Great Western Coffee Shop

Quote from Christian Wolmar RAIL article (link below) :
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/articles/rail/580.shtml

I remember  reading that article with interest, he's picked up all the bad points of barriers without pointing out the good, like the fact that they control who goes onto the platforms i.e. its a way of keeping drunks of trains and stations and tramps, theres the obvious reduction in fare evasion, they make it easy for family to meet people off trains because everybody has to come out of one exit, yes some stations aren't perfect such as Bath where there are not enough gates for peak times but they are a necessary evil in this day and age.

The big gates mentioned are there for the use of vehicles within the station (those little buggys for passenger assistance and taking bins away)

They will be happy to know that the barrier line is being extended at Paddington then?

I remember  reading that article with interest, he's picked up all the bad points of barriers without pointing out the good, like the fact that they control who goes onto the platforms i.e. its a way of keeping drunks of trains and stations and tramps, theres the obvious reduction in fare evasion, they make it easy for family to meet people off trains because everybody has to come out of one exit, yes some stations aren't perfect such as Bath where there are not enough gates for peak times but they are a necessary evil in this day and age.
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It's all well and good if they are manned for all the times that trains are running! At Exeter St Davids the barriers are only manned til sometime between 1800 and 1900, and the manual barrier at Exeter Central only til 1300, and obviously the worst time in my experience for drunks, fare dodgers etc is in the evenings(bearing in mind we work trains til after midnight) In a way I think they are just a hassle for honest fare paying passengers, and they actually don't prevent the people they are meant to, from entering the stations, or boarding the trains.(This applies to my experiences at Exeter, as I know barriers at other stations are manned for longer) To be fair to the barrier staff at Exeter, they do a good job while they are there, and we now get very few passengers boarding without tickets, unless they have come off a tight connecting service.

Barriers were unstaffed at 1620 yesterday at Plymouth

Poor show really.

Plymouth is a joke, a certain SDM at plymouth who used to be Devon station manager under Wessex has instructed staff to open up all the gates when it's busy!! surely defeating the object of the gates??

The problem with the barriers is the complete jobsworthiness of the knobs on them

I have arrive at Slough with ticket in mouth and with bike at a run because the train is coming in - later than normal because of flat - I was trying to get the lights off etc but the guy refused to take ticket and open big gate until ticket was put through the reader and all lights were off - I missed my train and got home 2 hours after I should have done

Of an evening - before I theyt removed the gates at the top of the PAD steps, I used to quite often go through to work out if my train was on the barriered platforms, if it wasnt I came out again but try getting the gat staff to let yo back through EVEN WITH A TICKET just because your train isnt there

I understand why but as an honest fare paying passenger I resent being treated like a criminal because of a minority

I'm not usually one for dis-ing my fellow staff at FGW but some of the gateline staff in the London area are a little on the miserable side, however, it is a thankless job where you get PLENTY of abuse from passengers.

Paddington was short on gateline staff, for which agency staff got brought in to cover.

However when the new gateline gets brought in, it should be proper FGW Staff manning them.

FGW did a recruitment for barrier line staff for which the vacancy had to close early due to an overwhelming response of applicants.

It wasnt even busy at 1620!!

Plymouth gates just seem to be always open, they might aswell put them somwhere where they would be appreciated, like Newton Abbot!!

Yer, They were in use when I arrived at Plymouth.

Newton Abbot should get some, same at Taunton/Tiverton IMO as all major high speed stops should really have barriers!

Problem with Newton Abbot is the low fence that coul easily be climbed over.

Well Truro is far more exposed but they're putting barriers in there! (at last!!)

I heard that rumour I'm glad you confirmed it, and is it true Penzance are getting barriers aswell.

And the barriers at Plymouth are awful. They just open them for every arrival ??? DEFEATS TTHE OBJECT. And if you're going back at about 4/5 they are open then aswell.

It's the latest rumour amongst the management that Penzance and Truro will be gated, followed by St Austell.

Plymouth's gates would be more useful at Coombe Junction!!

One morning last week the 08:15 ex Gunnislake arrived same time as the unit that comes down from Bristol and as the queue at the gates started building up they decided to open them.. Thats intelligent, especially as both these trains are busy and the mainline one was last stop Ivybridge and you can guarantee some (if not all) tickets from there wouldnt have been done. Defeating the object somewhat.

Gates can of course be justified, but CW's point still stands I think - their proliferation has every so slightly erroded the passenger experience.  This might not neccessarily be a problem but because it happend at the same time that trains get more croweded, that a few minutes slack is added here and there to the timetable and that fares continue to rise above inflation, that ticket machines fail to work it only contributes to passenger disgruntlement. 

I fairly often travel between Bath and London.  I started doing this 7 years ago when you could turn up at Bath at the last minute and buy our ticket (open return) on the train).  Now I have to arrive at the station 5 minutes earlier to buy a tciket/  Using the barriers adds another 1 minute at Paddington and Bath in Both directions.  The Up train (0743) takes 9 minutes longer than it used to and the Down train takes 2 minutes longer.  The door to door return journy now takes 5+1+1+1+1+9+2 = 20 minutes longer than it used to.  Plus the fact that my fare is now ^133 rather than ~^88 and that I can no longer get a table to work at and that I can no longer buy a cup of tea and a breakfast baguette from the buffet and I would say that my experience as a passsenger has deteriourated.  Ticket barriers are only part of the story but they are a contributory factor.

FGW have every right to install barriers and check tickets but they need to realise that they are in danger of damaging teh customer experience to such an extent that people will stop travelling if they are able.  I have certainly changed my travel patterns and only travel to london about 20 to 30% as often as I used to.

Call me cynical but I would argue that ticket barriers are being installed for one or more of the follwoing reasons:

1) To meet arbitary DfT targets
2) Because staff Morale is so low that FGW do not trust their on-train staff to do propper checks.
3) Because trains are too crowded for proper on-train checks. 

No way to gates at Newton Abbot!  It's bad enough, as a passenger, trying to get through the gates at St. David's in the morning - people just get confused and then the staff have to get involved, which just blocks the (narrow) entrance way up.  It's not the staff, it's the dummies who don't have their tickets ready or who just don't understand what they have to do or (and this really annoys me), decide that now THEY have got through the barriers they are going to just stop to put their ticket away or sort their bags out.

From a regular commuters perspective, I think they are nothing but a pain.  If fares were reduced in cost because they had cut down on the amount of people riding the trains without paying, then I would welcome them.

It is sadly not only barriers that are damaging the Customer experience.

After being very pro rail all my life I regretfully now fly from Cornwall to London for my regular trips. I chose rail travel because I enjoyed it.

The wonderful Mk 3 carriages that we previously had are now no longer suitable for long distances, they are commuter shuttle stock. Air line seating, virtually no tables, claustrophobic layout, appalling high back seats [RAIB insistence] that totally restrict the view and wreck the travel experience.
If I have to sit in an airline seat it is better for one hour on a plane rather than 4.5 hours on the train. Interestingly the seating on a Dash aircraft is not so high back.

If the RAIB consider the risk of flying objects in rail travel to be so high as to require these appalling seats then I do not understand how passengers and staff are allowed to stand on a moving train. Surely the risk of them flying around and injuring themselves and others must be greater. The accident record of the previous layout in the Mk 3s was exemplary and a pleasure to travel in.

Installing new power car new engines is a good reliability improvement but the rest of the ^200 million investment that First keeps going on about does not seem much an improvement to me.

Sorry First but you are losing me. I originally thought that the long distance stock upgrades were going to be different and suitable for long journeys.

I agree with your comments Farwest - I am not a fan of the new style carriages - I am lucky that my journey is only 20 mins and they are okay for that, but I wouldn't fancy anything longer.  They are very restricting in terms of view and agree they are claustrophobic.  I don't always choose seats with tables, but it's nice to have the choice and I find I am more likely to strike up a conversation with someone across a table than next to me (which helps the journeys go a bit quicker....).

There is always the matter of principal though, I think that FGW has a duty to ensure that decent fare paying passengers such as yourself aren't subsidising the people who have no intention of paying, which is why barriers are such a good idea, yes they are a bit of a pain in the backside when you've got the kids with you and lots of luggage but they have reduced the amount of freeloaders travelling on the network that you were paying for!!

Totally agree with everything you said there Vacman especially about fare paying passengers paying for those who don't. The question is though will we ever see either a reduction in fares or when fares increase not such a large increase because of the extra revenue gained through the use of barriers? Or will it just go to the DaFT and shareholders?

I agree that anything that prevents people riding for free can only do the whole service good - but to the daily user it just appears as something designed to frustrate - if there was some feedback on what the extra money was used for (better station facilities? extra staff to assist with customer enquiries?) or if the fares were capped or reduced (as we are no longer subsiding as many free loaders) then the benefits of barriers might be more obvious to joe public.

I think we all know where the extra money's going, paying the DFT!

Yeah - into the big black hole....you know, I'd even prefer to see the extra money go to the dudes on the barriers as a bonus as it must be a thankless task (and I work in IT so I know what a thankless job is like).

barriers at NA would be a great idea, as this is one of the worsrt areas for fare evasion on my patch, i.e. Newton Abbot to Teignmouth/Torre. " It's only one f****ng stop mate! Anyway, what you gonna do about it, me and me 8 cans of special brew will be off in 5 minutes!" Not to mention the 200 odd school children who travel between Torre and Newton Abbot every day, the vast majority of which, without paying.

P.S. It's funny how the always have money for booze, but never have ^2.50 for a ticket!(not the kids!)

Oh yes! And whenever you get a scouser it's always "well what it was mate, errrr I had a ticket but I just ate it", no offence to any honets scousers on this forum! ;)

On the Cotswold Line I have often found my customer experience damaged of a Friday evening, when, having paid a hefty sum for a peak day return to Oxford (I especially enjoyed the 13 per cent increase three years ago) I was surrounded by people heading from London for a weekend in Charlbury and Kingham, in particular, who were travelling without tickets. Anyone who knows the area will appreciate that these are, in general, not among the poorest communities hereabouts.

They usually took a chance that it would take the guard so long to get through a ticket check on a full 125, as well as station work at Reading and Oxford, that they would be off before he reached them and would only have to pay for a cheap day single on Sunday to get back to the smoke, rather than shelling out for a peak return fare. If a check was carried out west of Oxford, it was always noticeable just how many Savers from London would be sold in each standard class coach, and we're not talking ones and twos.

As soon as the barriers were introduced at Paddington, this phenomenon declined markedly, though you can always tell if a train has left from ones of the non-gated platforms, as the numbers go up again straight away.

I appreciate there are places where squeezing in barriers must be pretty difficult - Exeter St Davids being a case in point - but if all the revenue owed is actually collected, then maybe future fare increases for the honest among us won't be quite as high as in recent times.

I don't mind the extra wait to get through the barriers IF I can see that the extra money is put to good use into the rail service (and it doesn't even have to be my local rail service - just the railways in general).  If the extra money attained from barriers just goes into the black hole and gets spent on more roads instead and all I get is pushed, squeezed and delayed then I really don't care who is paying and who isn't, I am just more inclined to see it as a backward step and get fed up and buy a second car.

The extra money does get spent on the service though, don't forget the initial outlay in putting barriers in in the first place which is altogether about ^1m per station after staff recruitment and everything else! if barriers hadn't been put in then we may not have seen refurbed units etc, it's easy to forget just how expensive running a railway is!

I guess that's cool then!  Oh, and I don't envy any of the train staff who have to deal with those trains coming into Newton Abbot that carry the hordes of school children - they are a mob unto themselves.  I tried to get off one of those trains once and was literally pushed back into the train by the tide of teenagers....

Actually, I am pretty shocked to hear that many of them don't have tickets - not sure how any self respecting parent could send their children on trains without ensuring they have a ticket....but I guess that's the point, many of the parents are not self respecting!

Sounds like we do the same commute.

I'm all for ticket barriers if they catch the cheats trying to wangle their way out of a fare when everyone else has paid.

I do get highly annoyed though when one of the two exit gates at St Davids is blocked by an "assistant". This morning the train 0803 XC from NA was one of the busiest I have seen it and at St Davids one exit gate was blocked by an assistant - the queue was to the stairs. It would be fine if they stood so that people could get past. It can be done!

Have you seen some of the scum that lives in Torbay!!!

They need gates at Worcester's stations.

On my peak trains in and out of Worcester, the guards (Central Trains/London Midland) NEVER (well hardly ever) check tickets as the train is so crowded.

They also think that everyone has a train pass (many do- lots of school children).

However, the locals have cottoned onto this, and fare evaders come on.

Lots of "yobs" (if I allowed to use this term) hide in the toilets and smoke - some some in the carriages! none have tickets.

If the guard comes, they just buy standard cheap tickets (the guard does not know where they got on).

Going back to the children- many just carry a pass photo-card and a pass from years ago - if they check, the guards just see a wallet, and move on.

So barriers are needed- get yobs off our trains!

Both of Worcesters stations are managed by London Midland so no danger of any gates there! LM are subsidised so they don't care about revenue.

True- I forgot that LM run them!

But they are needed!

FGW must read these posts went through Plymouth barriers today a couple of times, even when peak hour trains came in the Barriers were in USE.

Indeed it does!  Yes, the 0803 XC was very busy this morning and I ended up standing - figured it was easier than trying to find a seat.  It especially annoys me that there is a much larger FGW HST that goes just after and then stops at every station and probably doesn't even get 25% full....

I am considering giving up on the 0803 and going in a bit earlier and then coming home on the 1612 or the 1619 everyday instead, as they are generally more on time than the 1733.

I also get the impression that subsidised franchises are less concerned about revenue but I don't understand why.  If I dodge a ^10 fare on LM, their shareholders loose ^10.  If I dodge the same fare on FGW, their shareholders loose ^10.  If I was a shareholder why wouldn't I be equally concerned about both loses?  I suspect that FGW is more worried about revenue than LM and Wesex (was) simply because their fares are usually higher

With a subsidised franchise then the company gets massive handouts from the government to run the service so they make profits no matter what, with a premium franchise then the only source of income is from the fare box and possibly buffet sales. It is interesting that Arriva Trains Wales is subsidised but they have also installed ticket gates at loads of stations.

A lost fare due to ticketless travel will come straight off the train company's bottom line, regardless of the subsidy/premium situation. The only exceptions are those cases where revenue risk is shared or transferred to the sponsoring authority. This happens, I believe, in certain PTE areas. Even then, there is usually an incentive regime to encourage the operator to collect the fares.

I would imagine that there is a strong financial case for gateline installation, although I agree that they need to sort out the ticket formats and do a bit more customer education to smoothen the operation.

We are also told that gates are positive for passenger security. I'm not sure about this - the trouble seems to happen late evenings when gatelines are not operating. Perhaps the customer-facing rail staff on the forum could give a view on this?

I agree there, gatelines are usually not in operation in the evening, Plymouth and Exeter are SUPPOSED to be manned until 2100 each evening, don't think i've seen them on after about 1800!

1619 left on time today. Arrived into exeter with 4 minutes to spare before departure. In the morning before the 0803, your options are the 0730 to London (The Golden Hind) which will probably have a few spare seats as it is an HST.

A couple of article links for your interest.
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=231771&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231774&contentPK=19577477&folderPk=108867&pNodeId=231888

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=231771&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231774&contentPK=19635052&folderPk=108867&pNodeId=231888

See my earlier post in this this thread

Funny - I got the 1619 yesterday and was pleased it was all on time.  Yes, the 7:30 looks like the way forward (after I had to stand again going in this morning) I just need to start waking up a bit earlier!