Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

[E10 Rifle]

Of course ticket office use is going to decline if you slash their numbers and staff the way the rail companies have in the past couple of decades. This is classic 'creating facts on the ground' stuff. I generally buy online now because I know that I'm risking a cuts-related interminable faff if I try to buy on the day, which I'd actually rather do if I'm doing something subject to cancellation or early finish like the cricket.

Anyway, victory to the RMT and Aslef, obvs

[Fussbudget]

Part of the whole silly nonsense is that that London page tells you to choose a train company. There are a number of stations I might go to. I neither know nor care which train company they might relate to.

Ah that's no good. The site for the rest of the country has a generic consultation form that you can fill in without having to pick a company but obviously London stations are not in the list when it asks about your nearest station.

Wimbledon is a South Western station, assuming that's your local one

[Ginger Yellow]

Of course ticket office use is going to decline if you slash their numbers and staff the way the rail companies have in the past couple of decades. This is classic 'creating facts on the ground' stuff.

Indeed. As are the staff cuts in general, which increase the number of people travelling without tickets, which loses revenue, which justifies more cuts...

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Mick Lynch has seemingly decided he can't be any more unpopular with his own union membership for fighting for his own personal crusades rather than the best deal for staff.

And so decides to become the poster boy for another Union's dispute (ticket offices are TSSA), rather than focus on his own one, stuck as it is at an impass of political ideology.

Allied to this, is that the proposal will increase on train sales for which strengthens the argument for having guards on trains, and also that the guards are on commission for ticket sales (typically 5%, ticket office staff have never had comission), with the guards grades coming under RMT representation.

The darling of left wing twitter.

Increasingly detached from rank and file membership.

[Fussbudget]

I didn't think on train sales were even a thing anymore?

For at least a couple of years our local stations have been festooned with posters saying buy a ticket before you board or you'll... I don't know, go to jail or something? and I've seen a few separate instances of Northern guards getting abuse for refusing to sell a ticket on board after they did away with it, as almost everyone on our route used to buy on the train. Have they rowed back on that?

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

After being bomb proof since they were introduced in the 1980s, the latest generation of ticket machines are incredibly easy to break into. Added to this, the vast reduction in cash sales, compared to the cash float in them, meant they were an absolute pain in the arse to keep topped up with cash, and then replace if anyone broke into them, for fairly meagre usage.

So operators decided to go for cashless machines at unmanned stations. However, they still requieed a provision for cash paying customers, so there is the option for a 'promise to pay' whereby you choose the ticket you want, but dont pay for it, instead a promise to pay is issued with the ticket details, and the passenger becomes a customer by taking it to the guard and paying in cash, for which a full ticket is issued.

It is from that the conductor receives the 5%. There are also stations with no ticket machines.

[Ginger Yellow]

So operators decided to go for cashless machines at unmanned stations. However, they still requieed a provision for cash paying customers, so there is the option for a 'promise to pay' whereby you choose the ticket you want, but dont pay for it, instead a promise to pay is issued with the ticket details, and the passenger becomes a customer by taking it to the guard and paying in cash, for which a full ticket is issued.

Oh, wow, I remember those from when I lived in suburbia 30 years ago - there was a machine that only dispensed them. Didn't realise they were still a thing.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

The commission process of course means that guards will never charge a ticketless customer from a manned station with fare evasion and go through the process, and will instead always charge them a full fare, as they get more commission.

in my time at Great Western, the two Cotswold routes (Worcester to Oxford, Cheltenham to Swindon) were both full of customers who would buy First class seasons on the Monday morning, a mix of weekly or monthly These weren't the sort of people who queued at ticket offices so would get on the train to buy it. There was then a for for all amongst the train guards, and revenue protection staff, who miraculously found themselves on those trains every Monday morning, to.sell these tickets as each of them.was a minimum £50 commission.

Remarkably, there was less of a clamour to be chasing the £2 fares late on a Friday evening, both from a hassle and financial return basis.

[ad hoc]

The station in the village where my mum lives used to have one, but it;s gone now. However when I got the train from there the other day, the touch screen on the ticket machine wasn;t working so I couldnt get a ticket. (There are never any ticket collectors on these trains any more, but you need one when you get out at Cambridge. There were two guys there issuing tickets to people who couldn't buy one (I'm not convinced that at the end of the day this is a money saving way of doing things)

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Oh, wow, I remember those from when I lived in suburbia 30 years ago - there was a machine that only dispensed them. Didn't realise they were still a thing.

A very similar process.

They were PERTIS machines (permit to travel issuing system) for which you could put in any amount to show that an attempt had been made to buy a ticket, and therefore prevent being charged with a penalty fare. Minimum payment was 5p.

The machines were hilarious in that they were car park pay and display machines. The tickets were identical.

From experience, the only place I've seen them in the last 20 years is on the Harwich branch. They used to be at all stations but when I did it last Month, Mistley seemed to be the last preserve of one. I took a picture. I'll try and post it.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

The station in the village where my mum lives used to have one, but it;s gone now. However when I got the train from there the other day, the touch screen on the ticket machine wasn;t working so I couldnt get a ticket. (There are never any ticket collectors on these trains any more, but you need one when you get out at Cambridge. There were two guys there issuing tickets to people who couldn't buy one (I'm not convinced that at the end of the day this is a money saving way of doing things)

The operators have worked this out. In essence, having barriers at the major destinations will mean a high percentage of customers will always pass through a barrier and will need to buy a ticket.

This, coupled with revenue protection hit squads, is more economic than ticket offices at local stations and guards checking tickets on all trains

[DCI Harry Batt]

How do you measure Lynch's popularity among RMT members?

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Mistley, the preserve of the modern day Edmondson.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

How do you measure Lynch's popularity among RMT members?

How much he's called a cunt in mess rooms by subs paying RMT members.

But on the other hand, there are loads of love in tweets for Mick from Hoxton brand consultants, so I'm absolutely betwixt and between.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Lol.

[E10 Rifle]

Presumably Mick Lynch will lose the next gen sec election, to someone more in touch with the rank and file? Who's the likeliest challenger?

And they'll lose the next strike ballot I guess?

[diggedy derek]

Genuinely considering a pilgrimage to one of the few surviving Permit To Travel machines. The stories those things could tell.

[Sam]

Impossible to say this far out. Anything more than a few weeks out could be affected by strikes (also true of airports of course, though the disruption would probably be less for an internal flight).

Yeah, that's what I feared. Thetrainline.com says to check back after 8 July, which is surely bollocks. But I'll have another look then. Suspect I'm going to be attending online again.

[George C.]

Impossible to say this far out. Anything more than a few weeks out could be affected by strikes (also true of airports of course, though the disruption would probably be less for an internal flight).

Train unions, as per any trade union, have to give Two weeks notice of any strikes...

[Ginger Yellow]

Sure, which is considerably less time than it is until Sam will be travelling

[Levin]

Is thetrainline still owned by virgin and stagecoach?

[Felicity, I guess so]

Presumably Mick Lynch will lose the next gen sec election, to someone more in touch with the rank and file? Who's the likeliest challenger?

And they'll lose the next strike ballot I guess?

And you'll change username to Hoxton Brand Consultant

[Sam]

Sure, which is considerably less time than it is until Sam will be travelling

Indeed. And today an email landed reminding* us that tomorrow is the last day for in-person bookings. However I've spent some time looking at trains and noticed that the actual cheapest tickets – unlike what was generally the case when I lived there – appear to be unreserved off-peak returns allowing travel on any off-peak service. And those include one train in each direction between Bristol Temple Meads and Edinburgh Waverley. If that gets cancelled then the prospect of sitting on a rail-replacement coach from Bristol to Edinburgh (or vice versa) isn't an appealing one, but it's more appealing than sitting on three rail-replacement coaches from Bristol to Birmingham to Manchester to Glasgow. At least there'd be no tight connections to miss (getting from my parents' village to Bristol and back might be a pain in the arse if GWR aren't running, but I'm hoping we can get a lift off them or my brother to Temple Meads if that happens), and from what I can see, services between Edinburgh and Glasgow don't seem to be affected by the strikes, as the strikes are mostly an England and Wales problem – does that sound right?

*in my case informing, because I hadn't looked at the conference site in that much detail.

[Sam]

Actually, am I even right to assume there will be rail-replacement buses? Or would we have to hot foot it into Bristol city centre and buy ourselves a coach ticket? That actually would be a pain, although from the look of things on this website the train we'd be aiming to catch (the 10:35 from Temple Meads to Edinburgh Waverley) has run between the stations we need it to run between during this week's strikes (well, yesterday and today) even while the first leg (Penzance to Plymouth) has been cancelled. Think we're going to cross our fingers and get it booked tonight.

[JoeysToe]

Indeed. And today an email landed reminding* us that tomorrow is the last day for in-person bookings. However I've spent some time looking at trains and noticed that the actual cheapest tickets – unlike what was generally the case when I lived there – appear to be unreserved off-peak returns allowing travel on any off-peak service. And those include one train in each direction between Bristol Temple Meads and Edinburgh Waverley. If that gets cancelled then the prospect of sitting on a rail-replacement coach from Bristol to Edinburgh (or vice versa) isn't an appealing one, but it's more appealing than sitting on three rail-replacement coaches from Bristol to Birmingham to Manchester to Glasgow. At least there'd be no tight connections to miss (getting from my parents' village to Bristol and back might be a pain in the arse if GWR aren't running, but I'm hoping we can get a lift off them or my brother to Temple Meads if that happens), and from what I can see, services between Edinburgh and Glasgow don't seem to be affected by the strikes, as the strikes are mostly an England and Wales problem – does that sound right?

*in my case informing, because I hadn't looked at the conference site in that much detail.

There's a strong likelihood that your journey would be okay anyway based on the services running during previous RMT strikes. Although you'd need to get started early as they all finish late afternoon. If ASLEF call another strike that could mean there'd be no trains at all on at least part of the route. But there's very rarely no service at all for more than a day as they tend to stagger the strike days to cause maximum disruption. The days before or after a strike will have trains from Bristol to Edinburgh.

Either way, you are not going to get a rail replacement bus replicating your chosen train. In fact there likely won't be any rail replacement buses at all on a strike day. Bedford to Bletchley is bustituted every day at the moment as the train maintenance company went bust. Even this line will have no replacement bus service on strike days, which makes no sense to me at all.