Funny old forum; here's a recent thread commending Euston gateline staff for their helpfulness!
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/virgin-gateline-at-euston.195677/
It's not the forum that is "funny old"; it's the inconsistency of the staff! But I have addressed that point upthread anyway.
it is interesting that you decide this thread is only to call out the poor behavior of staff and will not consider for one moment that passengers are less than angelic sometimes. it appears anyone attempting to point out both sides of the story is a "staff apologist".
If your intention was not to make excuses for poor behaviour, then it would have been prudent not to do so.
I maintain, staff apologist or not: I have never had an issue with the dateline staff at Euston. That isnt to denigrate anyone else. It simply is a reflection of my experience as a regular user. Sorry it doesn't meet with the required tone.
To be clear, you said:
I use euston on a regular (almost daily) basis. Never had one problem with gateline staff.
Why? Well I know how to behave, have a vilid ticket and dont have an attitude.....
If you had not intended to denigrate those who did experience a problem then alternative wording would have been better.
I don't disagree. I simply point out my experience as a regular user. I don't seek to denigrate the experiences of anyone else.
I do not see how your comments were anything other than an attempt to denigrate and dismiss the legitimate concerns that many valid fare payers have.
This is the issue I have with this board at times. Many posters cant understand how people working on the railways haven't memorised the fares bible so that, instantly, they can see if your really obscure split ticket between two really odd stations is valid. I agree ENTIRELY that they should know the rules for their line and the stations on it and when the bloody peak period is
As stated before, if you are unsure, you do not tell people their ticket is valid. You accept the ticket if unsure and don't have time to check. Or you check if there is sufficient time and the ability to do so.
I have some sympathy when they are presented with one of the clever ticketing ruses people here come up with. They may never have seen that combination before and might need some time to check. That is difficult with 170000 people rushing to board the 1656 to Manchester!
The complaints are not about the "time to check"; you've made that up! Also if the company has caused a situation where there is a rush then that is not the fault of customers either.
But then I am only human so tend to accept human fallibility a bit more than some/most posters here..
If you are unsure, you accept the ticket; no-one is complaining that they do not know everything.
Given how long it can take the fares forum members to decide on some validities (if a general
consensus is reached), how many people would that take?
If there is insufficient time to check a ticket, it must be accepted. It's that simple.
A better solution would be a technological one, however even then that relies on someone knowing every possible combination & loading a database to verify a ticket as it was scanned at a gateline. By no means impossible, but would still have the potential for problems, errors etc.
That's a matter for the company.
Frankly, I'm amazed anyone would want to work on a major gateline, sounds like a one way ticket to the funny farm....
And yet I know forum members who I've visited at gatelines who do a professional job. Yes they have met some challenging people, but they never let that result in them mistreating people. Yes they did not know everything; I know of some who accepted various tickets then asked me (or others) for an opinion later.
Working with the public can be challenging; it's not a job for everyone. But the company should have proper recruitment strategies in place, proper training should be provided, and adequate safeguards should be deployed.
As
@DarloRich says though, when you've thousands of commuters flowing through, with the pressure on to get them all onto their correct train, the time it takes to check on or more restriction codes may just be too long. People under stress don't always perform at 100% efficiency, and become more liable to making mistakes. Is it any coincidence that a gateline with such a high level of disapproval on the forums is also one of the busiest? You could shove more on of course, but there really needs to be some way of tying multiple or obscure combinations of tickets to a databased itinerary system. It'll never be perfect, but might go someway to reducing the gateline conflict.
If it takes "too long" to check if a ticket is valid, then you may have to accept some potentially invalid tickets and move on. It's not difficult.