No opportunity to buy tickets on Northern Rail service from Rose Hill Marple to Manchester

[moose2001]

On A Northern Railway train today between Rose Hill Marple and Manchester Piccadilly. Many stations along this route are unmanned and do not have ticket machines. Many people get on as we head towards the city on a Pacer. The guard opens and closes the door. Between stations he goes to the rear cab and reads a Dan Brown novel which he was carrying in his hand when opening/closing the doors. When we get to Piccadilly hardly anyone has a ticket. Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

I do not work on any part of the railway so maybe I'm missing something. Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

 

[yorkie]

Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

There is no obligation to miss your connection. If the train company compelled you to do so, and you arrived 30 or more minutes late, you are entitled to Delay Repay compensation in my opinion. Please do put a claim in.

Note the above paragraph is in no way a criticism of the Guard. But if the company refused to allow a valid connection to be made, that is unacceptable.

Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

Broken ticket machine?
Out of ticket stock?
No ticket machine available?

Unless you asked him, we will never know.

 

[b9_624]

On A Northern Railway train today between Rose Hill Marple and Manchester Piccadilly. Many stations along this route are unmanned and do not have ticket machines. Many people get on as we head towards the city on a Pacer. The guard opens and closes the door. Between stations he goes to the rear cab and reads a Dan Brown novel which he was carrying in his hand when opening/closing the doors. When we get to Piccadilly hardly anyone has a ticket. Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

I do not work on any part of the railway so maybe I'm missing something. Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

It’s fairly common to see Northern guards not come out the cab to sell/check tickets, maybe their machine is broken or the train is very busy etc, or they just can’t be bothered. It’s an inconvenience if there’s a queue to buy a ticket when you get off but at the end of the day it’s up to them.

However I’m not sure about the reading a book part... especially if he was holding it while doing the doors as you said. That sounds very dodgy although I’m happy to be corrected if it’s not generally thought of as a big deal.

 

[Andyh82]

If his ticket machine was out of action would he have not made an announcement saying as much?

 

[Statto]

GMPTE area for you with plenty of stations without ticket offices & TVMs, contrast Bryn & Garswood both on the same line with same service but one is over the border & has a ticket office open all day but serves a Village, the other doesn't & serves a Town

 

[dilbertphil]

If he was holding a book whilst doing his doors that is a no no and he most certainly would be in trouble should his manager find out. As for doing tickets , if his machine was out if order he should still have been checking tickets and patrolling the train also an announcement should have been made. IMO in these uncertain times some guards just do the grade no favours at all with their conduct.

 

[moose2001]

Thanks for the replies. Do ticket machines often break down? If so why isn't this addressed?

I arrived at my destination about half an hour late because the next bus was early. It took 2 hours and 29 minutes to get from my home near Woodley - with a frequent bus service right outside the door directly to the station- to Bolton, 24 miles away (according to Alexa). That's 9 miles an hour! I like public transport but getting from one part of Greater Manchester to the other is bizarre.

 

[dilbertphil]

Not sure about how often machines break down. If however it is alot I would expect Arriva to just ignore it and carry on regardless like they do with most things.

 

[yorkie]

You really need to write to the company about the delay; the issue is not so much the lack of ticket issuing facilities before Manchester but the fact you were wrongly required to queue at your interchange station. Please do let us know how you get on.

 

[muz379]

The guard opens and closes the door. Between stations he goes to the rear cab and reads a Dan Brown novel which he was carrying in his hand when opening/closing the doors. When we get to Piccadilly hardly anyone has a ticket. Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

There does seem to be an issue with long queues to buy tickets coming off busy services on a saturday .

I do not work on any part of the railway so maybe I'm missing something. Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

There are many reasons for why not , some legitimate some not so legitimate . Without asking the guard we will never know which it was

Not legitimate ones include things like cannot be bothered or didn't bother collecting a machine when booking on , unfortunately just like any other job which employs humans some people will do their job with more enthusiasm and better than others . Its frustrating for those of us in the grade fighting for our future that some are like this .

Legitimate ones include things like issues with the ticket machine the guard cannot rectify on route , lack of ticket machine to collect when booking on or carrying out some other duty such as trying to contact control about a unit fault or because of delays disruption on route.Overcrowding is another one which prevents you from doing revenue . For me personally if there is no revenue equipment available at the start of your shift or it breaks early on it can actually make your shift really boring just doing door duties and occasional patrols your whole shift .

Even in those cases as a I will always make an announcement every few stops to give some reason why even if its just a generic technical fault with my machine and to apologize for the inconvenience , and I would still patrol the train if possible every so often to check that there are no other issues on board , admittedly on a single pacer patrolling the train is kind of negated by the fact that you can see the whole train from either end but a walk through still shows a presence .

Thanks for the replies. Do ticket machines often break down? If so why isn't this addressed?

I arrived at my destination about half an hour late because the next bus was early. It took 2 hours and 29 minutes to get from my home near Woodley - with a frequent bus service right outside the door directly to the station- to Bolton, 24 miles away (according to Alexa). That's 9 miles an hour! I like public transport but getting from one part of Greater Manchester to the other is bizarre.

Ticket machines dont often break down ,a lot of basic faults can be rectified by the user but this depends on the users skill level and motivation to do so . On longer shifts the battery can run out before the end either on the main ticket machine or the chip and pin device , and you can run out of ticket stock for the machine which obviously prevents selling .

Ahh yeah that jorney made all the more difficult by the fact that bolton is closed at weekends for some time now .

 

[Crossover]

Yet, as I understand it, Ardwick, Reddish South and Denton now have TVM's.....

 

[Bovverboy]

On A Northern Railway train today between Rose Hill Marple and Manchester Piccadilly. Many stations along this route are unmanned and do not have ticket machines. Many people get on as we head towards the city on a Pacer. The guard opens and closes the door. Between stations he goes to the rear cab and reads a Dan Brown novel which he was carrying in his hand when opening/closing the doors. When we get to Piccadilly hardly anyone has a ticket. Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

I do not work on any part of the railway so maybe I'm missing something. Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

I often travel into Manchester from Patricroft or Eccles and can say that in recent times I have rarely seen a conductor patrol the train selling or checking tickets. Both the stations mentioned now have ticket machines, but they are a very recent addition (within the last few weeks), the decline in conductor patrols came long before that. I think the stance has been that tickets can be purchased at the destination station, although what happens at the airport (on the Sunday service) where there are no barriers, I really don't know.
Moose2001, you don't need to wait for the conductor to patrol the train, you can take the initiative and make the approach yourself, in the above example you were clearly in the same part of the train. My own experience says that if you don't get a ticket, you'll at least get a garbled explanation of why not.
If you subsequently decide to make a claim or complaint, the fact that you've made the effort to buy a ticket should strengthen your position considerably.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yet, as I understand it, Ardwick, Reddish South and Denton now have TVM's.....

Those aren't there to sell tickets (nor is the one that is allegedly being installed at Ardwick). They're to prevent people saying "but I came from X".

The one at Ardwick will no doubt get smashed up within a week or two, but if you haven't been there how do you know that?

 

[falcon]

On A Northern Railway train today between Rose Hill Marple and Manchester Piccadilly. Many stations along this route are unmanned and do not have ticket machines. Many people get on as we head towards the city on a Pacer. The guard opens and closes the door. Between stations he goes to the rear cab and reads a Dan Brown novel which he was carrying in his hand when opening/closing the doors. When we get to Piccadilly hardly anyone has a ticket. Cue a 20 minute wait - longer than the journey - to buy a ticket and get through the ticket barriers. I miss my connection - a replacement bus service.

I do not work on any part of the railway so maybe I'm missing something. Why wasn't the guard selling tickets?

Why didn't you go to him and buy a ticket."please can I have a ticket to".

 

[142blue]

It doesn't sound ideal that tickets can't be bought at a station, a machine or on the train either

Maybe it's an attempt to force people to buy online but to offer no facilities to buy stinks IMHO

 

[B&I]

It doesn't sound ideal that tickets can't be bought at a station, a machine or on the train either

Maybe it's an attempt to force people to buy online but to offer no facilities to buy stinks IMHO

Or maybe It's a result of most of our third largest urban area having a local railway system which no-one seems to care about.

 

[142blue]

and has suffered years of under investment in local stations and rolling stock that is modern and has sufficient capacity as well as very few improvements to timetables especially in regard tos ervices at night and on Sunday

 

[Bletchleyite]

and has suffered years of under investment in local stations and rolling stock that is modern and has sufficient capacity as well as very few improvements to timetables especially in regard tos ervices at night and on Sunday

Quite. Local rail services in the Manchester area (other than Metrolink[1]) are terrible, and compared with the South East improving them would cost so little.

[1] Metrolink used to be pretty rubbish in the early days, but these days, barring the lack of integrated ticketing with other modes, it's well up to and in some cases exceeding the best Stadtbahn services in Germany, which is something TfGM really needs to be proud of - and Merseyrail matches or exceeds some of the S-Bahnen too. But the rest of it...

 

[pemma]

If his ticket machine was out of action would he have not made an announcement saying as much?

Very occasionally guards do make announcements why they can't sell tickets. However, unless the train is rammed I don't see why they should not even walk through the train even if they don't have a working ticket machine. They constantly tell us their primary role is safety, yet if they don't venture out from the cab there could be potential safety issues on board which they won't see.

 

[pemma]

Those aren't there to sell tickets (nor is the one that is allegedly being installed at Ardwick). They're to prevent people saying "but I came from X".

The one at Ardwick will no doubt get smashed up within a week or two, but if you haven't been there how do you know that?

The Northern TVMs have a long strip of coloured lighting at the top - green means TVM operational and red means TVM know it's out-of-order and if it's off it's probably not in service due to a fault such as a power supply problem. Passengers on trains from the Guide Bridge direction may be able to see the light from the train.

If the Northern TVMs had the feature of buying from another station then I imagine the Reddish South machine would sell a few tickets to people on their way to Reddish North, it might also get a fair few TODs issued.

 

[Crossover]

Those aren't there to sell tickets (nor is the one that is allegedly being installed at Ardwick). They're to prevent people saying "but I came from X".

The one at Ardwick will no doubt get smashed up within a week or two, but if you haven't been there how do you know that?

I have sources. The Ardwick one makes a bit more sense on that ground, but the other two don’t

On the other hand, many of our stations on the other side of the Pennines have no facilities at all (or where they do, they have one machine for two platforms) so it seems daft to waste them on the likes of Denton

 

[pemma]

On the other hand, many of our stations on the other side of the Pennines have no facilities at all (or where they do, they have one machine for two platforms) so it seems daft to waste them on the likes of Denton

Northern have said they'll be at least one TVM per station at all stations they serve in the future. If that's to be taken literally other very low usage stations like Stanlow & Thornton and Pontefract Baghill will be getting TVMs as well.

 

[Ianigsy]

I wonder whether another reason why guards can be reluctant to sell tickets in the PTE areas is that they've learned from experience that many passengers are using PTE multi modal products or the seasons they use for commuting, so selling tickets on a Saturday involves more leg work for less return than, say, a morning peak when people do want full price day returns.

 

[8J]

Northern have said they'll be at least one TVM per station at all stations they serve in the future. If that's to be taken literally other very low usage stations like Stanlow & Thornton and Pontefract Baghill will be getting TVMs as well.

That isn’t correct. Northern said that all stations with a passenger usage of over a certain number (I think it was 200 per week but I could be wrong) would get a ticket machine. The likes of Stanlow & Thornton will not.

 

[pemma]

That isn’t correct. Northern said that all stations with a passenger usage of over a certain number (I think it was 200 per week but I could be wrong) would get a ticket machine. The likes of Stanlow & Thornton will not.

Their Twitter team implied every station would get one but they aren't exactly known for posting 100% accurate information.

 

[clagmonster]

The ticket machine at Ardwick was operational when I visited on New Years Day. It is card only and situated in the passage to the station, so the green/red light wouldn't be visible to the guard on a train stopping, nor any passengers on the train.

 

[bramling]

Very occasionally guards do make announcements why they can't sell tickets. However, unless the train is rammed I don't see why they should not even walk through the train even if they don't have a working ticket machine. They constantly tell us their primary role is safety, yet if they don't venture out from the cab there could be potential safety issues on board which they won't see.

Maybe the guards are demotivated and pissed off at the current situation? Uncertainty is hardly the climate to inspire the best performance out of people.

My experience over time is most Northern guards are normally at least functional effective, ranging upwards towards highly enthusiastic.

 

[pemma]

Maybe the guards are demotivated and ****ed off at the current situation? Uncertainty is hardly the climate to inspire the best performance out of people.

My experience over time is most Northern guards are normally at least functional effective, ranging upwards towards highly enthusiastic.

I wouldn't agree with your first statement. The number of services I've been on where the guard has walked through has increased significantly since Arriva took over, from my experience the guard comes through around 4 out of 5 times now, when it only used to be around 2 out of 5 under Serco/Abellio. The new guards Northern have recruited are certainly very enthusiastic - maybe they are keener to get commission than those who have been doing it a long time?

 

[Crossover]

The ticket machine at Ardwick was operational when I visited on New Years Day. It is card only and situated in the passage to the station, so the green/red light wouldn't be visible to the guard on a train stopping, nor any passengers on the train.

All Northern TVM's are card only now - I think the ones that accepted cash ceased to do so a little while ago

 

[221129]

This journey has a station stop every 3-5 minutes, with an end to end journey time of about 32 minutes, not a great deal of time to be selling tickets or walking through the train when they have to dispatch on time as well. At the end of the day the guard has more important things to be doing.