On Wednesday I was given the job of taking over programme management for an overhaul of the Piccadilly line’s train radio system. Basically this is just a re-alignment of all the base stations and the trackside repeater amps.

On Thursday one of the Picc line trains blew up taking with it, probably, quite a bit of our leaky feeder aerial, so the system is going to need a bit more than just tweaking to get it running properly. It likely to be another week before our engineers can even get into the tunnel to see what work needs to be done.

I don’t envy them.

One of our chaps went trackside at Aldgate today. The police are still conducting a fingertip search and there is still a lingering smell of burnt flesh. He said it was not pleasant at all, so how much worse will the enclosed Picc line tunnel be? Its probably not something you expect when you go into a career as a telecomms or radio engineer, andmaybe its fortunate that a lot of our engineers are ex-forces and able to cope with it.

Its a reminder that while things are getting back to normal above ground, its going to take some time for everything to be running properly underground. When the police have finished their work, and the Picc train is removed from the tunnel in pieces, we will have civil engineers checking it for safety first, then all us sub-contractors and LUL departments will be forming a queue to get in and fix it up. There will be the running rails to check and fix, the power, signalling cables, tunnel telephone cables, fire systems, emergency lighting, and our radio leaky feeders.