Racism

Had to deal with a very angry young Somali man last week. He initially jumped over the gates to enter the station, and when approached by staff started shouting and using very very abusive language with many utterances of the F-word. I was called on the radio to assist. When I approached the young man, he was still swearing, so I tried to calm him down as he was causing quite a disturbance. We managed to get him to leave the platform when he mumbled something in Somali. I asked him in his own language 'Excuse me, what did you say?' When he heard that he became even more angry and started shouting that it wasn't allowed for me as a white man to speak his language and this just proved that I was a racist as it was illegal for me to speak his language. In the end we had to get police assistance and he was carted off in handcuffs.

Stupid drivers

On my ride into work tonight I had 5 near misses in a 50 minute ride. All caused by drivers having hand held mobile phones glued to their bloody ears. Is the law on this ever enforced?


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Wet ride

Took a ride to St Albans yesterday, lovely ride on the way there. Nice weather, courteous passes by car drivers, a few nods and hello's from other roadies. Not so on the way back. 5 minutes after I set off for the return journey, the rain started, and started and started. For the whole ride back it rained non-stop, really heavy rain with a bit of thunder and lightening for good measure. I was completely soaked when I got back. Still enjoyed it though. :)

Busy day

Was expecting a quiet day today as I was supposed to be on a spare duty. Got into work and was told about an earlier derailment of an engineering train so the Piccadilly line was suspended. Spent the first 4 hours of my duty on the platform assisting my staff in detraining trains and explaining to hundreds of customers alternate routes to their destinations. This would have been easier if people took of their headphones. I was then about to commence my meal break when we were informed about a one under at a neighbouring station so I went down to the next station to assist. Unfortunately the person was pronounced extinct and it took a while for the ERU and the police to hand the track back to us.


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CDP

It's that time of year again where we have to renew our operational licences. So for the next 3 days I will be doing classroom based training. On a side note I was visited by the puncture fairy thus morning so had to take the tube.


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Location:Cranbourn St,London,United Kingdom

I'm rich

Received my first cheque installment this morning for a bloke who tried to stab me with a wine bottle about 23 months ago. Now what shall I buy myself with this windfall?


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Currently Reading

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Same contractors back again

The same gang I had to contend with last night are back :( At the moment they are stinking my office out with the smell of greasy food.


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Finally gone

The gang of self opinionated Neanderthals have finally left and I have the office to myself for 4 minutes before I open the station. Tried to make myself some toast and they've somehow managed to break the toaster. Grrr!!!!!!


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Rude staff

One of the last trains was running late and seemed to be stuck at another station. I phoned the line controller to ask if there was a problem and he told me that there were two engineering trains before it. I then asked how long before it is due to leave as it was now 20 minutes late. Controller snapped back saying I've told you where it is so work it out for yourself and then hung up on me. :(


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Nights again

On my first night of five and I have a gang of contractors working in my office. They don't seem to care about the disruption and annoyance they are causing. They are having very heated arguments about football, constantly swearing and shouting. I am unable to do anything. Can't read, eat anything, can't leave the office and can't even drink tea as they have completely taken over the office and mess room.


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Lovely Ride Today

My last day off for a week so took advantage of the sunshine and went for a nice long ride. Started in Heathrow, cycled to Bracknell, had a rest, cycled to Hammersmith to report my lost staff pass :( then cycled back to Heathrow via Barnes & Richmond. Ah well back to work tomorrow.

Uxbridge customer

Customer complaining that he had to wait 6 minutes for a train to uxbridge. His argument was that because there are no flights all the heathrow trains should be diverted to uxbridge so he can get home quicker.


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Double Shift

Supposed to be my long weekend but I was asked to work one of my rest days today and am now doing two consecutive shifts. I started at 06:30 and will finish at 23:00. Today seems to be a day for one unders. We have had incidents on the Victoria, Central and Metropolitan lines.
Ah well. Only 5 and a half hours to go.


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No flights

Now all flights to and from the UK are suspended.


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Fire alert

Just to exacerbate the problem we are now suspended Acton to Heathrow because of a fire alert at Northfields. Nothing to do with volcanic ash though.


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Volcanic Ash

Due to airpsace restrictions, in accordance with international regulations as a result of the on-going volcanic activity in Iceland, we anticipate that all flights in and out of heathrow airport will be suspended from 1200 today. Therefore, we strongly advise passengers intending to fly from this time not to travel to the airport today. We will provide further updates as we get more information from air traffic provider NATS


It's already affected our staffing levels for tomorrow as one of my staff is stranded in Los Angeles.


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Power failure

Not at work but in my local tescos. All the lights went off and we have to wait 15 minutes for the tills to reset.


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Signal failure

Just to make things worse for our customers we have just had a signal failure, performed a wrong direction movement and had to implement station control. We had no trains at all for over 25 minutes.


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Tired

Finished my nights yesterday morning and I am now on early shifts. My body clock is very confused. Lots of engineering works taking place at my station so lots if confused passengers.


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