Have you ever done anything worthy of points, but not been caught?
You expect me to answer that on a public forum...?!
Only a technical SPAD when the signaller lost the entire panel and had to revert every peg back to danger. That got the old sphincter going 19 to the dozen.
The signal was hidden around a bend but had been provided with a banner repeater which was "off". I went over the AWS magnet and got the bell, but when I got further around the corner the signal was at red. Obviously I dropped the lot, but from 60mph I went sailing past and stopped halfway up to the next peg.
Funniest reply to a 'please explain'?
Our lot don't like humour. I got into hot water because I let rip on a fault slip, so reports must be written professionally.
However, before they started getting all uptight about it a colleague did submit a blinder. He'd delayed his train at Broxbourne because he was desperate for the loo. When they asked him to submit a report he simply put that he'd needed to go to the toilet. The supervisor refused to accept it and asked him to submit another one. So he went away and crafted this long report explaining everything. I don't know precisely what he'd written, but when arranged down the page the first letter of each lined went as follows.
I
N
E
E
D
E
D
A
S
H
I
T
I did also hear of a great one in a CT fault book. The driver had reported hearing a loud bang from under the cab as he was going through Melton Mowbray. The fitter replied:
"Unit inspected. Large pork pie found wedged in leading bogie."
Hmm. Classes driven: Cl315, Cl317 and Cl153 (for all of 3/4 of a mile).
I actually quite like our units. They aren't very modern but they are easy to drive. The Scud was just on skidpan training so I never had a chance to get a proper feel for it, but it was very different to the units I actually "sign".
O L Leigh