Northern Station Improvements & New Ticket Machines

[Geeves]

Ticket machine installed and working at Farnworth while I was working there on Thursday.

 

[philthetube]

I travelled Colne Preston last week, midday, over half passengers boarding from unstaffed stations buying tickets on board, all paying cash. on the front half of the pacer the guard did not do a single credit card transaction. Most fares under a fiver.

I don't think people in the north use credit/debit cards anything like as much as those in the south or in big cities, I know it would never cross my mind to use a card for a couple of quid.

I would love to know how much card only machines collect as a proportion of revenue form any specific unstaffed station.

 

[Chrisyd]

Salford Central has had a new style ticket machine in place for quite a few weeks now, it is positioned facing the ticket office. Every day I have walked past (admittedly the ticket office is generally open at these times) it always says "Out of Order - no tickets". There was previously no ticket machine at the station so whether this does not appear on anyone's regular maintenance rota, I don't know.

 

[Bantamzen]

I travelled Colne Preston last week, midday, over half passengers boarding from unstaffed stations buying tickets on board, all paying cash. on the front half of the pacer the guard did not do a single credit card transaction. Most fares under a fiver.

I don't think people in the north use credit/debit cards anything like as much as those in the south or in big cities, I know it would never cross my mind to use a card for a couple of quid.

I would love to know how much card only machines collect as a proportion of revenue form any specific unstaffed station.

At my work's canteen in Leeds a lot of people do now use their cards even to buy a coffee. I see similar patterns at stores too, with low value transactions being paid for by card / mobile app. It might be a generational thing but things are changing and quite rapidly too.

 

[Chrisyd]

A friend was at Lords earlier in the year and most of the queues for the bar he was in were "Contactless only", apparently as it is so much quicker than cash for the bars (with the 4 pint limit per purchase even with Lords/London prices it is less than £30).

The cynic in me, would also suggest it means you are less likely to be aware how much you have spent and so get that extra round later on!

 

[Bletchleyite]

A friend was at Lords earlier in the year and most of the queues for the bar he was in were "Contactless only", apparently as it is so much quicker than cash for the bars (with the 4 pint limit per purchase even with Lords/London prices it is less than £30).

It also means there is zero chance of staff pocketing it.

 

[thejuggler]

Since contactless was an option on Northern trains I always use credit card - it earns me 0.5% cashback and its far quicker than messing with money or the chip and pin machine which was always hit and miss.

I was in Stockholm this summer and it is rapidly becoming cashless. "Card only" signs are starting to appear and even the street vendor selling ice cream had a contactless machine. Speaking to one local and he hadn't used cash for months.

It is generational. When we have student players at the rugby club very few have any cash - they all expect to be able to pay by card and even baulk as we don't yet have contactless or Apple/Android pay.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's odd that I've never visited Scandinavia when they seem, generally speaking, to be way ahead in just about every progressive aspect of society.

FWIW I was at a gig last week and almost nobody paid cash at the merchandise stand even though there was a fee for card. I did hear a comment "nobody carries cash in London these days".

 

[johntea]

It is very convenient, and even better with my TSB online banking app on my phone I can pretty much instantly see the pending transaction pop up so I know where I'm at with financials nice and easily - arguably contactless can even save you money in the sense that if you have a £10 note and buy a £9 odd item for example you'll probably just spend the change on a bar of chocolate or something!

 

[Starmill]

It's odd that I've never visited Scandinavia when they seem, generally speaking, to be way ahead in just about every progressive aspect of society.

Wait, how is that odd? How is it odd for anyone to have never visited 'Scandinavia'? And what's more what does that have to do with Northern station improvements?

 

[Bungle965]

Rochdale is getting what was described by a member of station staff as a 'big media screen'.
Apologies for the poor picture quality.
Sam

 

[route101]

I used one of them new ticket machines at Manchester Airport , looked good but was pretty slow . Why is the screen so big ?

 

[Starmill]

That was a TransPennine Express ticket machine. The screen is big because they wanted a big screen.

 

[route101]

That was a TransPennine Express ticket machine. The screen is big because they wanted a big screen.

Should paid attention!

 

[johntea]

Presumably at some point they’ll maybe scale the software a bit to take advantage of the larger screen!

 

[hassaanhc]

Presumably at some point they’ll maybe scale the software a bit to take advantage of the larger screen!

That's also an issue with the few installed at Paddington (inside the new ticket office on the right), it is very hard to see the blurry text up close. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it was the screen that was low resolution

Having said that, the Paddington machines allow you to change the origin location to Boundary Zone 2/3/4/5/6, or back to London Terminals. No other origin locations appeared to be there.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Heald Green, I am informed, is having more "betterment" works. The last works covered the improvement to the booking office section and the link from the waiting room to the platform for disabled passengers, so what are these latest works there?

 

[pdq]

I know this is a TPE managed station, but it is in Northern Land so sort of relevant.

Dewsbury has got new announcements, a female voice this time. Word timing seems to be a lot better than the previous male voice, but not quite perfect. At the moment, platform specific announcements are going out on both platforms, but I guess that will be fixed in due course.
Work also going on to install barriers on P1 (Leeds bound).

 

[Bungle965]

I know this is a TPE managed station, but it is in Northern Land so sort of relevant.

Dewsbury has got new announcements, a female voice this time. Word timing seems to be a lot better than the previous male voice, but not quite perfect. At the moment, platform specific announcements are going out on both platforms, but I guess that will be fixed in due course.
Work also going on to install barriers on P1 (Leeds bound).

Yes TPE are binning the Siemens system that they had and are replacing it with the ATOS system. This means a change of announcer from Rob to Anne who is pretty ubiquitous in England.
Sam

 

[northwichcat]

A lot of TVMs listed out-of-order today: https://www.journeycheck.com/northernrail Are there a lot being replaced at the moment or do they not like the cold weather?

 

[skyhigh]

A lot of TVMs listed out-of-order today: https://www.journeycheck.com/northernrail Are there a lot being replaced at the moment or do they not like the cold weather?

From experience, they were never listed while being replaced - so I'd guess they're not working for some other reason. 22 is the highest I've seen though!

 

[WatcherZero]

Seems to be down to 17 out of order now.

Could be as simple as running out of change.

 

[northwichcat]

Could be as simple as running out of change.

The new TVMs are card only and the old cash + card ones were only installed at stations which had morning + afternoon staffing 7 days a week so Newton-le-Willows might have had one of those but stations like Humphrey Park, Poynton and Sankey For Penketh wouldn't have. I also seem to recall when they ran out of change they displayed a 'correct change only' message opposed to reporting themselves out-of-service.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Heald Green, I am informed, is having more "betterment" works. The last works covered the improvement to the booking office section and the link from the waiting room to the platform for disabled passengers, so what are these latest works there?

We made a visit to Heald Green station last Friday with friends of my wife who live there, but works in progress stopped direct access from the station approach, through the booking office and on to the platform, having to use an external walking route to access the Manchester-bound platform that had a Carlyle operative there. It appears that the recently installed disabled access link from the booking office to the station platform no longer exists and the area where the access point for it to the Manchester-bound platform is now blocked up. There are two new ticket machines on the Manchester bound platform.

Has anyone any news concerning the completion time of these works?

 

[thejuggler]

From my experience today it appears you can only buy an off peak ticket during off peak times. If your train is at 9.31am you can’t arrive at 9.25am and buy an off peak ticket. You need to wait until 9.30am when the ticket types change.

 

[Howardh]

From my experience today it appears you can only buy an off peak ticket during off peak times. If your train is at 9.31am you can’t arrive at 9.25am and buy an off peak ticket. You need to wait until 9.30am when the ticket types change.

Well that's madness - it effectively puts trains possibly up to 9.40am (if there's a queue at the ATM) into peak hours, and also trains at the end of peak hours in the evenings. Sly and underhand if true; and if it happened to me I'd be writing to Northern's Public Disaster Response team.....grrr. Needs publicising in the media - especially if Northern are the only train company pulling that one.

 

[WatcherZero]

Err, in my experience that's how its always been on Northern TVM, they only sell valid tickets. Virgin and Northern ticket office staff always make me wait till 9:30 as well.

 

[northwichcat]

If you're not sold the cheapest available ticket by a TVM the TOC are obliged to refund you but with Northern you might have to wait 6 months!

 

[thejuggler]

If you're not sold the cheapest available ticket by a TVM the TOC are obliged to refund you but with Northern you might have to wait 6 months!

Useful to know. I’ll do that and claim my 60p refund next time, which will no doubt be another hand written cheque!

 

[Puffing Devil]

From my experience today it appears you can only buy an off peak ticket during off peak times. If your train is at 9.31am you can’t arrive at 9.25am and buy an off peak ticket. You need to wait until 9.30am when the ticket types change.

Same issue with Metrolink machines. What is the issue with allowing a 5-10 grace period on buying off-peak tickets?