Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Some good news today ;-)

Plans to close rail ticket offices in England scrapped

I signed the petition against the closing of these offices knowing several rail travelers down here that are not happy with IT or those machines.

Full story.

I know we have a TM member whose job was under threat if they closed, so hopefully he has had a reprieve.

I noticed one of the justifications for the closures:

"Train companies said that only 12% of tickets were now bought at station kiosks."

A quick Google brought up this:

How many rail tickets are sold each year UK?
In the past year there were 1.4 billion separate rail journeys, so 168 million tickets were bought in ticket offices.12 Jul 2023

That is not an insignificant proportion, the government are right to step in, IMHO.

I didn't think it was possible to do a U turn on a train track. Classic Tory.........

They have already so there is precedent with cancellation of HS2, so nothing new in a Uey...

He goes everywhere in a chopper or jet so how would he know

This is a good move for humanities sake, we need to take care of people not a balance sheet

p.s. Catching a train is the very last resort for me and I haven't been on one for around twenty years now but it's vital for lots of folks with no alternative down here.

Perhaps it was all part of a subtle plan to redeploy the ticket sellers as ticket inspectors to generate extra revenue in fines for those travelling without a ticket.

Surely not???

Common sense for once. Maybe an election is coming.

So did I as an ex-railway worker. Bring back BR.

I signed a similar petition against Sadiq Khan's plan to scrap Travelcard tickets that give a reduced price for passengers travelling into London out of peak hours. It seemed illogical to me that the person claiming to want to reduce the number of vehicles in London would increase train fares thereby encouraging people to drive. I'll be honest, I nearly didn't bother with the petition because I thought there was no way that Khan would back down, I was shocked to hear that he has done just that. Whatever next? Politician's listening to the electorate.
Mind you, I wouldn't have thought there's much chance of him getting re-elected.

Its right that we should adopt a Victorian approach to ticket sales on what is a Victorian mode of transport.

Whilst no-one likes change, buying a ticket at the station wasn't the best solution, especially when around here you can buy them on the train...just don't expect a cheaper advance ticket deal.

We do need to move on...during Covid Preston shopping centre car park moved away from parking tokens (handled by everyone) to number plate recognition on entry and no cash payment but debit or credit card touch payment system....reducing dramatically any surface contacts. A bit of a pain if you don't have a debit./credit card as you cant park, but a massive improvement in public health
awareness/precautions, for when the next pandemic strikes.