The first railcard-permitted service south from Flitwick station is the 1004 First Capital Connect.
Half of Flitwick knows this, so there is always a significant (10-ish minute) queue at the one-man booking office around this time (and getting there any earlier doesn't help - as the office refuses to sell railcard tickets before a certain time).
The station has two ticket machines: (1) a newer one that doesn't wok because there is a fault with the touch-screen; (2) a slightly older one that does work, but also suffers from queues AND will not issue railcard tickets until 1000. Add to this the fact that the machine uses a clock that is two minutes slower than that used by FCC for the timing of it's trains.
Thus, a passenger arriving in good time for the 1004 has 2mins to go through the purchase and payment process on the one working machine, and to run across the footbridge from platform 4 to platform 1 if they wish to catch the first valid train. And that is if they are the first person in the queue for the ticket machine. I've pretty fit, and only just managed this sprint (with a stumble on the way down the platform 1 steps) the last time I tried it.
I pose exactly the same question as always on this: what can be done to make FCC rectify this situation. Though I know the correct answer is: "Nothing because they couldn't care less, and nobody is regulating them."
Half of Flitwick knows this, so there is always a significant (10-ish minute) queue at the one-man booking office around this time (and getting there any earlier doesn't help - as the office refuses to sell railcard tickets before a certain time).
The station has two ticket machines: (1) a newer one that doesn't wok because there is a fault with the touch-screen; (2) a slightly older one that does work, but also suffers from queues AND will not issue railcard tickets until 1000. Add to this the fact that the machine uses a clock that is two minutes slower than that used by FCC for the timing of it's trains.
Thus, a passenger arriving in good time for the 1004 has 2mins to go through the purchase and payment process on the one working machine, and to run across the footbridge from platform 4 to platform 1 if they wish to catch the first valid train. And that is if they are the first person in the queue for the ticket machine. I've pretty fit, and only just managed this sprint (with a stumble on the way down the platform 1 steps) the last time I tried it.
I pose exactly the same question as always on this: what can be done to make FCC rectify this situation. Though I know the correct answer is: "Nothing because they couldn't care less, and nobody is regulating them."