Also what about going off the platform to visit the shop/buffet/cash machine/get something from your car ?
I had a situation like this at Surbiton last weekend. I'd arrived at the station having just missed the 17:30 departure and thus had plenty of time for a cigarette break. However I also needed to use the lavatories first, which at Surbiton are located on the platforms themselves and beyond the barriers.
Knowing that the barriers would flip the "used" byte on my ticket when presented (Meaning I would only be able to pass them once) I spoke to the gateline assistant and said that I wanted to use the station facilities, leave to have a smoke, then return to catch my train.
The assistant was very helpful and (After inspecting my ticket) gave me a manual through the wide gate so that I could nip onto the platform, then manual'd me out again. When I returned to actually catch my train, I presented the ticket to the barrier and validated it without trouble.
this has become the norm on London Midland certainly. They only now seem to mark the ticket on the last leg of the journey and then usually they write the date on.
I've found at least one LM Guard to be
very helpful in this regard. I was travelling on the return portion of an OPR from Liverpool LS to Euston, but because I was also stopping at Derby for a few weeks I needed to make a long break of journey at Tamworth.
Obviously, the Guard needed to mark my ticket to show that I'd used the validity between Liverpool and TAM which I was concerned would make resuming my journey difficult...But when the Guard came along, I explained my travel plans and that I would be resuming my journey after a long stay. He then initialled my ticket and wrote a note next to it stating something like "
Used Liverpool-Tamworth only, xx/xx/2010" and I had no trouble at all resuming my return journey a few weeks later!
By the by, does anyone know why we've seen a complete phasing-out of the traditional Guards clip? I know that barriers don't play well if the ticket's been clipped on the magnetic strip...But the handling gear in those gates can easily handle a ticket with a clip on the top/bottom edges (Their design takes that into account) and I'd always thought that was one of the main reasons for the top/bottom edges of tickets being prominently printed orange...So that Guards had an easy to spot "target" to aim their clips at without damaging the mag-stripe.
I know that ball-points do alright for showing a ticket as
possibly having been used, but a passenger can always say "My kid did that" or explain it some other way. Guards clips are harder to explain because of their clean cut (I doubt "I caught it with a pair of scissors" would quite cut the mustard, excuse the pun!) and different shapes of clips can easily be allocated to specific trains, working patterns or messrooms.
Even better would be an inkless clip that
embosses the ticket with date, departure time from origin, headcode, and Guard number...A proper embosser would leave an impression that couldn't easily be eliminated without the aid of a 10+ton press (Not a common find in many people's toolboxes) and having a shaped clip to the side of the embossing would secure the status of the ticket even further!
