Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
How about this for literally dropping on a haulage?!
Yesterday I took the 05.40 Eurostar to Paris, was at the back of the train in my regular seat ( car 2, 3 or 4 seat 74 ) so had the slight time penalty of the long walk at Paris Nord. Having got through onto the concourse, I walk round to the RER station and descend to line B without particularly hurrying.
Bear in mind that before I can start bashing, I have an important letter to deliver to Chatillon-Montrouge for someone so my route involves RER B to Cité Universitaire then Tram 3 to Porte de Vanves for Metro 13.
In other words, I'm pretty much going the way I was going anyway.
So... I get onto the platform for RER B southbound, train comes in one minute later formed of units 8277 and 8331. Nothing unusual there - on a weekday you'd expect double units and the route is entirely MI79 / MI84 stock.
But the thing is... out of the fleet total of 243 units, I only needed 4 for haulage and 8331 was one of them!
Yesterday I took the 05.40 Eurostar to Paris, was at the back of the train in my regular seat ( car 2, 3 or 4 seat 74 ) so had the slight time penalty of the long walk at Paris Nord. Having got through onto the concourse, I walk round to the RER station and descend to line B without particularly hurrying.
Bear in mind that before I can start bashing, I have an important letter to deliver to Chatillon-Montrouge for someone so my route involves RER B to Cité Universitaire then Tram 3 to Porte de Vanves for Metro 13.
In other words, I'm pretty much going the way I was going anyway.
So... I get onto the platform for RER B southbound, train comes in one minute later formed of units 8277 and 8331. Nothing unusual there - on a weekday you'd expect double units and the route is entirely MI79 / MI84 stock.
But the thing is... out of the fleet total of 243 units, I only needed 4 for haulage and 8331 was one of them!