strike action

A very strange experience this morning shutting the box at 6AM. The three duty signalmen and the SSM walked off the premises together in solidarity. 

pictures from North Cyprus

The looming storm

It is a pretty big mandate

The New Year....

Great British Railways - what is that? No one seems to have an idea and if the rumours are correct (and substantiated by Chiltern getting a 6 year extension) then the government have no idea either. So the all new singing and dancing system maybe postponed. However it seems that the Treasury are keen to clamp down on the Taxpayer subvention. So this leads to service cuts and wage restraint; the latter is going to be a sore point amongst the signalling staff especially who have seen their workload increase substantially due to an effective ban on red zone working. 

Christmas greetings

To my one reader. It has been an awful year for many reasons but the support of many, either as a listening ear via a phone or over a cup of tea has been wonderful. You know who you are and I cannot thank you enough. 

For those of us on the railway Christmas day is like the other 364 in that work can beckon. Shift workers and staff in public service have no day off in recognition of the birth of Christ, although many perform Christian service on this day by helping others in distress and need. I don't claim to do that and my heartfelt appreciation goes to those who do. 

On a more prosaic note my blogging fell off toward the end of the year which I am conscious of. I will return to various subjects next year - but for now happy Christmas and all the best for 2022. 

It doesn't matter where you are in the world...

 ...the gripes are all the same..

http://transportrail.canalblog.com/

Mrs Choi

Mrs Choi.

No one knew where she was born or her exact age*. She would never say. What was known was that there was a huge network of family scattered across the HK/Kowloon area into China or so it seemed. On her visits home she seemed to stuff her suitcase full of sweets, tshirts and the best genuine fakes this side of Tin Pan Alley, to be followed in short notice on her return by huge box of foodstuffs crammed full of noodles, snacks and savouries more commonly found on dusty shelves of South Asian supermarkets next to the waving ceramic cats.

She had a hard life. Of relationships which were not always straight forward and worked in that clichéd manner in a fast food emporium- long hours. She was as I can personally attest to; some cook. She was also cynical about men, and was somewhat surprised after one Christmas day lunch to be told to sit down and read the paper and watch TVB whilst I and my now ex brother in law did the washing up and cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom. Men never did that in her experience.

She was canny. Claimed that she had very poor English but there was always a glint in her eye that told you she understood perfectly well. She had 3 daughters who work in social care and education; the story of an immigrant family whose offspring strove to do better - and one which we seem to deny in this country. She doted on her grandchildren who came late on in her life.

She passed away this evening. A victim of Covid's icy grip. I know not what conditions were placed on her daughters in those final hours on them seeing her, but they played her the voices of her grandchildren which I hoped brought her peace.

I never married her daughter to her disappointment. And time proved that was the right decision... but I always regarded her as the Mum in law. And she was always Mrs Choi.

Not much of an obit but there it is.

* It transpires she was 84.