I was expecting a verrrrry dull shift today since I was marked down as sunlight duties, and the weather was miserable. When I turned up, however, it turned out that I was the sole CSA in and:

- the ticket office clerk (SAMF) hadn't turned up
- the computer that controls the gateline was not working
- as a result of the above, one of the gates was open and couldn't be closed.

As a result, the day went past fairly quickly, with helping people through the gates and with the ticket machine, especially when the damn thing kept running out of change.

To make things more fun, about ten minutes after the SAMF did turn up, the machine decided to eat someone's £20 note, which meant ages spent trying to prise it out and then getting them to fill in a form before we could reissue the tickets and such. After this I (very thankfully!) went off on my lunch break and after eating, decided to poke around the intranet and see how easy it was to apply for the train op post. Easier than I thought since the intranet could pull up all my details from my CSA application, meaning all I had to make were a few small changes. I finished it off when I got home and submitted it... we'll see what happens.

We also got a message from the line controller (or is it service controller now?) saying not to run any evacuation drills until further notice and that all staff should wear hi-vi vests - those fetching bright orange waistcoats - until further notice.

Later in the afternoon the bloke finally turned up to fix the gateline computers, and the coin-only fare machine decided to eat someone's money too - I think it was feeling a bit neglected; nearly everyone was using the notes/coins/cards machine, so it wanted some attention too.

Then five minutes before my shift's ending time, I got sent down to do a final check of the monitors to make sure the sunlight - what little there was of it - wasn't affecting the drivers' sight of the platform. So down I go. And I wait... and I wait... and I wait... and I wait... At 4.15, 15 minutes after I was due to finish, a train finally turns up! Apparently there was some holdup at Arnos Grove with reversers blocking both the platforms used for eastbound services. Luckily I had some company in the form of a fairly chatty and friendly driver who turned up after I'd been waiting for a few minutes.

Then finally it was home time - for an eight hour shift, however, especially at a quiet station, it actually went pretty damn quickly.