A hard day's work!

The first jeep makes it way on the wagons

Sometimes my job is sooo hard! This morning I had to get up real early (07.30am), so I could start at 09.00am. I got to the pick-up point a little before ten and almost immediately found out that they were running late. By about an hour or two.

Now, I've already told you we're having a wintery spell in the Netherlands. And last night the frost was severe: minus ten to twelve (Celsius). Which in turn caused the points in the tracks to freeze over. Which caused problems for the train to be put where it should be. So, by the time I arrived, they were already running over two and a half hours late, just getting the train in place. Then they had to sweep the snow off the train and de-ice it. At a quarter past ten the first vehicle finally made its way onto the train.

Just a milimeter to the left. LEFT I SAID!!

It was a slow process though. The driving on was easy enough, but the tethering of the vehicles was a completely different matter. I saw measuring tape coming out to measure the distance between the right wheel and the edge and left wheel and the edge. If the difference was 5mm, it was too much! Painstakingly slow the wagons filled up. I thought everything was on, when all of a sudden I see all these lorries arrive! They had to get on as well, but the train was already full. So, the train needed to be changed. A new lot of wagons arrived and finally (after a visit to MacDonalds) we were able to leave at 4pm!!

Now, I was supposed to do another trip as well, but that was transferred to a colleague, since I would never have been able to do it. And in the end I was home at the original time of 6.30pm.

I love my job!