Lane to take advantage of the additional platform at LES, but obviously means a fairly unnecessary extra journey.) And, certainly, I think WOO is an ideal place through which to route trains bound for the HAI depot. However, what leaves me puzzled is this: This train was approaching WOO on the HAI loop, so I can only assume it failed somewhere between GRH (Grange Hill) and WOO - anywhere else on the HAI loop and it could have been worked into the depot from any platform at HAI, or - I do believe - either platform at GRH. Obviously, there're no restrictions on where a train can go wrong, but I'll be a little surprised if it did fail between GRH and WOO, because a working train arrived so quickly afterwards, and on time. Given that trains are only timetabled along that part of the line once every twenty minutes, I would have thought pulling that off would mean finding a train to continue on from HAI to WOO pretty quickly and it would've had to go like the clappers to catch up with the train it was substituting in for (which presumably wouldn't have been running that early when it failed?) Oh well, maybe I should leave the speculating alone for the time being, I've not the faintest idea what happened there, but let's just say I find myself struggling to explain what went on today. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoyed the unusual move and this is exactly the sort of thing I started blogging to talk about.
Anyway, once I was on my way, it was a fairly straightforward journey into LIS (Liverpool Street) on a day which really made me feel jealous of our Central line T/Ops. It was a marvellous day to be on the trains. Goodness knows LUL can be an impossible company to work for sometimes and I often think that if the people in 55 Broadway have their way, it really will be an impossible company to work for some day, at least in front line services. More and more people are being replaced by machines and I, for one, am very saddened by this. Ticket office closures have led to the loss of large numbers of jobs - and not just in the ticket offices - the number of humans on stations seems to be coming down and I get the feeling we will have more unmanned stations at night (especially with the coming of the "night tube") than ever before soon. (Fire regulations mandate a certain number of staff at underground stations and, realistically, no railways is ever gonna be fully automated, but I fear we're tending towards that with time. Or, at least, we will continue to do so, until there's an almighty catastrophe like the King's Cross fire and suddenly people are wondering why there weren't enough people taking charge and sorting it out). I feel I should write a long-winded rant in the light of articles such as these, but I can't really bring myself to do it. It just makes me feel quite sad and I'm a bit too busy.
But, in spite of this, for the time being, I'd give quite a lot to be paid to be on the front of a tube train on a day like today, especially "on the handle". One thing that does seem to be a foregone conclusion is that the eradication of people on the handle (in normal operation anyway) is the plan. Not that this objective is proceeding fantastically smoothly and we've recently had the news that the contract to convert the sub-surface lines to ATO has been re-let. Bombardier have lost the contract and it seems that their 'Cityflo 650' system will not be used. This makes the 2018 deadline date seem pretty unrealistic now. Also, while this may be the dream, my whingeing about TBTC on the Northern and Jubilee lines will be familiar to anyone who's been reading regularly and take a look at ASLEF shrugged's blog, if you haven't already, to learn what happens when you mix rain with a Central line train in auto. Despite what some may want to believe, the tube isn't a glorified roller coaster and, even in the early days of 2014, we've a long way to go before truly 'driverless' trains are running. This, though, is the plan, and while we might well have cause to be sceptical about it (see title of this blog alone :P), City Hall's war on the T/Op doesn't look like abating any time soon.
Mini-rant over. LIS. Changed for a Met line train (all stations to Uxbridge) and passed an S7 sat in Moorgate platform 4, which was out of service. (May not have been dud, of course, but 'dud central' worked better than 'out of service central' :P) That was about the only thing of note, though, and I arrived in class very early. My class was on the fifth floor, though, and this gave me a wonderful opportunity to sit and stare at an enchanting sky as the Sun began to set and the rain clouds were lit from below. How lovely.
And then it was back home. Little slow on the Met around Barbican but, otherwise, fairly smooth journey. Changed at LIS for a HAI via NEP train, changed at LES for an EPP train and changed at WOO for the HAI train. Quite a long, warm journey - as you expect at rush hour - but quite a happy one too. And that's the end of my week - no class tomorrow, so I'm free as a bird :)
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