Friday, December 16, 2005

Time For Tea!

There's a rumour that the Underground runs on electricity. Let me tell you that it doesn't! It actually runs on tea!
I'm referring to a ridiculous, scare-mongering story in the Evening Standard on Thursday. The story featured pictures taken by a commuter who spent four hours on a bridge just taking photo's of Northern Line drivers. The photo's shown included one of a driver apparently bending down to get something out of his bag, one of a driver drinking a cup of tea, one of a driver glancing at a notebook and one of a driver with a young girl in his cab.

Now, the last pic of the driver with the girl in the cab is worrying. It appears that the door to the cab is standing open and the girl is in the doorway. This is a definite no-no for obvious security reasons.
The other pics are everyday occurences!
The driver bending down was probably just putting his duty book away or something. I do it all the time approaching a terminus station. As long as you know the track ahead is clear and the signals are clear, your eyes are only off the track for a few seconds! If someone suddenly jumps in front of the train at the exact moment you happen to have your eyes averted, then that's just bloody unlucky.
The driver glancing at what appears to be a duty book was probably making sure he wasn't running early or late. Again, something I do myself as it only takes the eyes away from the track for a second.
The one which made my blood boil was the poor driver drinking his tea. Almost every driver on the Underground has one of those thermos mugs and we are permitted to drink tea as we're driving! The only thing is that we're not allowed to make the tea on the move, for obvious reasons.

The Evening Standard have always disliked us Tube Drivers, and personally, if I was the driver with the tea (who can easily be identified), I'd sue the Evening Standard for obtaining and printing my photo without permission making it look like I was doing wrong when I wasn't!

As I say, the only worrying picture was the one with the youngster in the cab. That driver needs to be reprimanded, but all the others certainly don't.

Interestingly, I can't find the story on the Evening Standard website.


It's Christmas Time!
Yes, it's that time of year for us all to get into even more debt to please our kids! I'm actually on holiday for Christmas this year, so this will be my last blog until about 28th December.
So, may I take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a
VERY HAPPY AND PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS.

3 Comments:

Blogger Barry Hensey said...

Us station staff agree with your comments there District Driver, but then again when have the ES ever said anything positive about us Tube staff - scaremongering arses that they are!

Anyway, have a splendid Christmas and spare a thought for those of us who are on lates throughout the holidays.

8:18 am  
Blogger 3.1 said...

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas! :)

11:21 am  
Blogger Station Supervisor said...

If you look at the pictures again.

All of those shots could have been taken with the train standing at a signal.

Especially the driver bending down, as I doubt he would have left his seat.

12:52 am  

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