I'm nearly there with Monday's post - really - I've nearly finished.
Anyway, today - Thursday. On Thursdays, I don't have class until 16:00 so don't normally have to be up (and often am not, I have to confess) until 14:00. Today, however, I was meeting a friend and got up at about 11:00. Still, I got all of my things together, got out of the house and was able - by not dawdling - to get to ROV with 2 minutes to go. All worked out very nicely again.
At ROV I boarded the WOO train as usual and was soon at WOO, on a very nice, bright day. I changed onto a pretty empty NOR train and that took me in - past the lovely, sunlit sights of the east end of the Central line - to LIS. At LIS I was able to board a relatively empty Circle line train, I think it was, and that took me past a Circle line train in Moorgate's platform 3. That, however, was the only thing of note on the trip to Euston Square.
On the way back, for some reason I was in a bit of a hurry - I just felt like getting home and I cherished a small hope that I might make the GRH via WOO again. So I hurried to Euston Sq and boarded a Circle line train, which took me all pretty smoothly to LIS. In fact, the train was quite empty for rush hour and I actually got a seat at King's X. The line also seemed a little less congested and only at Moorgate were we stationary for any appreciable length of time at all.
At LIS, I arrived on the platform to find a newly working dot-matrix indicator telling me that the next train was for HAI via NEP. Behind that there was an EPP and behind that, I eventually found out, was a WOO via HAI. I had no idea what was behind the WOO via HAI, though, so I decided to get out at LES (I was still hoping for the GRH via WOO). This would allow me to find out what was behind the WOO via HAI and decide whether I wanted to get the EPP and change at WOO, or whether to get the WOO via HAI direct to ROV (but taking the long route.) You see, not wanting a repeat of yesterday, I was not inclined to take the EPP and wait at WOO unless I knew the GRH via WOO was going to arrive behind it. I was much more tempted by the WOO via HAI, but I'd decided to change at LES rather than staying on to HAI, just in case the GRH via WOO was still an option. As it turned out, the next train was for NEP, so I didn't board the EPP, assuming that I'd missed the GRH via WOO. As the WOO via HAI approached I saw that the train behind the NEP was the DEB. So, in short, I knew I must indeed have missed it and there was certainly nothing to be gained by taking the DEB, so I took the WOO via HAI. This naturally meant I could have stayed on the HAI via NEP after all, but I thought I'd assess my options at LES :P
Everything went well after that until we were approaching platform 2 at HAI. We slowed down - I though much too early - and then as we were about to stop, power was applied and the train then came to a halt. I still thought we had stopped short though and, indeed, after a wait, we moved forwards a fair bit more, which brought the rest of the train into the platform and took us up to the stopping mark. I assume this was auto making a mess of things, though whether auto or the T/Op brought us the rest of the way in, I don't know. As it turns out this was not a happy train. We also had an unusually long, five minute wait at HAI, which makes me suspicious that the new timetable isn't working out ideally. When we were ready to go, the train took some time to start rolling after the doors had closed. However, we did get much less of a jolt on the way out than usual. I saw the GRH via WOO train I didn't manage to get shunting around HAI depot and then we arrived at GRH, where we had more very minor problems. I don't think the doors opened for a good few seconds and there were no chimes as they shut. I know we had problems at GRH (again, very minor - nothing of any real concern - but this just seemed like a slightly unhappy train - maybe it was having an off day :P) and we might've had them at CHI too. I can't quite remember what happened where, but all was definitely not completely well. At CHI (or it might've been GRH, but I think the doors took a while to open at both GRH and CHI and I think this happened at CHI) the train stopped and the doors took a short while to open. What was really odd, was the behaviour of a gentleman who was standing on the wrong side of the train. When the doors on his side of the train didn't open, he began pushing repeatedly at the door open button. Obviously this had no effect. Just after he started doing this (or perhaps slightly before, I must say I can't be sure), the doors opened on the correct side, eventually - complete with chimes to alert him that this had happened; but still our unobservant friend tries his luck with the doors on the wrong side. Eventually (as I was about to say something) - with a wonderfully comical - almost cartoon like - start of surprise, he notices and - arms flailing - hurries through the doors on the right side of the train.
After that it was all, actually, plain sailing and I got off the train at ROV, having taken care to observe that there was, indeed, a platform adjacent to the doors I was hoping to leave through, while I waited for us to stop :P
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