I've put in for the train op position, with an assessment in August, and since I'm now on leave and my manager never got round to sorting me out a shift shadowing a train op, I took matters into my own hands. Upshot - I travelled with an instructor operator on the District Line, from Earl's Court to Richmond back to Dagenham East (should have been Upminster, but we were behind and got turned earlier) and finishing at Earl's Court.

The chap was pleasant, quite talkative and made me feel relaxed straight away - then again, I would hope so, since it's his job to deal with new trainees. ;) He explained a bit about the functions of most of the stuff in the cab, some of the differences between the two types of trains they have on the District, the differences in operating over Network Rail track and London Underground track, and lots of other information, both useful and trivial! Quite a bit of the line I'd not travelled on before or, when I had, it was a very long time ago - for example, the stations past West Kensington I'd only gone through as part of a Piccadilly Line service back when Jade came over the first time - so it was especially interesting from that point of view. And quite mind-numbing to realise that once steam operated over a lot of that line. Some of the gaps in the roof have since been filled in but even so.

So, the next big thing is Monday (that close? Argh!), which is a training workshop which goes through the sort of things the assessments and interview for the job will cover. A week after that is the actual assessment, which I'm simply not allowing myself to think about it - I don't think I really have much chance of passing it; I've never interviewed well and I hate roleplays, and I'll do something stupid like forgetting to use the phonetic alphabet!