That's the Ticket

FirstGroup having recently taken over our train services, they've started with barrier action on the railway platform - not letting anyone off the train in the morning until they show a valid ticket.

With our normal conductor, this is not a problem (all the halts on our branch-line are unmanned, so we cannot get a ticket before getting on the train), however today we had his occasional stand-in, who is terribly nice but moves at a speed that can only be adequately described in geological terminology.

He'd done about a THIRD of one carriage by the time we pulled in. We then had to queue up disconsolately while he continued, very slowly, to issue tickets (there didn't seem to be anyone else doing it, not even the guy on the trestle barrier). In fact, it took so long, that by the time he was getting to us at the back, some old boy stuck his head back in the carriage and said "ere, the barrier's gone!"

Reader, we legged it.