trainophile
Established Member
The above is regularly advised on the Fares board, when people are unsure whether they are permitted to travel on a service with the ticket they hold.
It strikes me that this is not always practical, and even if one can locate the guard and reach him in e.g. a 1-minute dwell time, doesn't he have a lot of things to concentrate on, and safety procedures to follow, in a short amount of time, and would not want to be distracted during these duties?
Also, not wishing to stir up another can of worms, but you can't really do this on a DOO train.
Shouldn't there be a measure of leniency if someone's ticket is not 100% valid on that train, but they genuinely believed it was? I know this would be a matter of conjecture as to whether they were actually "trying it on", but in the case of say an elderly person, or someone who is on a long multi-leg journey, could it not be treated as a genuine mistake if they are on the wrong train? Rather than interrupt the guard, which could happen several times at a single station if there has been disruption.
As an aside - the ATW train I took last Friday had three separate people on it who should have been on different trains and had tickets for destinations where we were not going. The guard was very helpful, explained how to get a connection from a forthcoming station, and endorsed their tickets to allow travel. No suggestion of "you have committed an offence", I was glad to observe.
It strikes me that this is not always practical, and even if one can locate the guard and reach him in e.g. a 1-minute dwell time, doesn't he have a lot of things to concentrate on, and safety procedures to follow, in a short amount of time, and would not want to be distracted during these duties?
Also, not wishing to stir up another can of worms, but you can't really do this on a DOO train.
Shouldn't there be a measure of leniency if someone's ticket is not 100% valid on that train, but they genuinely believed it was? I know this would be a matter of conjecture as to whether they were actually "trying it on", but in the case of say an elderly person, or someone who is on a long multi-leg journey, could it not be treated as a genuine mistake if they are on the wrong train? Rather than interrupt the guard, which could happen several times at a single station if there has been disruption.
As an aside - the ATW train I took last Friday had three separate people on it who should have been on different trains and had tickets for destinations where we were not going. The guard was very helpful, explained how to get a connection from a forthcoming station, and endorsed their tickets to allow travel. No suggestion of "you have committed an offence", I was glad to observe.