No opportunity to buy tickets on Northern Rail service from Rose Hill Marple to Manchester

[pemma]

But the scenario painted was for tickets bought at Reddish South for travel from Reddish North.

Yes it was but you went off on a tangent about why you thought a bus to Stockport and then a train would be a better option than walking to Reddish North if you live near Reddish South, so I countered that with reasons why train all the way from Reddish North would be a better option.

 

[xotGD]

I was at Oxford Road earlier today, one of the machines had a broken card reader and a 'cash only' sign on it, and the other machine was accepting cash and card.

Those old machines are looking a bit worse for wear.

The card reader in the ticket machine at Skipton seems to be out of order around 50% of the time. Are we due a new machine?

 

[Flying Snail]

I keep hearing this, in my experience it is not the case, certainly not in the northern "mill towns" try standing at nelson interchange and watch the cafe/ticket office, if you see a card you are lucky, they usually only appear for expensive train tickets, certainly not for cups of coffee or £2.50 train fares.

I would be interested to hear from a Northern guard what percentage of transactions are card, particularly for shorter journeys

Do the Northern ticket machines now do online validation for cards? If so I'd guess the % of cards being offered for payment has reduced.

 

[philthetube]

In the half hour I watched the cafe/ticket office there was only one card transaction done against about 10 cash.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In the half hour I watched the cafe/ticket office there was only one card transaction done against about 10 cash.

I wonder if there's a north south split here?

 

[muz379]

I hope you cry like an ashamed Japanese politician too?

Next time this happens please report to RailUK first. Your excuse can then be logged and assessed by the forum on train staff monitoring team. It can then be decided whether your claim has any validity and your suggested demotion to OBS and subsequent redundancy date brought forward or put back deservingly.

Ill be sure to keep a note in my diary

I keep hearing this, in my experience it is not the case, certainly not in the northern "mill towns" try standing at nelson interchange and watch the cafe/ticket office, if you see a card you are lucky, they usually only appear for expensive train tickets, certainly not for cups of coffee or £2.50 train fares.

I would be interested to hear from a Northern guard what percentage of transactions are card, particularly for shorter journeys

My experience is that a monday morning commuter train with loads of weekly renewals will see majority of the payments by card , although there are some out there who buy a weekly with cash . On those trains I would say 85%+ pay by card

However a saturday afternoon stopper hopping from town to town will see majority of smaller payments by cash .On those trains I would say about 20% pay by card .


I find a lot of people going out drinking etc carry amounts of cash perhaps in the perception that pubs wont take card or they are not the sort of place to use a card .

On this topic "can I pay by card ?" Is still a fairly frequent question I will hear when selling tickets . Particularly from younger people who I would have thought would have been more expecting of card payment facilities being the norm .

I personally still use cash fairly often , I find it easier to budget with cash and its also seems to make it easier to resist the temptation to spend money .

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I wonder if there's a north south split here?

Very possibly. To further illustrate this my two main bank cards are contactless-enabled but have never been used in that manner in the 3 or so years I have had them.

 

[Hadders]

I wonder if there's a north south split here?

Definitely. In London it seems that practically everything is contactless these days. At Twickenham Stadium recently to see a rugby match the bars were all card only (I think there was one till somewhere in the stadium that took cash but no idea where it was).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Definitely. In London it seems that practically everything is contactless these days. At Twickenham Stadium recently to see a rugby match the bars were all card only (I think there was one till somewhere in the stadium that took cash but no idea where it was).

I did hear a quote at a gig a month or two ago of "cash? Who carries cash in London?", though it was from someone in their early to mid 20s (who was paying by card).

 

[Ianigsy]

I wonder if there's a north south split here?

Possibly, possibly not- it's as much generational as anything else, I think. On a leaving do from work in August, a colleague was buying rounds on his card to avoid the bar's minimum payment charge and then collecting the cash back from people.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Possibly, possibly not- it's as much generational as anything else, I think. On a leaving do from work in August, a colleague was buying rounds on his card to avoid the bar's minimum payment charge and then collecting the cash back from people.

I'm maybe an odd one there - while I'm "Gen X" by age I also have some properties of a millennial, particularly when it comes to tech. Though I think the thing that influences me to my view of "always pay card unless it is not accepted or the fee/minimum charge is unacceptable" is more my Dad, who as he was in banking before he retired always paid by card when he could right back into the 1980s.

 

[158756]

Possibly, possibly not- it's as much generational as anything else, I think. On a leaving do from work in August, a colleague was buying rounds on his card to avoid the bar's minimum payment charge and then collecting the cash back from people.

I don't know, but my experience is that contactless isn't widely used in the Northern establishments I frequent, but it's definitely younger people using it more. Personally I still use cash for low value transactions. People faffing around with a PIN to buy a pint of milk is just annoying.

 

[Hadders]

Contactless isn't a generational thing in my experience. What's made it take off in London is TfL. Spend some time in London and take a look at how people in general are paying for things, you'll be amazed.