Woo!

I'm on holiday for Christmas (the first thing which warrants a 'woo') so I'm not expecting to make many trips for a while. Nevertheless, today, one of my best friends came to visit and I accompanied her back to LIS (Liverpool Street). All was smooth on the way there and I had no problem getting back to WOO (Woodford), where the fun and games began. Woo. :P

The first thing I noticed was that there was a train in westbound platform 1 and I happened to notice that it was showing Waterloo as its destination :P Waterloo, of course, was not its destination and I imagine the T/Op was simply in the process of choosing the correct destination, because it was showing EAB (Ealing Broadway) by the time my train had departed up to EPP (Epping) and I could get a clear view at the back. Still, a nice novelty to see a train leaving from Westbound platform 1. Why this train was short-turned I don't know, but there was something afoot. There was a big gap in the eastbound service, with no train due east after the next one for about 10 minutes. There was also no HAI train. The Woodford via Hainault train which would usually reverse and become the HAI train eventually arrived, but it was sent through to RUG (Ruislip Gardens), where I imagine it stabled in Ruislip depot. Anyway, for us, there was still no HAI train. Eventually one arrived (whether from ROV or BUH (Buckhurst Hill) I don't know) but it was reversed off of platform 2, which was a nice change. This, I imagine, was done to speed things up, since there hadn't been a HAI train for so long. Why, though, the Woodford via Hainault was run through to RUG, I don't know; perhaps it was late running. Given there was a train in platform 1 when I arrived I can only assume there were some small delays. I might have thought all of this juggling around of the Hainault service was to leave 21 road clear (trains can only arrive at, and depart from, platform 1 via 21 road, which is also the siding normally used to reverse HAI trains), but the train had long since left platform 1, so I've really no idea what was happening. It would have made a nice change and been generally interesting were I not running a bit late. In the end, I got a lift off to visit my grandparents and I didn't even get the fun of going over the crossover :P