Dogboxdriver's Duty Blog

Yesterday I got taken to hospital. I was working my train through the countryside as normal when I started to suffer a really bad pain in my back, sweating and also vomiting - none of which are things you really want to be doing when you are driving a train at 75mph! Anyway, after a rather foolish attempt to carry on after the first attack I saw sense and called for an ambulance, and ended up being rushed to hospital by the paramedic, being topped up with painkillers every so often in a failed attempt to deaden the pain... Interesting element #1: Out here we don't tend to have so many ambulances; what we have are "community support vehicles", which translate into English as a large van full of ambulance kit and a single paramedic; I suppose they can staff twice as many of these as they can ambulances. If you're walking wounded, as I was, you also get to have a front seat ride on blues-and-twos through the countryside, along main roads and through the nearest large tow...

I know we're getting close to Christmas, which seems to bring out the worst in everyone, but I wonder why there are so many ignorant people walking our streets nowadays? I'll explain.... At work, like many other railwaymen, I wear a bright orange Hi-Vis jacket. In the right light they can be seen for, ooh, about two miles. And yet on Wednesday whilst walking through the city centre wearing my nice bright-orange-highly-visible coat I must have had half-a-dozen people have to take last second avoiding action so they didn't walk into me. Most of them had been walking straight at me, and looking straight at me, for a hundred yards or so, walking past other people and so could clearly see that I had nowhere to go; they'd have to walk around me... The other stunt I've noticed more and more of recently is people who look at you but then pointedly look away, and keep looking away, as they walk directly at you - as if they think that if they look away from you, if they ignor...

Wombling through the English countryside today, I found myself watching the wildlife, as a rural train driver often does. The wildlife we see during the daytime tends to be rabbits, hares, foxes, more pheasants and partridges than a legion of shotgun-wielding hunters could ever catch, and occasionally the afore-mentioned shotgun-wielding, wax-jacket-and-flat-cap wearing hunters too. But mostly what I watch are the birds. Out here in the sticks I'm privileged to see buzzards and kestrels on a daily basis, as well as the better known fluttery birdies and occasional unexpectedness such as the odd cormorant. And it is kestrels who led me to the thought today's random witterings are about - or, at least, the little critters the kestrels hunt... Driving through the Fens this morning I saw a kestrel hovering, presumably waiting for a chance to swoop down and grab some little critter which was quaking in the grass. And then the train turns up, the ground shakes, the little critter doub...

Today was my first day back at work after two weeks off. A rather different day than usual, because whilst I was off my company ceased to exist and we all got allocated to one of three new franchises and thus to a new company. So now I have a new tie and a new name badge not to wear... But it was all a bit strange. Yes, I now work for a new company. We've even got some different trains - I was going to say "new trains", but that's not true; they're just new to us - some of which are in the new company's colours. But.... Nothing else has changed. If there are problems with the service, I speak to the same people in the Control Office I always did - except they now work for a completely different company to me. If there are problems with the train, I speak to the same people I always did on the Maintenance Desk - except they, too, now work for a different company to me. OK, I'm used to dealing with people who work for different companies to me whilst still b...

So... Dogboxdriver has a blog. Seems like everyone else has, so I guess I might as well too! Don't know how often I'll post here or what I'll say. Time will tell... Expect occasional comments about happenings at work - non-controversial comments; I can't afford to lose my job! - or things that I do during my time off.