Eyes like saucers

Today is a day to remember, as it was our first day driving with our minders. Never mind shuttling up and down a siding or getting a brief drive, this was a full turn of duty with stops, passengers and a timetable to keep.

It would have been nice if they'd broken us in gently, but instead I drew the short straw. An intense 9 hours and 42 minutes of stopping suburban services with tight turnaround times was not an ideal introduction. Still, at least it gave me plenty of opportunity to practise stopping at stations and carrying out station duties. 83 to be precise.

I was glad that I got on well with the Class 315 yesterday, as almost the entire job was driving one. Once they're up and running they are quite a nice train to drive, with good acceleration and braking. On the downside they do require a higher degree of organisation and dexterity than the Class 317. Just to get into the cab and prepare for departure requires no fewer than four keys, none of which operate more than one lock. Then there's having to coordinate the local door control switches, egress cocks and door key switches to ensure that the cab vestibule doors don't fly open at inopportune moments; not to mention having to hold the power controller down before moving the master switch. I know that I'll get there eventually, but it can be a bit of a palaver and I felt like I was all over the place for a while.

All of this has left me feeling absolutely knackered. As it's all new I was concentrating entirely on driving to the exclusion of everything else. This wasn't helped in any way by the first part of the job being virtually non-stop with little turnaround time at each destination.

On the other hand, I've already had my first problem. The signaller was unable to clear a faulty signal, which meant that I had to call him up and be given authority to pass it at danger. Not bad for my first day.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a kip. Tomorrow it's all airport runs, which should be a less frenetic.