25-04-2012 First day...

Well I was hoping that a short entry would be needed tonight so that I can reflect on today's driving but I don't think it's going to be that short.
For someone on day 1 I had quite  a lot thrown at me! The weather itself down south has been abysmal and my first journey resulted in me sliding past the 5 car stop at Fratton and that was quite scary in itself.

Anyway eventually back down at the Harbour (Portsmouth) ready to depart for a service to Waterloo via Basingstoke, everything was going fine until we approached Fareham and there's a very bright red signal on the end of the platform. Lo and behold as we came to a stop the radio springs into life and its the signaller. He tells us that there's some flooding up ahead and that can we stop at the signal at Botley and give him a ring back. So signal clears and off we got towards Botley. Next signal we come to (before the station) is red as well. As we come to a stand again the radio jumps into life and the signaller is back. As were still approaching the signal we don't answer him (as per the rules) but by the time we stop he has gone. We try and call him back but there's no answer, so on with the Hi-Viz jackets and were climbing out of the train to go and use the phone at the station. I wish I had a camera on me today as seeing your train on a single line in the middle of no where is something of a novelty. Anyway we speak to the signaller, and he tells us that he has had reports of a trespasser somewhere between us and Botley station and that we are to travel at caution and try and spot them. So off we go again and this time we are only going between 15-20mph (again as per rules) looking for someone who might be wandering along the track. As we roll into Botley station we can see the police on the platform and they have someone detained with them so its obvious that they have found who we were looking for. As I stop at the stop mark we have yet another red in front of me. Again we try and contact the signaller but we can't get through so its back out of the train and down to the signal phone. The signaller tells us that there's flooding ahead and that as a result he can't clear our signal. We're to pass it at danger with authority and proceed at caution. When we arrive at the flooding we are authorised to travel over it at no more than 5mph.

So back to the train and after speaking to the guard I pass my first signal at danger (with authority!)
Proceeding at caution to where the signaller told us the flooding was and I could see it on the track, the local fields have flooded and are leaking onto the track. Its not too bad but as the rules state 5mph is the top speed and this flooding stretched for 1/2 a mile! At 5mph, it takes ages!!!

Anyway the flooding by then had started to affect the other line so we had to contact the signaller again to tell him that the other line was now affected. As you can see in this picture taken from SWT's twitter feed the flooding caused a fair amount of delays and our train arrived at Eastleigh just over half hour late.

The journey then continued fairly normally until we arrived at Basingstoke where (and not to our surprise) given a NOT TO STOP order to run fast to Waterloo. Sounds good to us! With a good run we could gain a bit of time and our next service would leave London on time.
We leave and accelerate up to 100 mph (a first for me) and we go flying up the fast line. I looked across as we came through Farnborough (what should have been one of our stops) and see a few people hanging about on the platform. As we pass, the guard contacts us and says that control have asked if we can NOW stop at Woking. Fortunately, we have enough time to do so and we start braking for it. It turns out there was miscommunication between the guards at Basingstoke where one relieved another and they had not told passengers that our trains stopping pattern had been altered, so when we arrived at Woking there were a number of people getting off!

We had a fairly good run from there to Waterloo and we eventually arrived at 26 minutes late. No break for us and after a quick check its straight round to platform 14 where our next train is already waiting for us to go. A passenger stood next to the train asked me as I walked past if there was a problem with this train (it was already 6 minutes late) and I told him that it was missing me! He laughed and left me to go and set up.

The rest of the day to be honest was fairly quiet running with delays because of the weather which also made station stops very tricky, especially when you consider that I was day 1 trainee with my Instructor.  Still hopefully tomorrow will be much easier and after today I feel that I am almost ready for anything!!