@BombayMix
Okay, I'll try and decipher it into English for you. The first thing is that a 'link' is a railway term for 'rota'.
So it's an 8 week rota, and you'll drop down a line each week, and when you reach the end you start at the beginning again.
You'll work five days a week, with two 'rest days' (days off). These days off won't be the same days every week. The days off will always be next to each other, so it might be Sunday and Monday in week one, Monday and Tuesday in week two, Tuesday and Wednesday in week 3, etc.
Most weeks you will know what you are doing in advance - your link (rota) will contain fixed shifts (called 'booked shifts'), but one in four weeks (so there'll be two, one week blocks in your eight week 'link') you will be 'as required'.
'As required' is also known as 'spare' on the railway. What it means is, is that you can be moved about a bit in terms of your working hours. I'm not sure what degree of movement you'll have at SWT, but let's say for arguments sake it's three hours.
When you are the 'as required' week 0800 - 1600, you could be allocated an uncovered shift (someone else is off sick, or there's a vacancy, or someone's on holiday) that starts as early as 0500, or starts as late as 1100 (because that's 3 hours movement earlier or later than 0800).
If all the shifts were covered, then you'd come in at 0800 until 1600 and just be an extra person.
If you are the 'as required' week that's 1100 - 1900, you could be allocated an uncovered shift that starts as early as 0800, or as late as 1400.
That assumes a +/- three hour movement, and as I say, it may be a different figure for that TOC or rôle, but hopefully that helps.
Basically, there will be fixed shifts where you'll know what you're doing for most weeks, but two one week blocks where you aren't going to know exactly what you're doing until the 'daily alteration sheets' come out (which might be on the Thursday the week before).
