AS TIME GOES BY

Yeah my time for starters and those of my passengers as I was running 30 minutes late, which was nothing compared to all the East Coast trains which were running between 2-3 hours late due to overunning engineering work as the christmas day/boxing day shut down period is really the only time these big engineering projects can take place.
Yip it may frustrate the hell out folks but being a train driver for 25 years I in my early days worked on driving some of these trains on big christmas/boxing day closures when whole junctions would be replaced  and invariably problems arise that no one could forsee and I can give you the classic one back in the nineties I was working a christmas day ballast train  there were two trains my one in platform 17 at Edinburgh Waverley and the other train was in the Princes Street Gardens area outside the station it was around 8 in the morning and my job was sitting on my train as they lifted the track in the number 18 bay platform to take out the old ballast and put new ballast and rails back in well in the space of 20 minutes of digging with there machines they had burst two water mains and flooded the bay platform I was half expecting swimmer Duncan Goodhew to be going back and forth with his bald head bobbing up and down in the oily water as he did lengths of the platform, I though good my job was now cancelled I can go home and get an early finish and see my kids for a bit on christmas day Nope, the other train in the gardens the driver exceed his hours and some and I had to relieve him and take over his train so just 45 minutes after the first job was cancelled due to the water main burst I was asked to move this  train through the middle of the 3 tunnels at the mound as the lines are lettered W,X,Y &Z with X&Y being the double track tunnel in the middle tunnel, line W is nearest to Edinburgh Castle with line Z nearest the Gardens anyway I made my first move on line X with the other line Y having been lifted out of the tunnel so as I proceeded into the tunnel towards the station as I was heading through the tunnel there is a set of points that take trains onto line Y the points had been clamped on one rail and the the other side hadn't along with the tie bar disconnected so as I passed over them with my 2 class 37's the one rail not clamped moved derailing my rear engine and the first two Turbot wagons most wagons back then were named after sea life Salmon and Sturgeon wagons were others infact a colleague once took his engine and a rake of Sea Lion wagons into the engine shed at Millerhill after forgetting to uncouple the wagons prior to going in the shed and for years the guys used to make sea lion noises at him he never lived it down lol ohh I digress anyway where was I yes so as my train was derailing at a massive 5mph it almost pinned the wee guy in his dumper truck against the tunnel wall but I stopped the train in time when I heard the big rumble in the tunnel so within an hour of both jobs getting underway they both succumbed to unforseen reasons that can marr any major engineering project and I guess it's just one of these things ohh after I derailed my train I stayed my full shift and had left my bike at the Waverley to cycle back to Livingston where I stayed back then and  only got as far as the west end when I got a puncture so I despondently walked with my bike back to Livingston some 15 miles away hungry and pissed off I did get £40 in vouchers for sticking with the job later on as well and I was also getting treble time for working xmas day but with 3 young kids back then it all helped anyway my point is that sometimes it can inconvienence the travelling public but these engineering jobs need to be carried out and this is usually the best time of year for doing it and to be fair as a kid I can remember shops being shut for days over the festive period stocking up with bread in the freezer to make do for a number of days and my opion is there is too much commercialism these days and not enough family time at this time of year, but the moral of my story is basically that Shit happens and it's a pain in the ass for travellers but that's life as they say and there is not a lot you can do in these circumstances really to be honest, now then my blip is of my train waiting to cross the centre section of the Tay Bridge to Aberdeen tonight as only one train can cross the centre section at a time just incase another Tay Bridge disaster strikes , no it's actually the local instructions for the working of trains over the Tay Bridge anyway so I waited until the south bound service cleared the centre section for me to proceed as we arrived into Aberdeen 27 minutes late and quickly turned around for a 4 minute late departure I got off at Inverkeithing as my colleague took over at Dundee to take it back to Edinburgh and  it looks like I will be working right through the whole of new year until a week on Sunday so I hope you all enjoy the time off over new year movie for the day is "Shit Happens 2002" lol Go BIG See Ya