Track ballaster, Wittersham Road

I think I've blipped this piece of rusting derelict machinery before. Nogbad certainly has. However, there's along more vegetation growing in, around and through it than then. Maybe next time, there'll be little to see.

For a quiet 2 train Sunday service it was a full onday in the heat. The Signals and Telegraph Manager was working on lineside signals all day between trains requiring temporary protection while working. That was one set of forms and many phone calls back and forth.

Then the drivers kept reporting tresspassers on the line and needed to be cautioned. People were on a bridge jumping into the River Rother. Railway trespass is a criminal offence; on this occasion the duty controller didn't want to involve the police.

An engine at Bodiam had problems with brakes so delaying the service by over 20 minutes, more calls back and forth, with the engine being replaced by a diesel for the last train. To cap it all, the box was switched in and out with a train in the platform, not the usual way of opening and switching out the box. All very valuable experience with lots of forms and many enteries into the Occurance Book and Train Register.

All the time I was keeping an eye on the test score. What a win. Shades of Headingley in 1981. On another matter, rather disturbingly, a man was murdered in Maidstone in the early hours of today. That explains why I was woken up by a helicopter flying overhead at around that time