• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Rail Staff Reject Online Tickets

Status
Not open for further replies.

Coxster

Established Member
Joined
9 Jun 2005
Messages
9,244
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6131498.stm

Rail staff reject online tickets

Ticketing staff at rail firm GNER are to take industrial action, claiming the company is unfairly imposing job cuts.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) says GNER refuses to discuss plans to close ticket counters.

GNER says it expects to reduce staffing over the next five years but that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

From Friday, TSSA members will refuse to issue tickets bought online, and customers must collect them from automated ticketing machines.

The industrial action will continue indefinitely.

TSSA spokesman Brian Brock said: "We are a union that has never been opposed to progress but GNER has not been willing to sit down and discuss the changes with us.

'Invested £1m'

"We have been trying to discuss this with GNER since April without any success, and what we have found is that the company is actually forcing changes by closing windows and counters, and putting more fast ticket machines in."

GNER spokesman John Gelson denied the company was forcing through job cuts or closing ticket counters.

He said: "At Durham we've invested just over £1m in refurbishing and rebuilding a new travel centre, which we wouldn't be doing if we were in the business of cutting such services.

"There is a real shift towards online custom across the entire service sector. It's not unique to the rail system.

"I can't say nobody will lose their jobs, but I can say we expect to achieve any reduction in numbers through natural turnover or voluntary redeployment."
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

compsci

Member
Joined
2 Jul 2006
Messages
169
Location
Cambridge
I'm thankful that I've already got my tickets to go home at Christmas. Assuming that this is referring to staff not printing and posting online tickets (the title actually suggests that guards will be throwing people off trains), how is a passenger starting their journey at a non GNER station such as Cambridge supposed to collect a ticket which includes connecting travel?
 

gordonthemoron

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2006
Messages
6,589
Location
Milton Keynes
I'm thankful that I've already got my tickets to go home at Christmas. Assuming that this is referring to staff not printing and posting online tickets (the title actually suggests that guards will be throwing people off trains), how is a passenger starting their journey at a non GNER station such as Cambridge supposed to collect a ticket which includes connecting travel?

You can also collect GNER tickets from ticket machines in non-GNER stations, e.g. Nottingham
 

metrocammel

Member
Joined
11 Aug 2005
Messages
954
Location
Ashton, Lancashire
I'm thankful that I've already got my tickets to go home at Christmas. Assuming that this is referring to staff not printing and posting online tickets (the title actually suggests that guards will be throwing people off trains), how is a passenger starting their journey at a non GNER station such as Cambridge supposed to collect a ticket which includes connecting travel?

That makes little, or no sense!

If your starting your journey at Cambridge, you will either a) (if they have a fasticket) choose to collect them there, or b) (if they dont have a FT) get them posted to your house.
The article says nowhere that "call-centre" offices (where the tickets are printed, to be posted to your house) (as the majority of them are operated by 3rd pary companies, eg The Trainline) will not post tickets. I think it just means that if your turn up to a station, they will tell you to go to a fast-ticket (whereas at the moment, it is possible to go to a ticket window and collect your tickets- but a bit silly as it defeats the object of no queues!)
 

gordonthemoron

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2006
Messages
6,589
Location
Milton Keynes
However somtimes (especially Nottingham for some reason) the Fastticket machine is broken. Or the ticket type can't be handled by the machine, GNER advances used to be labelled BUS for some reason.

Then you have to ask at the ticket window
 

afterburner

Member
Joined
31 Aug 2006
Messages
20
Location
Royston, Herts
Glad they've already sent me my tickets for my upcoming trip to York then!

Guess GNER are looking to save money wherever they can these days...
 

66526

Member
Joined
9 Nov 2005
Messages
332
What about people liek me with privs? What do they intend to do about that?
 
T

Tom

Guest
James, remember you can buy (pretty much) any type of ticket for any journey from any station. I believe you live in the Southampton area and SWT are keeping on quite a lot of ticket staff so you can purchase there!
 

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,433
Location
Yorkshire
If you are unable to collect your ticket, you then simply travel anyway. Quote the ref no to the guard. If no-one wants to issue the ticket that's up to them. But once you've been charged the TOC(s) have entered into a contract and cannot just terminate that contract at a whim.

if any guard refuses to accept a ref no, simply refuse to pay, get an unpaid fares notice and then refuse to pay that. Having spoken to people who have been unfairly issued unpaid fare notices, I now realise that if you refuse to pay for a good reason then that'll be the end of it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top