A Lesson in Ticket Offices

Another day; another proposed cut. It has been reported that up to 675 ticket offices at small railway stations may be closed down. Passengers would be expected to buy their tickets at machines in the stations. Anybody who has used one of those machines knows that, occasionally, they fail to work (four times thus far for me) and they rarely assist new users in finding their way around the system. I've used them at stations such as Darlington, Middlesbrough, Thornaby, Wakefield Westgate and Derby so I consider myself well-seasoned, but sometimes they even manage to frustrate me. The back-up of being able to queue at the ticket office if the machine fails is rather an invaluable one. Let's take two examples of small train stations from my own experience.

Thornaby is a small station which is closer to Stockton-on-Tees than it is to Thornaby. The station is serviced by Northen Rail trains travelling between Saltburn and Darlington and First Transpennine Express trains between Middlesbrough and Manchester. It has two platforms and a ticket office in the centre of them. It's a small oblong building with a small waiting room, a ticket machine and two windows at the bottom - a ticket office and what used to be a snack shop (I'm not certain if it's still there). There's a toilet around the back of the station which, if you ask nicely, the man in the ticket booth will give you the key for. The service at Thornaby is highly personal. They used to employ one man only to cover the place, which was enough to cover the duties necessary. I used to queue behind many people wanting detailed advice on journeys or a conversation about railcards. They may not have had the capacity to check online or just wanted advice about it from a human being. It's understandable and, at Thornaby, it worked. I can imagine it's the same for a lot of smaller stations. If you take away the ticket office, you'll also lose the waiting room no doubt. That could prove to be a difficulty, especially on those cold winter nights I used to commute on.

Wakefield Kirkgate is a wreck of a station. It has been the scene of one serious sexual assault due to the fact that it has an underpass leading from one platform to the other. There are probably dozens of unreported smaller crimes which have occurred there. It is unmanned and there is a regional campaign to get it staffed again. Grand Central trains stop there on the way to London. Cheap tickets are often advertised on billboards around the town but no one wants to take advantage of them because of the reputation as a 'rape station'. If Kirkgate was a viable option for trains going towards Leeds it may even ease congestion on the overstretched East Coast trains going from Wakefield Westgate.

If you allow a station to become unstaffed it can lead to the kind of situation we have at Wakefield Kirkgate. Demand on our railways will lessen, yes, but no doubt road congestion will increase. If there was a visible presence at Wakefield Kirkgate station then the public would feel a lot safer. I can't help thinking that we're sacrificing security for the sake of a few pounds. And all this when we're shelled out billions on HS2 which will do nothing for the economy or regional growth.

One Wacky Solution To Our Rail Problem

Like many people, last night I sat down with interest to watch Dispatches with Richard Wilson. For those who didn't see it, it followed the actor as he travelled around the country encountering problems with ticket machines, fare prices and overloaded commuter trains along the way. It seems Wilson's irritation with our rail system was stoked by simply forgetting his wallet - and thus his rail card - which landed him with a £280 penalty fare for a £15 ticket. This kind of injustice is all too common and ticket inspectors I've seen relish the opportunity to catch someone out. Sometimes you have to wonder if they receive bonuses for attacking their customers.

My own train horror story comes, not from me, but from someone I was fortunate enough to be able to help. A woman with four children showed the conductor at Leeds her pre-booked tickets and asked him which train she was supposed to get on down to London. Whether he did it on purpose or whether it was stupidity, he directed her to the train which left half an hour earlier than hers, thus invalidating her tickets. I was standing in the vestibule ready to get off at Wakefield Westgate when the announcer gave their final warning about checking you were travelling on the right train - then the doors promptly slid shut. The woman I'd noted ushering her brood into the carriage rushed out ashen-faced but it was too late. Nobody else in the vestibule gave a damn about her panicking. Perhaps they'd seen it all before but it struck me as another example of how heartless we've become as a country. Knowing the train system as I did, I knew the Leeds to London trains always stopped at Wakefield Westgate. I advised her to get off there, showed her where to stand so she could get straight into her carriage, and even helped her get her pram off the train while other travellers sighed impatiently at us. Her son, probably about ten, thanked me sincerely. But what would've happened if I hadn't stepped in? Full price fares for one adult and four kids down to London? No wonder she looked petrified.

My solution for our train difficulties are bound to be dismissed. For starters, it involves getting rid of this ridiculous HS2 line which very few people want. I can't see that it'll help the North at all. In fact, I think it'll encourage businesses to move their headquarters towards London, safe in the knowledge that people can get there in under an hour from Birmingham. When you look at the timings, we're not making things much better and, even if you consider the time saved a cause for massive celebration, you have to admit that the people it will benefit are few and far between. Not your average traveller who just wants to get to London; not the people forced to watch as their landscape is ruined. What are the fares going to be on this thing? With prices rising to unaffordable levels at the moment, how is anybody going to be expected to travel on this thing? Will it become the privilege of the rich and famous, something I'm half-inclined to believe it's intended to be anyway?

So my solution: ditch HS2. Invest all those billions in easing congestion on current lines - add new carriages and expand stations in order to deal with these new carriages. Make sure that when you put in the order for these new carriages it goes to a British firm, thus giving our manufacturers a boost along the way. Politicians and high-class businessmen may not be able to travel quite as briskly as they would like from Birmingham to London but the rest of us would have a much more comfortable journey.