Easter Special

It's very easy to get used to a routine when you catch trains - the same train into work & home (although I haven't quite got that down pat yet). If you catch the same train, you see the same people getting on in the same places, taking the same seats, etc. Some people get very upset when there's someone in "their" seat, or someone sitting with "their" friend(s), which is funny when you think about it. The regulars never learn.
Worse, when you've invested energy testing various trains for their running times, stopping patterns & the newness of the train, only to get an old train when you expected a new one. Occasionally, you can be delighted by the reverse, but that's much less likely.
You also get a feel for the people around you, so when there's a loud "interloper", you're far more likely to remember them than you are the well-dressed beautiful woman who appears once - although you might wonder where she got to the next day & just be thankful that the smelly old man is elsewhere.

Easter is one of those times when things just happen to change unexpectedly. There was "emergency" work on the lines last week, so the announcement was made that if people could make their own way ahead four stations, they could get past the problem, but there would be no buses provided because the Easter Show had them all. I went home & waited an hour or two for it to clear.

This morning's guard kept making announcements along the lines of "This train is not the one you might otherwise have thought it was, because it stops at ...", & I kept thinking "Everyone here knows that - it's a peak-hour train, 99% of the passengers are regulars". After he'd made the announcement at every second stop, it finally twigged on arrival at Central - "If you're going to catch a country train ..., if you're going to the Easter Show, ask the staff what platform to go to." Full of useful information, our man.