Out to Lunch

Today I got a text from a friend inviting me to lunch in South Kensington. I was also in charge of looking after the cats and had to sort them out this morning. Due to my laziness and general preference of late nights, I was not actually awake when I received the text and eventually had a fairly hurried morning (well, early afternoon actually) getting ready, dealing with my beloved cats and generally getting out of the house.

Still, get out of the house I did, but - unfortunately - the WOO train overtook me as I was crossing the road, still some way from ROV, and the HAI went past shortly afterwards. I was therefore anticipating a considerable wait at ROV and a late arrival at South Ken. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, the WOO train is often held at ROV for a while and, happily, today was no different. Hoping that this would be the case, I kept up a good pace and was able to hurry over the bridge, touch in and board the train with a good 30 s - 1 min to spare.

Before long we arrived at WOO, where I changed for a NOR train.

And now ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to today's edition of 'Outrageous Speculation,' with me: TUT.

I wish I'd watched the NOR train into the platform, but I failed to, so my speculation is even more tenuous than need be. Anyway, I boarded the train, the doors closed, no movement, the two sets of double doors opened, we tried again, they closed and we were away. All seemed perfectly normal at first, but before long I couldn't help noticing a distinctly unusual driving style - and some very smooth stops. Now, I wasn't in the cab today, so take what I'm about to say with a pinch of salt, but I quickly began to suspect we were in coded. Partly, this is because of the unusual style, but it really felt like we were being driven in response to changes of target speed. We accelerated up to a speed, then you could feel the motors cut (maybe a little bit of braking), as if the target speed had been reached, and then you'd have more of the same as we increased speed. Also, the braking seemed to come in discrete units between stations: braking, coast (maybe even power to keep speed), more braking, more coasting, and so on. The other thing that was very noticeable was we would start slowing down and then the power would be applied and we'd speed up again and then all of a sudden we'd be slowing down again. This, I think, is pretty much in line with what I'd expect to see if the target speed fell (brakes now applied to match the target speed), but then - mid-block - increased (power applied to match the target speed) and then fell again as we entered the next block (brakes now applied to match the target speed).

Now, unfortunately, I don't know a lot about the ins and outs of driving a Central line train in coded, so treat that merely as speculation. Thing is, though, this was the driving style in the tunnel and you ain't supposed to be in coded downstairs unless you're learning or you have a problem. The other thing is, this is not the usual driving style in coded on the Central line as far as I'm aware, T/Ops have good route knowledge and tend to know how to be a little smoother. I've gotta say - and I don't like saying it, I'm generally a big proponent of manual driving - but it got quite uncomfortable after a while. All a bit TBTC if I'm honest :P But that all makes me think our T/Op might've been learning. Or we might've had a fault and an old hand was driving in Coded, just not perfectly smoothly as I doubt Central line ATO encourages a particularly smooth driving style. Or we might've been in Auto and I just don't know what I'm talking about. An unusual journey in, though, to HOL.

So yes, I changed at HOL - needing to remind myself not to head off to Russell Square on auto-pilot - and boarded a Heathrow Terminals 4 & 1,2,3 train which whisked me off to South Kensington, where I arrived within five minutes of my ETA - and that's five minutes early, by the way. I don't think there's too much to say about my journey on the Picc, other than that it made a nice change for me. I tried to look out for the siding located by the old Down Street station, between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner, and for the crossover outside Hyde Park Corner. Trouble is, it's hard to see much out of a busy 1973 stock. Apparently using the siding at Down Street can be a bit of a palaver. If you wanna reverse a train there, it's just like any other siding, but - it being in a tunnel and quite a way from Hyde Park Corner - it's a nuisance stabling a train there. The T/Op who took it in, apparently, would have to walk through the tunnels to Hyde Park Corner (traction current off, obviously - although I think only a short part of the actual trek would be on the mainline and they might not actually bother switching traction current off on the mainline, but no trains would pass through until the T/Op is safely on the platform). Apparently, also, the siding is long enough to accommodate two trains in an emergency. It usually only takes one, with the extra space essentially acting as very generous overrun. There's a trainstop halfway down the siding and normally only one train uses it as I say, but in an emergency, a train could be tripped past that trainstop and stable at the end of the siding, with another train then able to stable behind it. This extremely generous overrun was brought in a long while ago, apparently, after collisions with the end tunnel wall down at Tooting Broadway. Nowadays I would imagine Moorgate control is used on manually driven lines where the siding is only long enough for one train, but back then, it was decided just to simply only allow one train in this siding, even though it could just about take 2.

Anyway, I met my friend, had lunch and soon headed back from South Ken, at rush hour, during the school holidays... It wasn't too bad though and an Arnos Grove train soon had me back at familiar HOL. When I arrived on the Central line platform, there were two trains for HAI via NEP shown, with the EPP behind them both. Not ideal, but I took the first one to LES and changed, eventually getting the EPP up to WOO. There was another EPP behind us, so looks like there was a train out of step. At, I think, SNA on the east, the doors closed, we tried for movement, instantly stopped, waited and then got on our way. Nothing much else of interest after that, though, and we made WOO, but with a long wait for the HAI. The WOO via HAI eventually arrived on the west (which, of course, becomes the HAI train) and ran up the siding, where it had very little time indeed to reverse - could surely only have been 5 minutes, if that. Happened to watch at least one more train head through WOO eastbound in coded as well :P Eventually the HAI arrived and that took me back to ROV to bring to an end a nice tube excursion :)