A bit too quiet, if you ask me

I didn't post yesterday because I overslept. Again. Oops.

But I was back in class today! I actually woke up much earlier than I needed to this morning and spent the early part of the day relaxing and drawing a diagram of the layout around LOU (Loughton).

For those who are interested:

While fiddling around with that, I managed to let time run away with me and had to jog all the way to ROV. As it happens, I made it onto the 14:55 WOO train. However, there was a NOR (Northolt) train coming through 6 minutes later. Could have saved myself the effort. Oh well, I probably needed the exercise.

At WOO one wally thought it'd be terribly funny to pretend to push his mate onto the tracks, while - in reality - always keeping a firm grip on him. Now, I hate to sound like a broken record, but on the Underground you've got 630 V being used to power >164 tonnes of train. Do not muck about. I remember hearing a story a while ago (can't find a link now, so I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it) of two lads doing something similar. One of them pushed his mate, his mate fell, grabbed his friend, who grabbed an innocent person just standing on the platform and all three of them were killed by an approaching train. Be awfully careful.

With everyone all in one piece, a NOR train arrived (not the one from ROV, it arrived too quickly). I boarded the first carriage, where there was no Sonia and no chime from the doors. Admittedly, this was a much more peaceful journey, but I thought it probably wasn't ideal, especially if it meant we would miss important announcements. When I noticed the cab door was open at LES (I was keeping an eye out anyway, in case of a driver change, which we didn't have) I walked out and let the T/Op know from the platform. He said he knew there were no chimes but checked to see if the PA was working. It was, so I sat back down. We were actually held for a little while at LES. Not sure why, but the T/Op of the WHC (White City) train in platform 1 (the opposite platform) informed his passengers it was to regulate the service. During this time, the T/Op seemed to fix the problem - or it fixed itself. (Well, I say "fixed" - it was a bit fixed: we had chimes and Sonia, but it was all much too loud and the PAs didn't sound right - a bit of interference, a bit fuzzy.) Anyway, we were soon back on the move, although we had to wait for the WHC to go through ahead of us outside of LES. Thanks Wood Lane :P

Changed at LIS (Liverpool Street) for an all stations Uxbridge. At Moorgate, I noticed an out of service train in platform 3 and then, as we were approaching Barbican, we passed a C stock showing Moorgate as its destination - presumably bound for platform 4.

That was it for the journey to class, made it nice and early in the end and bought myself some shortbread, since I hadn't been able to pick anything up in my hurry to leave the house. That was nice.

And then on the return journey I caught an Aldgate train to LIS. As I arrived on the Central line platforms, I saw the destination indicators displaying GRH via WOO (Grange Hill via Woodford). These trains were removed from the timetable a while back, but they were once more of a feature of the evening peak. However, fairly recently, one was put back in the timetable - just one per day - after all the improvement works, I believe. This is the first time since the blockade around HAI (Hainault) that I've been able to catch such a train and I was really hoping there'd be room for me to get on it. There was and I was able to enjoy a really very smooth journey back home :) The only thing I would say is I noticed that the HAI train (from WOO) was due through ROV just 1 minute after the GRH. Seems a bit of a bad idea to send two round the loop so close together. Not that great for anyone wishing to go up towards EPP and surely not so good for anyone needing the loop either. It doesn't make that much sense to have two so close together and then nothing for, what, 20 mins? You want a bit of a spread. Still, I just get on 'em.