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Southeastern do not want my fare money!

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The 375 King

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Most Monday afternoons I go from Wateringbury to Maidstone West, Wateringbury is unstaffed and thr permit machine is yet to work, Maidstone West is unstaffed late afternoon, most times I cant find the guard on the train so it is impossible to buy a ticket, once when the guard did sell me a ticket, there were a load of inspectors at Maidstone so all was well, what would happen on a day when I cant find the guard and inspectors are present at Maidstone?
 
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BrownE

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Most Monday afternoons I go from Wateringbury to Maidstone West, Wateringbury is unstaffed and thr permit machine is yet to work, Maidstone West is unstaffed late afternoon, most times I cant find the guard on the train so it is impossible to buy a ticket, once when the guard did sell me a ticket, there were a load of inspectors at Maidstone so all was well, what would happen on a day when I cant find the guard and inspectors are present at Maidstone?
You're not at fault. The inspectors should sell you your regular ticket (with any discounts if appropriate).
 

IanXC

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That is correct that if there is no opportunity to purchase a ticket before boarding you should be given the opportunity to purchase a regular ticket with any appropriate discount onboard. If that doesn't prove possible you should be able to purchase a ticket on the same basis at the next interchange station or your destination station.

However (I dont know Maidstone so this might not apply) if there is a ticket office or excess fares window before any manual barrier of inspectors you should purchase your ticket from there as this is the first opportunity you have had.

The danger is if you approach the Revenue Inspectors directly you may be seen as not taking the first opportunity to purchase a ticket, and other posters experience (such as this case: http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=64517&highlight=northern+fare+chinley) shows this might not be wise!
 

BrownE

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That is correct that you should be given the opportunity to purchase a regular ticket with any appropriate discount. However (I dont know Maidstone so this might not apply) if there is a ticket office or excess fares window before any manual barrier of inspectors you should purchase your ticket from there as this is the first opportunity you have had.
There are no barriers at Maidstone West.

Edited: I was originally thinking of Maidstone East
 
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IanXC

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There are no barriers at Maidstone West and to go to the ticket office (which is, as the OP says, not open that much) you would actually be passing a possible exit first, regardless of the platform you arrive on.

Ah yes sorry, reading it gain I read the details about the ticket office at Maidstone West as being the origin station. :oops:
 

bb21

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There are no barriers at Maidstone West and to go to the ticket office (which is, as the OP says, not open that much) you would actually be passing a possible exit first, regardless of the platform you arrive on.

This does not matter. If there is an opportunity to pay at the destination then the passenger is theoretically required to pay there if there were no prior opportunities to pay.
 

BrownE

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This does not matter. If there is an opportunity to pay at the destination then the passenger is theoretically required to pay there if there were no prior opportunities to pay.
At no point did I say you shouldn't still pay or suggest you should go through the exit? I don't see a problem here, obviously you should still pay.

I actually got myself slightly confused with Maidstone East, which is as I described. My apologies.

At Maidstone East, you have to physically leave the station to go to the ticket office when arriving on P2,3. Ticket office/booth first door on the left, platform access at the bottom of the hill.
 

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WelshBluebird

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This does not matter. If there is an opportunity to pay at the destination then the passenger is theoretically required to pay there if there were no prior opportunities to pay.

But if you do not know there is a ticket office there?
Or is someone expected to take a tour of the entire station in order to make sure there is no ticket office in the station?
 

MidnightFlyer

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There should be posters and signs around indicating such facilities (or lack of).
 

WelshBluebird

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There should be posters and signs around indicating such facilities (or lack of).

Of course reality can be a lot different.

Taking Oldfield Park station (one I use a fair bit when at uni) as an example. A small suburban station that for most of the day does not have any ticket buying facilities. But for a few hours in the morning there is a member of staff in a small hut on one platform selling tickets. If you get a train from the other platform, it is very easy to not know that there is someone selling tickets on the other platform, and I certainly haven't noticed any signs there. And to make it even worse, sometimes that member of staff is not there when they should be (leading to "interesting" conversations at other stations where you have to explain that there was no member of staff there).
 
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