The speed at which the weeks are passing is getting a little bit scary. I’m trying desperately not to think about the fact that the final rules exam and the end of the course is now just a smidgen over a week away. Because of this, I don’t really want to dwell too much on the course content.

That said, I will just briefly mention the level of clairvoyance that it appears is required for the job of driver. Normally everything is fine and life is a bed of roses. However, as soon as the balloon goes up it is a different matter. A pulled passcom is a fairly quick and easy problem to deal with but a train fire (even a small one) is extremely serious. Quite how you deal with a passcom which has been pulled because of a fire that you are unaware of is something that I’m hoping experience will show me how to deal with. In the meantime, I just hope that it never happens. [This is something that happened to a Great Western HST near Maidenhead some years ago with appalling results. There was also a disastrous sleeper train fire near Taunton in the ‘seventies. The trouble is that the situation can have escalated out of control before the train crew is properly aware of what is happening].

In the meantime, I’m using that great internet resource eBay to make up for what I feel are deficiencies in my equipment. So far I’ve bought a natty ‘one’ leather wallet for my PTS card and travel passes and a belt holster for a carriage key and ’21’ key. It sounds a bit naff, but it will make my life a lot easier if I know that these keys are secure and that I can reach them easily when needed.

One of the great features of the rules course that I am sitting is that there is a one week break between the end of week three and the start of week four. The idea is basically to allow the first part of the training to sink in before moving on to the weightier matters of train failures, accidental train division, fires and other such diverting subjects.

While it’s not exactly a week off, it is the first (and probably only) opportunity to take any annual leave. What we probably should be doing is revising and spending some time consolidating our learning so far and, being conscientious trainees and a credit to the company, that is what we are doing. However, we are all taking at least two days off to allow the batteries to recharge and rest the old grey matter. I’m hoping that as a result of this week, the penny that has been circling the slot for a little while now will finally drop.

As if we haven’t got enough things to try and get our heads around, I managed to get myself into a proper tizzy over some railway terminology.

Today we were covering the various types of speed restrictions that can be imposed, part of which is to learn about the different signs used to denote these and their expected layout. I wasn’t too worried about these sessions as they had already been covered in some depth on induction and felt pretty confident that I had them taped.

All was going swimmingly until the trainer started talking about things being “in rear of” or “in advance of” certain objects. At this point alarm bells started going off inside my head, as I knew that the things that we being described as being “in advance of” something must be after whatever fixed point was being referred to in the direction of travel, and those that were described as being “in rear of” it would be reached first! Having shaken my head a few times to see if these seemingly contradictory statements would somehow arrange themselves into a sensible pattern I felt I had to ask. “Please sir”, I heard myself say. “Please can you explain that again?”

Well, blow me if he wasn’t right. It turns out that things appearing “in rear of” a certain point really are before you get to that point, and those that are “in advance of it” are beyond it! So, an AWS magnet for a signal is some 200 yards “in rear of” the signal, but the SPAD indicator that catches you the other side is “in advance of” the signal. When pressed, the trainer could only surmise that these are terms introduced by signallers. Be that as it may, it struck me as a daft convention given that trackside features such as signs and signals are actually laid out for the benefit of drivers. It would make far more sense if things that you reach first, like an AWS magnet, were described as “ahead of” the signal because it’s in front of it and that anything you pass after whatever fixed point is referred to as being “in rear of” it.

But then I guess that’s far too sensible. [Since this blog was written Rule Book terminology has been revised to eliminate this confusion].

‘Swarm, isn’t it?

As southern Britain swelters in proper mid-summer weather for once, the company’s slavish insistence on full uniform means that we’re suffering along with everyone else. Sadly our training room suffers from a total lack of air conditioning or anything else that could make conditions more bearable. However, at least we aren’t out driving at the moment. We found out today that the temperature measured in a driving cab over the weekend topped 103 degrees.

All of this is having a bit of an effect on my poor addled brain. Things that seemed fairly straightforward on induction are now fiendishly complicated. Perhaps it’s the added elements that weren’t covered before or maybe it’s just that I’m too hot and our trainer’s words are just washing over me without sinking in. Whatever, this week is proving to be a challenge as I struggle to assimilate lots of information in trying circumstances. Even writing this entry is proving bothersome.

On the plus side, the lesson of the first week has been successfully learnt. Both your humble correspondent and one of his colleagues managed to pass last week’s assessment with no reviews.

It would seem that I was perhaps a little hasty in my previous assessment of the rules course content. There are indeed quite a few differences between this and the content of the introductory course that we had previously sat at Hornsey, it’s just that you need to look closely to find them.

It was at about the halfway point of last week that it suddenly hit home to me that I didn’t actually know exactly what our instructor was talking about at all times. This actually came as something of a shock and caused me to sit up and pay a bit more attention. Instead of just nodding and making a mental note to look up my notes from Hornsey, I decided that I would make a conscious effort to listen and absorb, and would ask any questions as they occurred to me rather than bottling them up for another time. I’m only going to get this opportunity to learn an awful lot of really important information about my roles and responsibilities, so I really must make sure that I understand it fully before I get out there myself.

One other aspect of the rules course that has caught us all out is just how pedantic it can be. It’s not good enough just to know in your head how you would carry out a certain task if you can’t describe it. At our first weekly assessment, we all failed to complete a question asking how we would quickly protect a section of line we had just passed over that had a track defect in it. We all knew that it was by using a track circuit operating clip, but what we had singularly failed to mention was the very first thing we would do to make this possible. That is, to stop the train. I thought that this went without saying (I suppose the instructor imagined that I would just toss the clip out the window and hope that by some enormous fluke it would snap onto the rails just so), but we were all mistaken and got this question marked for review.

Duh…!!

After the front end turns comes the Rules Course.

With the change of activity comes a change of location. For the next couple of months, our place of work will not be a Portakabin in the Hornsey depot car park, but a cosy little room under the eaves at the Cambridge drivers’ depot. It’s not a bad little set-up, and much more convenient to get to in the morning. Travelling up by train each day we’re going the opposite direction to all the other commuters heading into the ‘big smoke’, which means that we have the rare pleasure of getting seats. On the downside, the building we are in is so close to the country end of Cambridge station that we have to temporarily halt proceedings every time a diesel service pulls in or out of platforms 4, 5 and 6. Standing outside we are barely in a position of safety as Ipswich bound Sprinters pull in and out of the platform.

I had been warned previously that the course content was very similar to the introductory course that we had done. In fact, one Silverlink driver who had just completed his rules course in the next classroom to us at Hornsey reckoned that it was 95% the same but more in-depth, with just 5% completely new content. And so day one proved; even down to the identical handouts. Still, I guess it’s good revision.

Today was the last day of front end turns. I feel a little sad about this, as I have very much enjoyed them.

Looking back, I’m afraid that not all of my hopes and expectations were fulfilled. While I did see some of the procedures that we had talked about in the classroom enacted, it was mostly fairly low-level stuff brought on by track circuit and signalling failures. Not one of the trains I travelled on developed anything like a major fault resulting in a failure, which was a shame as I very much wanted to see how assistance was provided. The worst that we got was having to batter various things on Class 315 EMU’s (notably recalcitrant doors) in order to make them work properly. One of my colleagues got luckier with an undemanded brake application while proceeding at speed along the Lea Valley , although they did manage to get going again.

What I was most amazed at was the sheer stupidity of the travelling public. While they are generally fairly docile and able to grasp simple information (destinations, stopping patterns, timetables and the like), many cannot. Regrettably, most of these are users of the Stansted Express. Here are a few of the gems that I have witnessed over the past four weeks.

Late Running

Heading down the platform to the front of a slow train to Stansted Airport , I was accosted by a young lady in the doorway of the Express unit in the facing platform. She was a little aerated that the train was looking like being five late leaving London and that she had missed her flight. I explained that there were signalling problems affecting trains entering and leaving, that it takes about 45 minutes to reach the airport and that delays do happen.

“But I’ve missed my flight three times before because of this”, she insisted. She wasn’t best pleased when I gently suggested that perhaps her experiences should have taught her to catch an earlier train to avoid such problems happening again.

Fare Dodgers

I’ve had a pretty good run of these (ahem) individuals. From emptying carriages of schoolkids because they took me to be a ticket inspector to a fare-dodger almost knocking me flying in his bid to escape the attentions of a gang of real inspectors. The winner for bare-faced cheek went to a young lady who brazenly asked me “Is it OK if I get on this train without a ticket?”.

Um, no.

Foot-Draggers

There seems to be a certain section of people who assume that all trains are 8 cars long, and will insist on waiting at the “8 Car Stop” board. When the train turns out to be only 4 cars, there will be one of two reactions. The first group will hurry back down the platform to board the train. The second group will amble gently in the train’s general direction with the vague notion of boarding. Two gentlemen of the latter group got left behind because the driver was unwilling to wait for them to deign to board his train; much to their consternation.

As a little postscript, the uniform is once again causing grief. Having been through the wash once, the stitching of the hems at the bottoms of the legs has come undone on two out of the three pairs of trousers I have been issued with. I feel that words will soon be exchanged on this matter.

I’m a little cross today, as I’ve just had confirmation that our rules course is to be delayed by a week. Added to the week that we are already behind because of the corporate induction at Ipswich , we have lost two weeks in as many months. Next week should have been the second week of our rules course but instead we will be getting an extra week of front end turns.

I guess it’s understandable that someone wants to take some leave, but it does grate a wee bit when we’ve been told that we can’t at least until the classroom phase of the training is over. My view is that what’s good for the goose is surely good for the gander, and that we should have been presented with the option of also taking some leave. Not a happy bunny.

In an interesting twist on life imitating art, I was subjected to the worst delays so far. ( Liverpool Street signallers should look away now.) For some reason that neither of us could fathom we were delayed getting out of Stansted Airport on a slow ‘up’ train and were put inside virtually everywhere to let every man and his dog pass. Five late at the airport had grown to almost twenty late by the time we arrived at Liverpool Street with a train groaning with people. This then became ten late on the way ‘down’, and even then a slow train was let in front of us as we were stopped at Bethnal Green, at which juncture my driver made an apt comment (the exact phrasing of which currently escapes me) that evoked a picture of the two of us being forcibly made to participate in an unnatural sexual act with a salad vegetable.

This train driving lark is great fun!! OK so I’m not actually doing anything yet, but I’m still having a great time. Apart from a couple of signalling failures which caused a fair bit of delay, the days have been uneventful. Speaking to the drivers I’ve been placed with, this is just the way we like it.

As well as getting a good view of the driving I’ve been picking up quite a bit of information about the more mundane things work out on a day-to-day basis, which will be really helpful. I must admit to being really mystified by all the rosters and notices on my first few visits to the depot and wondering how I would ever get on, but once someone has explained what it all means and how you can swap turns between drivers it’s a whole lot less daunting. Quite a few drivers seem to have swapped all their unwanted shifts and have managed to get themselves onto permanent earlies, afternoons or nights depending on what suits them best, which seems to be fine. In fact, with some negotiation and a bit of judicious swapping with other drivers, it seems that you can pretty much suit yourself when you work and when you don’t as long as all the turns are covered.

It’s going to be quite a shock to the system when I have to go back to the school for rules at the end of the month.

No, I’ve not been given the sack. Well, not yet anyway.

This week I have been playing at being a train driver and doing everything that a train driver does (er, except actually driving any trains obviously). For the last couple of days I have been up at 4am to sign-on for an early turn, drinking tea and reading discarded newspapers in messrooms, and answering the daft questions of the travelling public (“Yes this train is the Stansted Express, as it clearly says on the departure board, the platform monitor, the train destination indicator and in big orange lettering on the side of every coach you myopic muppet…!!!”). Oh, and I’ve also been riding in the secondman’s seat to observe the railway.

So far it’s been really interesting, with trips to Chingford and Stansted Airport ad nauseum. I’m hoping that I’ll have the chance to visit a few of the more exotic destinations as the weeks progress (Hertford, Cambridge…?) so that I can get to see as much of the West Anglia network as possible. I’m not yet sure in exactly what way it’s helping me in my training. While talking about and drawing things in the classroom are all well and good, I imagine that actually seeing them out in the real world will help to make them more memorable. Thanks to a track circuit and points failure at Hackney Downs this morning I’ve already seen how signals are passed at danger with authority, and feel confident that I can remember the procedure.

On another note, the new uniform is causing some hilarity. Unlike most of the drivers I’ve seen so far, I have retained my youthful figure and still resemble a giant matchstick (slender body and large bonce), which means that everything is far too baggy on me. The blazers have already been returned and replacements ordered, although there’s nothing that can be done about the tent-like shirts. Still, as the driver’s uniform is identical to those worn by ticket inspectors, I now have the uncanny knack of emptying a carriage of fare-dodging schoolkids and other riff-raff and enjoying a quiet and relaxing ride home.