Quite the line-up earlier today, for Bessie 🚂 🦡...

A rather shaky start with a couple of minor train faults and some extra shunts required after problems last night, but we eventually recovered the service and it was as great a show as usual!

Let the fun begin!

'...and if you hide up there, Transport Secretary, ASLEF will never find you. I'm sure we can find a photo of you sitting at a table just to fool them all...'

Also, higher taxes?

It was Kevin Edger who was recently trumpeting the figures showing that average wages have risen (but not for train drivers, obviously)

Guess what happens to tax revenue when wages increase, Kev?

My train was cancelled en-route on Saturday, because the toilet water header tank disgorged its contents everywhere.

How is that the fault of Labour's union mates, as opposed to (say) the Tory government who insist that we keep running these 25+ year old trains into the ground?

A union is its members – the workers.

If an industry thinks that its problem is its workers, the same workers that keep the wheels turning, day in and day out, then there is clearly a much more fundamental problem that needs addressing.

A quick visit to the butcher whilst cycling to the station, and definitely one of the best impulse purchases that I've ever made as a consequence 😍

'GET THE ARMY IN' klaxon 📣📣📣

Who wouldn't support paid slavery, after all? Forced to work, whilst your rights and protections of employment are stripped away around you.

Week 6 of this year's Great Central Railway signalling school. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is obstinately obstructing the Down line (and we're not going to argue with him), but thankfully Paw Patrol have come to the rescue to enable Single Line Working to be instituted over the Up.

Of all the things that I expected to happen yesterday, having a tuna sandwich thrown at me and my Guard wasn't one of them 🤷‍♂️

This job is at least two Elgan episodes in the first part alone!

'This is an issue too important for political point scoring, so I'm going to write a letter. Next, I'll post the letter on social media, purely for political point scoring.'

Meanwhile, Susan Hall AM is quoted as saying, on her own website, 'there will be zero tolerance for [...] those on the lowest incomes. [...] I have been campaigning against [...] the poorest.'

Anyone can pluck words from the context of a wider quote, to say a different thing.

A West Midlands interloper at Man Picc.

#NationalTrainDriverDay , so I thought I ought to come and do a bit!