Dead early, 05:25 start. I managed to turn off my alarm and only woke up with just enough time to get dressed and get to work. We’re running a Saturday timetable but on a weekday roster so we have loads of spares sitting around. More passengers around today but still not up to normal levels, a lot milder and very foggy early on at the extreme ends of the line.

On normal Saturdays and weekdays number 01 duty takes the first WB train to WER and number 02 takes the first EB to EPP. As this isn’t a Saturday but we are running a Saturday timetable someone decided that they would swap 01 and 02 around which I didn’t realise until I was sat in the cab of the first EB train. I had to walk all the way back along the platform while a couple of hundred delayed passengers scowled at me and I cursed the miserable desk jockeys who generate the timetables and rosters.

Apart from that everything went fine until the very end when a defective train at MIE WB shut everything down all the way back to EPP and had me sat at SNA for about 20 minutes. Eventually they tipped one out at LES and sent it up to the shunt signal so they could get my train in. The line was still suspended LES – LIS when I left.

Tomorrow I’m doing number 01 and I’m going to check which train I’m on before I get on it.