Metrolink card readers at railway stations?

[bitmadmax]

Apologies if this isn't the right forum for this.
It has been a few years since I've travelled on trains and last week I bought a weekly ticket from patricroft to manchester picadilly. However instead of a paper season ticjet they issued a northern smart card.
When I was leaving picadilly I showed the ticket inspector the card thinking he had a device to read it, but he told me to scan the card using the yellow card readers. I was surprised this worked as I thought these were only found at metrolink platforms only? When I got to patricroft station I noticed a yellow card reader there also.. but of course there are no trams at patricroft.
Can anyone tell me what these yellow card readers are for at national rail stations and what services they can be used for?

 

[Alex365Dash]

The smartcard validators can be used to tap a National Rail smartcard in or out. They come in various styles depending on the supplier but some are supplied by Vix - who also supply the validators on the Metrolink network, which explains the similar appearance of the validators.

They can also be used to load tickets purchased online or activate rail tickets (such as a day‘s travel on a Flexi Season Ticket).

 

[ServerHoster]

Oh yeah, I’ve seen these at Liverpool Lime Street, except when I scanned my card, it said I had no valid ticket on it!

 

[bitmadmax]

The smartcard validators can be used to tap a National Rail smartcard in or out. They come in various styles depending on the supplier but some are supplied by Vix - who also supply the validators on the Metrolink network, which explains the similar appearance of the validators.

They can also be used to load tickets purchased online or activate rail tickets (such as a day‘s travel on a Flexi Season Ticket).

Thanks, so I'm presuming you can't just 'tap in' on these at the start and end of your journey with a debit contactless debit card/device like on metrolink?

 

[jfollows]

Thanks, so I'm presuming you can't just 'tap in' on these at the start and end of your journey with a debit contactless debit card/device like on metrolink?

Correct, you can't.