30065 at Rolvenden

An uneventful day turned out to be quite interesting in the end. There was the small matter of the General Election to settle and an expected long, quiet turn in the signal box at Wittersham Road. Neither proved as uneventful as expected.

Not going to comment on the election save to say the polsters got it wrong leading up to the event and, as I thought, something dramatic happened at the death. I can't help but think it was a choice between someone dire and someone who hadn't a real alternative. And several million people left disefranchished with 1 seat per millions of voters.

Down at the signal box, we were running a two train service, especially to service the cruise ships that call in at Dover. They get on at Tenterden, have a lunch or afternoon tea on the train on the way to Bodiam, visit the Castle and are picked up from there by coach and taken back to their ship.

Only thing about this timetable is there is a three and a quarter hour gap in the middle of the day from when the first up train is out of section at Rolvenden and the second train leaves Tenterden at 15.40. I was wondering what was going to fill those hours. Polishing the brass, cleaning windows, dusting, sweeping, evicting flies? In the end it turned out to be q busry three hours as the operating department decided they needed trucks and wagons from the sidings at Wittersham so sent a train down to shunt the yard.

All good experience as this was the first time, on my own, that I'd had to work with shunters and drivers to operate the engineers frame, allow freight traffic onto the main line, do and engine run around and send a freight train on it's way back to Rolvenden. I had to get my lecture notes and box practical notes out to check on how it was done. It worked out fine in the end, including giving the driver a yellow flag from the box to authorise him to pass the up through starting signal at danger as having the siding open locked many signals to prevent any oncoming trains travlling into danger.