DaventryRabbit
Member
I'm sure Port Talbot had Gates the last time I was there (2018?)
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How many National Rail stations don't have gatelines? (estimates welcome)
- Thread starter paulc222
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RailUK Forums
To be fair I don’t think I’ve had an issue with Bath recently. The barriers seem to be able to handle the volume of people coming down the stairs, and the stairs are the real choke point.
Even going back to the days of scissor gates and sentry boxes, there were usually two of them.
Having proactive guards helps, though it varies by operator.
Colwyn Bay and Rhyl used to be a nightmare. There's a reason that there's anti-climb paint at Colwyn Bay and spikes on top of the wall, when the gateline was installed by Arriva the scallies used to drop their bike over the wall before climbing over themselves, only to find that the staff had ejected the bike back outside. When Rhyl first got barriers there was almost a riot. 175s didn't used to have intermediate door controls so the guards had no hope of getting through a three car between Prestatyn and Rhyl in time to return to the cab.
Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Chester barriers were installed at the same time by ATW (I think Merseyrail contributed towards the Chester ones) and were supposed to repay the capital in two years. In practice, Colwyn Bay and Rhyl each repaid the capital in three months, Chester took just one month - such was the scale of the evasion.
Wrexham could certainly do with barriers, there's a lot of evasion. The trouble is that not only do you have two entrances, you've also got Central to think about.
Bangor should never have lost its barriers. A now-retired member of staff old enough to remember them (in those days a scissor gate on the footbridge, there was no car park or taxi rank entrance to the platforms) kept records that showed that the revenue recovered exceeded the cost of staffing. That said, the long-distance nature of most journeys from there means that passengers are more likely to encounter a guard.
Llandudno does have a gateline. Not an automatic one, admittedly. Those hadn't been invented when the LMS installed it. It isn't permanently staffed but does get used by RPIs and some guards.
Starting with Avanti, please. The high-numbered platforms at Liverpool Lime Street see an absurd amount of avoidance and evasion, there are quite a lot of people at Runcorn who haven't paid in their lives. Preston is likewise far too big a station not to be barriered, and revenue blocks at places like Warrington net considerable sums of money, just as the sum of small, local fares.
They can’t- particularly not the (now not so) new exit stairs on the Dorchester St side.
There aren’t many without a large quantity of small unstaffed halts which therefore can’t be barriered.
Undoubtedly, and no one thinks that Roman Bridge or Chetnole are worth equipping. However what barriers do very well is dealing with large numbers of people where onboard staff would struggle to keep up.
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northwichcat
Veteran Member
We were discussing barriers at Edinburgh in another thread recently. Some platforms at Edinburgh have had barriers for around 20 years now, so you must have either not been for a very long time or didn't look around the station much when you were there.
At a station like Liverpool Lime Street it's perhaps not obvious that the lower level Merseyrail platform has barriers, unless you actually go down there.
Sounds like larger stations only served by TfW Rail are covered but ones also served by Avanti West Coast aren't. Having barriers at the last station before a large town or city is sometimes done to prevent short faring.
Llandudno station gets annual usage around the 310,000 journeys level so is fairly low compared to many barriered stations.
I agree. You can see this at Bristol Temple Meads after a train from Severn Beach rolls in. There’s often a long line of people waiting at the excess fares desk, who I’m sure would otherwise just exit the station if barriers weren’t in use.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Indeed. It doesn't help that the scanners for e-tickets don't seem to like certain devices, or that very busy TPE services between Liverpool and Yorkshire have been diverted from Piccadilly platforms 13/14 to Victoria.
DaventryRabbit
Member
But how many of those people have travelled from, say, Avonmouth or Severn Beach but ask a Single/return from Stapleton Road and are prepared to chance it on the way back?
In my experience ticket checking on these trains is pretty good. Chances are if you're travelling to Avonmouth your ticket will be scanned at least once along the way
Backroom_boy
Member
Actually how many stations have a gateline* now that isn't automatic?
*not counting a line on the ground demarcating the paid/non paid areas; I mean actual points where passengers are funneled past a ticket inspection point which is likely to be manned.
Euston (mostly) Manchester Piccadilly and apparently Llandudno being examples.
The tricky thing with manual checks is that many of the choke points they use aren't specifically built as ticket check points. They are just natural choke points of the station design which are used by the manual ticket checkers.
Manchester picadilly has a glass wall between the concourse and the platforms, which for platforms 8-11* is used as a manual inspection point, but the only thing indicating it's a ticket check point is the staff standing there. When the staff aren't there it's just a glass wall with some doors in. The main purpose of the glass wall is clearly to separate the indoor space of the concourse from the semi-outdoor space of the platforms.
* 1-7 have automatic gates. I've never seen a ticket check for platform 12, 13/14 are usually accessed via travelators on platforms 10/11.
Manchester picadilly has a glass wall between the concourse and the platforms, which for platforms 8-11* is used as a manual inspection point, but the only thing indicating it's a ticket check point is the staff standing there. When the staff aren't there it's just a glass wall with some doors in. The main purpose of the glass wall is clearly to separate the indoor space of the concourse from the semi-outdoor space of the platforms.
* 1-7 have automatic gates. I've never seen a ticket check for platform 12, 13/14 are usually accessed via travelators on platforms 10/11.
viscountviktor
Member
I agree on WMT. Operators which have mainly suburban networks with no time between stations for ticket checks on board are those which should rely on gates the most.
I've been looking at the busiest stations in the West Midlands area that aren't gated. The order is Selly Oak, Stafford, Worcester Foregate, Solihull, Stourbridge Junction, Walsall, Nuneaton, Tamworth.
I wonder of DfT will look to future franchises to get them gated? I know the plan is for Solihull to have them when it is eventually redeveloped. And WMT floated plans for Worcester before the pandemic.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
If you're at Piccadilly between 9:30 and 10pm at night, when the inspectors are clocking off you'll notice one of them goes along and changes the signs next to the glass doors to remove instructions about entry and exit only and ticket checks.
Platform 12 is rarely used. Occasionally if there's an arriving train two inspectors move across to cover it. It may depend whether there's a lot of arriving passengers from 13/14 at the same time. I think 12 may be the only platform that doesn't have steps/escalators/travelators to the bridge.
Having the gateline there means that the honest passengers on the return journey don't occupy the Guard/ATE's time with sales so they are more likely to collar the dishonest ones who've overstayed.
I'm sure that I've read of guards at Skegness checking the passengers as they enter the platform.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
I'm sure I used a Northern station that had manual turnstiles by the ticket office a few years back. It may have been Marple.
viscountviktor
Member
Why do we allow free train travel after 10pm in this country
northwichcat
Veteran Member
For Northern local routes the cost of an Off Peak Return is usually 10p or 20p more than the cost of a single. Possibly they decided it's not worth paying for revenue protection for the last couple of hours if most passengers are returning home and already have return tickets.
Yup, no (public) steps escalators or travelators. There is a lift which links platform 12 to fairfield street, and the link bridge lounge though.
Sometimes I have run into a ticket checker at the top of said lift but in my experiance it has been the exception not the rule.
Not on my trains
Kite159
Veteran Member
And a station might have one entrance barriered but leaves another exit wide open. Ie Crayford, Cheshunt, Bicester Village etc
Doesn't take a genius to know the route those whom think payment is optional will head, even if it's a longer walk.
Doesn't take a genius to know the route those whom think payment is optional will head, even if it's a longer walk.
That is just a convention on the British rail network. In other countries, such as Ireland, it appears to be deemed perfectly acceptable to have ticket barriers installed with no staff present, although our barriers aren't really fit for that purpose given the bumping problem.
m0ffy
Member
One of the issues that barriers bring is an increase in staffing. Stations like Tamworth and Nuneaton are usually lightly staffed, but normally unstaffed after 6-ish. The volume of evasion would need to be quite high to recoup the costs, and that’s made less likely by the (generally) decent guarding found on XC, Avanti, and WMT.
viscountviktor
Member
My last couple of journeys with XC there has been no ticket check from Bham to York and back, and a load of football fans got on at Tamworth, off at Burton, obviously didn't pay. Ticket gates would've stopped that.
The amount of times my valid tickets are rejected by gate lines would suggest we aren't ready for unstaffed gates here.
It’s worth thinking about though the consequences of unmanned gates on the disabled, or when technical issues occur. Just today I saw someone get a suitcase trapped by a closing gate, and the staff had to manually open it. What would they do at an unmanned station?
Not to mention the benefits to countering fare evasion are slim. You just have to go to London to see people jump and bump the gates in front of staff. No one who has already knowingly broken the law is going to be stopped by a gate with no supervision. The use of gates is to flag possibly invalid tickets for further checks, this use isn’t relevant if there is no one to carry out those checks.
I was under the impression at least one gate must be open when a station is unmanned in Ireland.
If true, that clearly didn't work as there are still plenty of EMT (now EMR) stations which are still ungated, and never likely to be in my view.
Certainly no gates when I was there last month, nor on previous visits over the last couple of years.
How do you know they didn't pay ?
Chances are that the onboard staff (who are usually very active) would have got through to them before the train got busy. From Clifton Down inwards the churn is so great, there’s no way onboard staff could cope completely on busy trains.
People certainly do jump the gates but I’m not sure it follows that the benefits of gatelines to countering evasion are slim. They will deter all but the most hardcore of fare evaders due to social embarrassment/shame; not that many people are brazen though to push through gates.