Northern unstaffed machine tickets

Got on train today at unstaffed brockholes station travelling to Sheffield, returning to Huddersfield in evening. I have a Senior Railcard.

Auto ticket machine would only dispense tickets from Brockholes to Sheffield and return.

I was able to change return portion to Sheffield-Hudds by visiting manned ticket office in Sheffield.

If booking office had been closed, could I have upgraded ticket at same price from guard, or alternatively is it acceptable to use a 'promise to pay' voucher from machine even though I did have a credit /debit card and I thinkk it states on machine that you can only use one if you don't have a credit / debit card, but do have the money.

Technically you are not allowed an over distance excess on the return portion so there is definitely no right to do something that shouldn't be allowed in any case. Although I suppose if you were wanting a Huddersfield to Sheffield return (presuming that it allows break of journey and Brockholes in on a permitted route) and that wasn't available you should be able to upgrade to that ticket on board at no additional cost.

matacaster said:

If booking office had been closed, could I have upgraded ticket at same price from guard

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If the guard had sold you the overdistance excess, yes. But there are no guarantees they would have done so. It is somewhat surprising you managed to get what you wanted from Sheffield ticket office, as it is reputed as being unhelpful (to say the least!) round these parts.

matacaster said:

alternatively is it acceptable to use a 'promise to pay' voucher from machine even though I did have a credit /debit card and I thinkk it states on machine that you can only use one if you don't have a credit / debit card, but do have the money.

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This issue crops up quite often and there is no absolute consensus. Some will say that if there is a ticket machine you must use it, full stop, whether it offers your preferred payment method or not, others will say that you must use it if it caters to your intended payment method, and others say that you need not use it if it doesn't offer your intended choice of ticket (which could be something as 'unusual' as a rover or ranger, let alone an over or underdistance ticket).

My view is that if the ticket machine doesn't cater to your intended payment method it is not a facility to buy a ticket and it can therefore safely be ignored. If it is an issue around the availability of the kind of ticket you are after then you should buy a ticket to cover your journey until the first point you expect to come across a member of staff who sells tickets (be that the guard, or the next booking office if travelling on a DOO service). One should then exchange the ticket held for the ticket sought, and contact the company involved if this is refused.

There is, however, no strict entitlement to purchase a fare like Huddersfield to Sheffield when boarding at Brockholes, in the same way there would be to buy a South Pennines Day Ranger (which would also cover the journey, at a substantially higher cost).

Thanks folks!

Actually, just remembered Barnsley was where I went to, not Sheffield, but this does not affect the question or the answers given.