Slip sliding away

Given today's date, I would have thought that we would have been well into the throes of autumn by now. However, when I look out of my window all I can see are ranks of trees covered in lush green leaves. Even today's high winds have failed to dislodge very many. We're supposed to be deep into "silly season", and yet there's hardly been any problems.

Although the leaves are resolutely staying put, there has been quite a bit of slipping going on caused by wet rails. This isn't helped much by Network Rail treating the tracks with high pressure water jets to blast the leaves off the railhead. I suspect that I was following one of these treatment trains yesterday evening while driving an 'all stops' service to Stansted Airport. All was fine until after we had left Broxbourne (a known starting point for treatment trains), but I had awful trouble getting going again at every stop after that. In fact, I would be lucky to get 50mph before having to brake for the next station, even where the stations were well spaced apart.

That said, it was much better today. I even took advantage of being in charge of an empty train to practice some "panic stops". There wasn't even the merest hint of a slip, even when braking hard in step 3 (which we are not normally allowed to use for braking). There was even plenty of grip to get away from station stops. I don't expect this situation to last for very much longer but, while the weather remains mild, the leaves won't be much of a problem.

In other news, punter power came to my rescue the other day. I'd been lumbered with an 8 car Stansted Express train which had a set of dodgy doors on both sides, meaning that they needed to be shut by hand before leaving every station. This wasn't too much bother at the airport or at Liverpool Street where there were plenty of platform staff to assist, but at Tottenham Hale there was no-one to help us. Thankfully, on one trip, I was just considering whether to get out and sort the doors myself when I saw a passenger step forward and do the honours, allowing us to get on our way. What a lovely man.