Exam IV

This blog post has been slightly delayed. It is actually Thursday's post, but it was held up while I was looking for a suitable image.

Today was the day of my fourth (apart from the oral) and final exam. I went to bed reasonably early and tried to get a good night's sleep but that didn't really happen and the very fact that I got out of bed at 07:00 this morning is, I think, deserving of congratulations :P One way or another I got myself to ROV in pretty good time, although when I arrived the next one through was to WOO unfortunately. I took this, but it meant changing onto a busy train and I didn't get any much needed rest! :( The train I changed onto was a WER service and it took me to LIS without incident. I just missed a relatively quiet looking Met line train (all stations Uxbridge) and had to join a busy H&C line train to Hammersmith. That took me to King's X again without incident.

There I sat the exam. This time, there were a lot of subsidiary questions and, actually, the translations themselves weren't so bad. I mean, they were bad, but they were quite short and I kind of got the feeling that if I'd done any work, I'd've been able to do a fairly good job of this exam. I hadn't done any work though. I had to leave half of the translations - didn't even try (actually, I  managed one line for question 4). For one of the translation questions I used the same technique as before, but got far less down in terms of actual translation. One of the translations, though, I was able to have a decent crack at, because I could remember a lot of it from my essay. I also had a go at the essay questions and the subsidiary questions. I really doubt I did a particularly good job of anything that I did, but I was surprised by how much stuff I was able to get down. Before the exam, I'd pretty much written this course off. I believe I need 32.5% on this exam to pass the course and I'm still pretty pessimistic - but not nearly as much as I was before I saw the paper. Maybe, just maybe, I won't fail any units. Maybe I'll fail three. Even if I have passed all of my units there are gonna be some uninspiring grades in there, but I may just about come away with a half-decent degree. I may very well come away with nothing or something supremely shit. But, I'm slightly less sure it'll be the latter than I was, which is nice.

After the exam, I got the chance to talk to an old friend who happened to be in the same exam room, which was nice. We walked back to King's X, where I had a bit of "business" to attend to, shall we say. I wanted to get back on a C stock train. I won't bore you by repeating myself and explaining all about C stock withdrawals and the S stock roll out. Suffice it to say that one C seems to've gone today and the word on the street is that we're looking at no more timetabled C stock workings very soon, possibly as early as 03/06. It may be a lot later, it may be earlier, but I decided today was my best chance to have a last ride on a C stock on the Wimbleware.

So I hopped aboard an H&C line train to Hammersmith and soon arrived at Edgware Rd. I noticed a very shiny looking S stock in the siding (26 road). It looked brand new. As far as the Cs are concerned, I was expecting there to be at least two - there were actually three - so my chances of getting one without a huge wait were not bad. Happily, within a few minutes a Wimbledon train did arrive and it was a C. I watched it into the platform, had a little look round the signalling and then jumped aboard.

It was nice heading past the sights again, for one last time, on a C stock. Gosh I keep forgetting how they feel - they're not the slickest of machines, nor the quietest. I like them, though. I do. I surprise myself, but I do. We had a bit of a wait at High St. for a Circle line train. I had a bit of a look around, watched the stick clear and hopped back on for the ride down, past the triangle sidings, through Earl's Court and once more along the Wimbledon road. I noticed some work going on in one of the sidings at Parsons Green, but that was about all of note.

I actually took a different C out of Wimbledon and this one had a slightly dodgy digital voice announcer. She was silent at Southfields and then made the announcement for Southfields at East Putney. She was silent at another station, too, although I can't remember which - maybe West Brompton?

Before long we were at Paddington and were then held short of Praed Street Junction due to blocking back (queueing, basically) which was caused/aggravated by a train with door problems at Edgware Rd. After a fairly substantial wait, we made it into Edgware Rd where I had a bit of a surprise - an S7 up as a District line train to Wimbledon was standing at platform 4.

Now, recall the track layout at Edgware Rd:

A diagram showing the track layout at Edgware Road. Some of you may remember this diagram from a previous post

As you can see, there is no way of reaching platform 4 from the eastbound District line (which will arrive from Paddington (Praed Street)). The main way in to platform 4 is from Baker Street (specifically platform 6 at Baker St). It's possible - although I don't know and I think it's unlikely - but it's possible that a shunt move could be carried out from platform 3, heading along the westbound track to Baker Street and then shunting into platform 4 but it strikes me as very unlikely that such a move would be signalled. No, the only other way in to platform 4 is to head westbound towards Praed St. Junction, stop at a limit of shunt sign (I can only assume there is one) and shunt back wrong road into platform 4. This can presumably be done, in theory, form platforms 2 and 3, but it seems very unlikely that there would be any call for such a move when you can go westbound from there anyway, that's merely a theoretical option. No, in reality, I'm almost certain this train will've come from the siding and the train I'd seen there earlier was no longer in the siding so I'm pretty sure that's what happened. Still makes a nice change to see a District line train in platform 4. Very unusual.

Another option is that an H&C or Circle line S7 was reformed into a District line train. Obviously this would require a change of driver, as H&C and Circle line T/Ops are not road trained on the Wimbledon road, but it's a fairly trivial process to reform a former H&C/Circle line train into a District one otherwise. It just requires a change of train number and a change of destination. Really no more complicated than reforming an Ealing train into a Wimbledon one!

Anyway, when I finally made it into Edgware Rd I changed onto a Circle line train which took me to LIS, where I boarded an EPP train. Behind that there was a HAI via NEP and then a LOU. The journey home was uneventful as far as WOO, although it's very noisy on the east between STR and LEY in the tunnel. Gosh. I suspect this might be the result of some rail grinding that's been carried out in the area although I shouldn't speculate. Maybe it was actually completely local to our train, but whatever the case, it was very squeaky.

At WOO, I noticed signs of trouble. The LOU I had seen earlier had been replaced by a 'special' (which means it's out of service) which was 'held'. It turned out, according to the staff member on the platform, that it had gone defective at LES eastbound. It had been taken out of service for one reason or another and seemed to have caused some minor blocking back. Certainly it sounded like there'd been a platforms and hold call and I overheard on the radio Wood Lane giving the all clear for trains which had been held WHC - LEY on the east.

Happily none of this affected me and my HAI came out of 21 rd right on time and took me home. I stayed at ROV to watch the 'special' go past on its way to HAI depot. It was in Coded but was travelling at full line speed. There didn't seem to be anything visibly broken so I'm presuming it was something under the skin that went wrong.

And so, with that, I take the chance to say goodbye to the Cs on the Wimbledon-Edgware Road branch of the District line:

A C stock train operating a District line service (Wimbledon - Edgware Road), seen here at Wimbledon. (Image courtesy Chris McKenna (via Wikipedia))

And carry on son to the S7s:

An S7 stock train operating a District line service (Wimbledon - Edgware Road), also seen at Wimbledon. (This excellent image is courtesy of "Flickr" user Uzair Siddiqi and the original (which I have not altered) may be viewed here. The license applying to the use of this image may be viewed here.

I'm also gonna take the opportunity to do what I should have done before and say a goodbye to Cs operating to Kensington (Olympia):

A C stock train operating a District line service (from Kensington (Olympia)), seen here at Kensington (Olympia). This image is reproduced here by kind permission of the copyright holder - "Flickr" user "Black Trenchcoat". © All rights reserved by "Black Trenchcoat." "Black Trenchcoat" is not affiliated in any way with this blog and has played no part in the production of this post. Their kind permission to use this image does not imply any endorsement of the content of this blog. The original image has been modified slightly by its owner to remove graffiti. It is available here. Any requests to re-use this image must be addressed to "Black Trenchcoat"

Of course, these days the Olympia service is still largely operated by D stock:

A D stock train operating a District line service (from Kensington (Olympia)), seen here at Kensington (Olympia). (Image courtesy "Sunil060902" (via Wikipedia))

But, of course, the S7s are taking over there as well:

An S7 stock train operating a District line service (from Kensington (Olympia)), seen here at Kensington (Olympia). (Image courtesy "Spsmiler" (via Wikipedia))

And that's pretty much farewell to the C stock from me. I've made sure to have a last ride on it to all of the stations shown on the in-car maps. It's been nice, the C stock have couriered me to all kinds of important and enjoyable events and places.

It was my intention, while we're doing goodbyes, to leave it there. I think I am going to be forced to put this blog on ice for a while. It's time for me to move on in the world and I don't know what I'm gonna be doing or where I'm gonna be doing it. I have applied to Network Rail for a position as a signaller (in Kent), which'd be nice, but I hope I won't be doing that forever, as I still hold on to romantic, quixotic ideals of making the world a better place and all that jazz, but I'll see. If I get that, I probably won't be in London for much longer, but who knows. I'm sure I'll take many more tube journeys in the weeks to come, but I don't think I can afford to devote the time to writing them up at the moment, but this may not be the end, it may be but a hiatus. Sadly I can make no promises, only a 'we'll see.'

However, I went out on the railway again today and I can't resist giving you an account before I 'shut down the cab', as it were. Just whilst I'm at it, I thought I might as well, y'know. This will be the last post for now though.

So today was slightly messy as far as organisation was concerned. I won't go into the details, but I had a half-planned meeting with a friend I was hoping to go to. Unfortunately, she never got one of my texts and by the time I arrived at street level and could get a signal, she'd already gone home. But no matter, I managed to make the trip worthwhile by picking up a new phone (nice and cheap - good value) to go with the new life and career prospects and need to be 'connected.'

So, anyway, I arrived - perhaps a little optimistically - at ROV with just a couple of minutes to wait for the WOO train. All proceeded normally and we soon arrived on the platform at WOO. Here I got my first sign of something a little unusual when I saw that the next train through was a 'special' - read: out of service. I then saw the stick clear for the WOO train I'd just left with the route set for the mainline. This made it almost certain that the 'special' was bound for the sidings. It duly arrived in Coded, headed up 21 rd, reversed and stabled in the sidings (on 22 rd, specifically).

Almost immediately a WER train arrived and Auto fluffed the stop. It was coming in very slowly - because of the train on the mainline I suspect - and managed to stop short in the dry! Poor show. Had to be brought the rest of the way in by the T/Op. Anyway that took me all the way to HOL.

At HOL, after it became clear the meeting wasn't happening I went for a walk, looking for an open phone shop and - a bus ride later - eventually found one by TCR station. Now with a new phone I decided it was best just to go home and took an EPP train from TCR. This got me back to WOO just fine - much less squeaky STR - LEY on the east today. At WOO I noticed there were now four or five trains in the sidings! There was also a huge wait for the HAI - must've been 25 minutes, if not more. I also noticed  a train bound for LES arrive on the west. The word is that the train I saw heading onto 22 rd was short-tripped due to a lack of available drivers - nobody to relieve the T/Op at LES. This lack of staff was likely behind some of the other things I've mentioned, too.

Eventually it was time for the HAI to leave 21 rd but this was a sick train. The time came but there was no movement. Before long, the destination indicators were displaying it as "held". A WER arrived on the westbound and had to wait for it. Still no movement from the HAI. Finally it did arrive on the eastbound platform in Coded. (Trains almost always leave the sidings in Coded, it's standard procedure, but I thought it might have had to limp out in RM as I once saw one do). All seemed well. Everyone boarded, the doors closed. No movement. Doors open. Bit of a wait. Doors close. Still no movement. Eventually we pull away and arrive at ROV. I stayed to watch to see if it would get away from ROV alright. The doors closed. No movement. After a long wait it did get going. This was not a happy train, I wonder if it was taken out of service - perhaps at HAI.

And that will have to be that. Take care folks.