Northern Ticket Machines

[Halwynd]

The easiest solution may then be to obtain a promise to pay notice from the ticket machine and pay in cash on the train, or at the destination station ticket office, or where you change trains.

I know the machine should just work, but if it doesn't that may be a solution for you to make the journey without the risk of getting a penalty fare

Yes, you're right, that is probably the only other solution. I gave up with cash when Covid arrived and have got used to using a payment card for everything, and without any retailer issues elsewhere, but if I use the railway again I'll draw an emergency tenner from the local ATM so I can at least travel to the nearest ticket office or buy from the guard.

 

[Rail Ranger]

I believe that Northern's ticket vending machines do report faults automatically to a control room. I find that ringing Northern on 0800 200 6060 about station faults usually results in quick action to fix them.

 

[northernman]

Hi, sorry to hear you have had problems at Gathurst TVM again. I have taken a look at it, and can see there were no immediately obvious problems, so I will do some more digging with our supplier and let you know.

Thanks for that Mcr Warrior - no, there isn't a ticket office at Gathurst.

Unfortunately I didn't take my phone or camera with me - but you are right, we have arrived at this ridiculous situation where passengers probably need to take photographs to prove their case. Alas, even if I had been carrying my phone a picture would probably have been useless as it was the Chip & PIN pad and Contactless sensor that were not responsive. For all intents and purposes the machine otherwise looks as if it is working. I did look at the coloured bar at the top of the machine - on the advice of another RailUK Forums member - and it was lit up green. I used the same payment card an hour or so later in a supermarket and it worked fine. You would have thought that in this day and age, technologically, these machines would have some sort of self fault reporting to Head Office.

The second time this happened I sent an email to Northern customer services notifying them of the situation but heard nothing. I'm afraid I just can't be bothered again. If the railway doesn't want my money, fair enough. As I think I said earlier in this thread, I won't run the risk of a fine in a Penalty Fare area so never board without a ticket and today, being a nice sunny day, I walked instead - but I'm pretty knackered now! With the added problems of service cancellations and reliability issues I think I'm just going to give up on the railways for a while until someone, hopefully, gets a grip.

 

[BingMan]

Because the machines accept card but not cash. And where facilities are available, you must buy your ticket before you board. Hence buying on board is, in principle, not permitted when using card.

Of course in practice it's quite different.

I have obtained a "promise to pay" when the TVM would not recognise my card and then used the card to pay the guard on the train without problem.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Oct 2022 ==

I took four attempts with two cards to get a ticket at Whaley Bridge a couple of year ago (in the pouring rain). I don't normally have to use Northern machines.

Whaley |Bridge is my local station and I find the TVM to be very dodgy. Often the touch screen doesn't work, especially on a cold day, an don one occasion the whole display was rotated through ninety degrees.
I use the Northern app now which works well

 

[Halwynd]

Hi, sorry to hear you have had problems at Gathurst TVM again. I have taken a look at it, and can see there were no immediately obvious problems, so I will do some more digging with our supplier and let you know.

Thank you again northernman - and thank you for caring about the problem. I'm sorry if I came across as a little frustrated with this issue in my posts yesterday - it's just feels like hard work for passengers in Northern/Avanti/TPE land at the moment. You and your colleagues who run the stations and operate the trains do a fine job - my frustration is with management who allow these problems to develop.

Yes, the machine does appear to work, but neither the Chip & PIN nor the Contactless reader responds once the machine prompts for payment.

Thanks also to Rail Ranger and BingMan for their comments.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The easiest solution may then be to obtain a promise to pay notice from the ticket machine and pay in cash on the train, or at the destination station ticket office, or where you change trains.

I know the machine should just work, but if it doesn't that may be a solution for you to make the journey without the risk of getting a penalty fare.

How is one supposed to get a Promise to Pay from a machine that isn't working?

Faults where the machine is still able to print Promise to Pay vouchers, but won't actually retail a real ticket, are quite a niche situation.

 

[Trainbike46]

How is one supposed to get a Promise to Pay from a machine that isn't working?

Faults where the machine is still able to print Promise to Pay vouchers, but won't actually retail a real ticket, are quite a niche situation.

In this specific instance it sounds like the card reader was the only part of the machine that wasn't working, and as such getting a (free) promise to pay notice should not be a problem.

Clearly if the machine is fully malfunctioning and can't print a promise to pay notice the best course of action would be to take a photo of it (for peace of mind), and find a guard while boarding /as soon as possible after boarding, explain the situation and ask to buy a ticket

 

[scragend]

Thank you again northernman - and thank you for caring about the problem. I'm sorry if I came across as a little frustrated with this issue in my posts yesterday - it's just feels like hard work for passengers in Northern/Avanti/TPE land at the moment. You and your colleagues who run the stations and operate the trains do a fine job - my frustration is with management who allow these problems to develop.

Yes, the machine does appear to work, but neither the Chip & PIN nor the Contactless reader responds once the machine prompts for payment.

Thanks also to Rail Ranger and BingMan for their comments.

I've had issues in the past with the TVM at Hindley station where the contactless reader hasn't responded at the payment stage.

I normally use Google Pay on my phone to pay, but fortunately I did have a physical card with me so was able to insert it and pay by Chip & PIN.

 

[Halwynd]

I've had issues in the past with the TVM at Hindley station where the contactless reader hasn't responded at the payment stage.

I normally use Google Pay on my phone to pay, but fortunately I did have a physical card with me so was able to insert it and pay by Chip & PIN.

Thanks for that - I could well be wrong but it seems as if there's an issue with the payment card equipment, or the signals that are sent to it by the rest of the machine. When you look at Journeycheck there's rarely a day goes by without these machines not working for some reason or other at various stations across the Northern network. Gathurst wasn't listed yesterday, even though you couldn't buy a ticket, so it makes me wonder how widespread the problem is - particularly if payment card equipment failure is not tripping some sort of fault reporting system.

 

[northernman]

Thank you again northernman - and thank you for caring about the problem. I'm sorry if I came across as a little frustrated with this issue in my posts yesterday - it's just feels like hard work for passengers in Northern/Avanti/TPE land at the moment. You and your colleagues who run the stations and operate the trains do a fine job - my frustration is with management who allow these problems to develop.

Yes, the machine does appear to work, but neither the Chip & PIN nor the Contactless reader responds once the machine prompts for payment.

Thanks also to Rail Ranger and BingMan for their comments.

Hi, just an update on this. I have checked the machine for that day, it was in full service. I have checked for transactions, and it did successfully take payment throughout the day with no discernable problems. Having said that I have asked for an engineer to go and check it just to be sure. Sorry again that you had problems at that machine.

 

[Halwynd]

Hi, just an update on this. I have checked the machine for that day, it was in full service. I have checked for transactions, and it did successfully take payment throughout the day with no discernable problems. Having said that I have asked for an engineer to go and check it just to be sure. Sorry again that you had problems at that machine.

Thanks again northernman. That is bizzare... I'm not sure whether you can see any failed transactions, or whether any reason is given - possibly not because there was just no reaction from the Chip & PIN and Contactless readers when the card was entered or passed over the sensor - but if it is any help to the engineer my transactions were attempted at around 11:30. Firstly I tried with a debit card, and then a credit card, but there was no response to either. I used the debit card in a supermarket at around 13.10 without a problem. The machine has worked for me once, and I followed the exact same procedure yesterday as I did then. Everything fine in selecting and confirming a ticket, but no response from either of the card readers. I'm very grateful to you once again - sorry if I am becoming a pain with this!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

In this specific instance it sounds like the card reader was the only part of the machine that wasn't working, and as such getting a (free) promise to pay notice should not be a problem.

Clearly if the machine is fully malfunctioning and can't print a promise to pay notice the best course of action would be to take a photo of it (for peace of mind), and find a guard while boarding /as soon as possible after boarding, explain the situation and ask to buy a ticket

That is an unusual situation by the sounds of it.

If ever I'm unable to use the machine at my local station due to a fault, I always take a photo as "proof" as I did on Tuesday afternoon. On that occasion the train ended up being cancelled anyway so I took a £5 taxi to the next station which has a more frequent service.

 

[Halwynd]

Just another update on the ticket machine at Gathurst...

I've just attempted to try to travel and purchase a ticket from the Northern machine at Gathurst (I must be a gluten for punishment!). All the ticket selections worked OK, I pressed the 'Buy Ticket' button, a green light flashed underneath both the Chip & PIN and Contactless terminals, I entered payment card.... but no response again from either. I tried Chip & PIN first, then the Contactless reader... nothing. There was then a 'countdown' of a few seconds and the end of which the 'ticket' was removed. I then repeated the process again, but with the same unsuccessful result.

When I walked up the station approach road, there was a small white Vauxhall Network Rail van parked up. After a few minutes of trying to buy a ticket I heard a someone say 'Don't think it's working...' I turned around and it was a bloke in hi-vis orange uniform, so I presume it was a Network Rail employee. As he was walking away I thanked him and laughed that it was about the fifth time I'd tried in as many months.

I decided to then see whether I could print a 'Promise to Pay' ticket, and after a slightly long-winded process the machine did print a ticket which was marked 'Promise to Pay Permit'. So it appears that, as I suspected last time, this is a payment terminal problem rather than a problem with the ticket issuing system. Unfortunately the Promise to Pay Permit states that you cannot pay for a ticket by payment card, only cash. So despite having both a Debit and Credit card with me, I didn't have enough cash to pay for the ticket I wanted and so again I decided not to 'risk it' and left the station.

On walking back down the approach road, I noticed that two cars - parked next to each other - had a Promise to Pay Permit placed underneath their rear window wiper blades. I'm baffled as to why, especially as the car parking facilities are free, but given the non-working payment facilities it did make me wonder.

Finally, just to say that RailUK Forums member 'northernman' has informed me that he is looking into this further and is going to ask the machine manufacturer to take a look. Whilst it is very frustrating, particularly as the railway is looking for all the ticket sales it can get at the moment, I'm very much obliged to 'northernman' for his kind help and hope that this can be resolved soon. Northernman - if it is of any use to you, the Promise to Pay Permit is timed at 11:28, and my attempts to buy a ticket were a couple of minutes before this.

 

[Rail Ranger]

In practice would the vast majority of Northern conductors take a card payment if you had a Promise to Pay? Surely that non-functioning card reader at Gathurst must be widely known about by staff.

 

[SuspectUsual]

In practice would the vast majority of Northern conductors take a card payment if you had a Promise to Pay? Surely that non-functioning card reader at Gathurst must be widely known about by staff.

I suspect the answer to that is “probably”, which really isn’t good enough

 

[Halwynd]

In practice would the vast majority of Northern conductors take a card payment if you had a Promise to Pay? Surely that non-functioning card reader at Gathurst must be widely known about by staff.

Hopefully!! I've tried it five times now since the beginning of July but it has only worked once, on 21st July.

I really don't want to travel without a ticket, but if it doesn't work next time I think I'll have to take a chance with a Permit to Travel, and if there is any unpleasantness as a result, deal with it then.

The Northern Guards on the Southport line are usually friendly and polite and I probably wouldn't envisage much of a problem buying onboard. Although as SteveM70 says above, is probably good enough? My real worry is that because the journey time to Wigan Wallgate (where I change) is only four minutes, and in the past (pre-Covid and pre-ticket machine at Gathurst) Guards have sometimes advised me to 'buy at Wigan' - that I arrive at Wigan Wallgate and encounter the revenue staff who man the ticket barriers who might decide to issue me with a Penalty Fare - or arrange to send some other unwelcome letter in the post.

 

[JaJaWa]

If you think a photo wouldn't show the situation clearly then you could take a video of the issue

 

[Rhinojerry]

If our machine at Bamber Bridge is not working or takes money and does not issue a ticket,i approach the Conductor on boarding and explain.
Never been disbelieved or doubted,ticket is bought and off i go.
Generally a very nice crews that work our line.

 

[Halwynd]

Thanks for those further comments - I think I'll leave it to northernman to complete his investigations as he is aware of exactly what is going wrong.

As it happens, I had to make a very short notice journey from Gathurst the other day whilst my car was having a service. The ticket machine card payment equipment was still not working so this time I was forced to buy from the Guard. I asked him before boarding and he sold me a ticket without question before we had arrived at Wigan. I explained the problem with the payment card readers but he wasn't really interested, just laughed and made a joke of it. At least I escaped the possibility of a Penalty Fare at my destination!

 

[Halwynd]

I'm pleased to report that a technical problem with the machine at Gathurst has been identified by the manufacturer and that this was preventing card payments from being processed. An overnight upgrade has been arranged which will hopefully resolve the issue.

I'd just like to place on record my thanks to 'northernman' who picked this up and has resolved the problem. We all have a moan about the railway from time to time, particularly during these difficult times in the north west, but this has reminded me that the railway also has some great people who do their best for passengers - so thanks again northernman!

 

[SouthernR]

I'm not a frequent Northern traveller, but I've never succeeded in buying a Northern ticket from a machine

Success at last, but still having problems with touch screens (parallax, sensitivity, slow response).

Flushed with success, I tried later to buy a ticket for a Northern service using an Avanti machine, but it wouldn't accept Carnforth as a destination.

 

[david1212]

I'm pleased to report that a technical problem with the machine at Gathurst has been identified by the manufacturer and that this was preventing card payments from being processed. An overnight upgrade has been arranged which will hopefully resolve the issue.

I'd just like to place on record my thanks to 'northernman' who picked this up and has resolved the problem. We all have a moan about the railway from time to time, particularly during these difficult times in the north west, but this has reminded me that the railway also has some great people who do their best for passengers - so thanks again northernman!

To me two sides to this.
While good to read the problem has been identified and an upgrade is planned to eliminate it is poor first that the issue was not found during pre-installation testing and second it took so long to identify.

While I presume there is some customisation of each TVM for the location the payment modules ought to be standard / common across all machines of the same design.

 

[Starmill]

If our machine at Bamber Bridge is not working or takes money and does not issue a ticket,i approach the Conductor on boarding and explain.
Never been disbelieved or doubted,ticket is bought and off i go.
Generally a very nice crews that work our line.

Indeed. Realistically if you're able to speak to the conductor, they'll just issue the ticket.

However, if it happens that the conductor's machine isn't working, or there was no machine for them to take on their shift, then you'll have no ticket to show to any revenue staff you may meet. They would issue you with a Penalty Fare. Obviously you would have persuasive grounds for an appeal against the Penalty Fare, but you wouldn't receive any compensation for your hassle in lodging the appeal.

 

[Rhinojerry]

Thanks,had that a few months back.The Conductor wrote out the train reporting number and a couple of other items on the Orange paper tkt,worked fine Preston tkt check.

 

[Starmill]

Thanks,had that a few months back.The Conductor wrote out the train reporting number and a couple of other items on the Orange paper tkt,worked fine Preston tkt check.

That's certainly a sign of proactive customer service!

 

[Llandudno]

There have been a couple of times in recent months when I have been unable (not unwilling!) to buy a ticket (usually some sort of rover/ranger) before boarding a train.

I immediately approach the guard when the train arrives at the platform, politely explain the situation and the vast majority of guards are great, understand the predicament and do their best to issue a ticket.

I did arrive at Manchester Piccadilly recently as the guard was unable to issue a TfGM Wayfarer for some reason and bought one from the unpaid fare area just prior to the ticket gate.

 

[Halwynd]

To me two sides to this.
While good to read the problem has been identified and an upgrade is planned to eliminate it is poor first that the issue was not found during pre-installation testing and second it took so long to identify.

It certainly was a strange one - and of a nature whereby it mustn't have been reporting itself back to Northern electronically.

If I hadn't mentioned it on this forum, and northernman hadn't noticed it and acted, it seems as if the problem might well have remained for a while longer - and my concern was the possibility of boarding a train in a penalty fare area and being disbelieved. I know a lot of people wouldn't bother too much, but I must confess that I'm the sort of person who worries a bit about these things.

Anyway, I'm now looking forward with eager anticipation to my next trip when I hope to be able to report a successful purchase!

 

[NorthernSpirit]

@northernman Will rovers and rangers be made available from the ticket machines?

 

[northernman]

@northernman Will rovers and rangers be made available from the ticket machines?

Hi, yes we are working on it currently. Likely roll out in January.

 

[Kite159]

I picked up a Promise to Pay from Brighouse station on Sunday (I already had an e-ticket but I wanted a PtP for my little collection) and I noticed the format seems to have changed since the last time I've used a Northern TVM. How long ago did the format/wording change?