Priv travel & barriers

[First class]

As an employee of Merseyrail, one of our benefits is free travel on our sister company, Northern.

This means we can use our passes at Leeds, Derby, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Lincoln - practically everywhere up North.

Our 'passes' are magnetically encoded, and therefore do open barriers, but only at Merseyrail stations.

EMT/NXEC and even Northern are sometimes unaware of this arrangement, so it often leads to problems, despite being rail staff.

Even Chester, where our trains terminate, has barriers, and we can't go through the automatic barriers!! Ok, so they're a little more clued up we get free travel there - but elsewhere it's a real problem.

Does anyone else think that writing a letter to various TOCs, explaining the situation, sending a copy of my Priv, pass and photo ID card, and ask for a gate pass for the relevant TOC's barriers may work?

E.g. ask for an EMT barrier pass for when I travel to Lincoln....

Does anyone else have this problem?

 

[metrocammel]

Surely the pass should say something to the effect that it is valid on Northern?

 

[First class]

Nope...

"Valid for free travel on Merseyrail Electrics services and on services of other TOC's where reciprocal arrangements are in place as authorised by Merseyrail Electrics 2002 Ltd. Valid for leisure, duty and residential purposes. Staff pass only valid with a Staff Travel photo identity card."

For full conditions of use, see overleaf.

On the back:

1. This pass is not transferrable.
2. Valid for free travel on Merseyrail Electrics services and on services of other TOC's where reciprocal arrangements are in place as authorised by Merseyrail Electrics 2002 Ltd.
3. Valid for leisure, duty and residential purposes.
4. Only valid with a Staff Travel photo identity card. (Does not apply to holders under 16 years of age).
5. It must be produced, on demand, to any authorised official and must be surrendered upon expiry or cancellation.
6. It is issued subject to Conditions and Regulations of Merseyrail.
7. This card remains the property of Merseyrail. If lost, the holder will be required to pay a charge.

 

[dan_atki]

You could write a letter to the other TOCs and suggest their staff are rebriefed about such reciprocal arrangements. It is unlikely you'd get a gate pass - EMT staff don't even get a gate pass for EMT! Maybe the barriers could be re-programmed to accept Merseyrail passes? (I'm not sure how staff passes are encoded though).

However, I do find this a bit odd as it would be assumed barriers at a Northern managed station are manned by Northern staff, who themselves would (or maybe should) be aware they themselves have free travel on Merseyrail?

 

[Mintona]

Not all Northern staff know about the MerseyRail agreement. On the East and North especially. I didn't know about the Tyne and Wear Metro agreement for ages, being on the West.

 

[First class]

We ourselves were never told. There is a sentence in our company handbook that says 'Valid for free travel on our sister company, Northern, at any time. This concession is valid until further notice. This is a non-contractual benefit'.

There is also several different designs of Merseyrail passes knocking about - some from 2002...

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The Northern brief went out over three years ago with nothing printed since, so I presume that if new staff aren't told about the arrangement during training they will not know about it, particularly on the east side,where a Merseyrail pass would probably be rare.

I don't know of other TOCs being made aware of it either, I suspect only their staff would know, but it would only be the barrier and ticket office staff that would need to know about it and perhaps the thinking is that TOC X don't need to know as Merseyrail staff can't use their trains (regardless how backward that logic sounds).

 

[scrapy]

Not all Northern staff know about the MerseyRail agreement. On the East and North especially. I didn't know about the Tyne and Wear Metro agreement for ages, being on the West.

What is the Tyne and Wear agreement?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Northern Rail and Merseyrail staff can travel free on the Tyne and Wear metro