Having An Ice Time

Well I was in at work a little sharp this evening to take a few snaps around Edinburgh's winter wonderland and decided to use this one of the visitors Ice Skating and having some fun,I was on the shortest job at the depot today booking on at 19:39pm working the 20:05pm service to Newcastle then jump on the last East Coat train as a passenger back to Edinburgh and finished at 23:25hrs but it was a close shave as my train Arrived in late from Glasgow and I knew I would have to get creative with my braking and accelerating to make the last train when I say creative what I would normally do would be shutting off the power handle to let the curves and gradients slow the train for speed reductions well in advance its what I would call my Eco driving mode but tonight was a night for what I call driving on the edge lol where I will brake much later to pick up that vital few seconds and accelerate away quicker if I can throughout the journey I also have a way off influencing platform staff when driving our Voyagers to speed up dispatching these trains as If I think they are dragging there heels I will select the master controller into forward which causes the train to rev up and it tends to jump the staff into action I simply cant speed as we have black boxes that record everything you do in the cab except voice recordings and I just wouldn't anyway so the big question is did I make the last train home or was it Taxi for Youngie back to Edinburgh well it was nice to be given a seat in first class with a nice supply of tea on the EC train and the Guard on that train her husband is a fellow Driver at CrossCountry and a good friend to Sandra so we had a nice blether on the train I made it to Newcastle with four minutes to spare so I guess my creative driving worked for me this evening