Extra service

[whole diary]

[willc]

Seconded by me, John!

The excellent chap on duty at Nailsea & Backwell in the morning is certainly 'customer centric' - but when the ticket machine's working, he doesn't need to sell tickets, and when it isn't, he can't??

Bizarre?   

I'm not sure you'd think the same if you saw the queues still waiting for the machine as the 0744 and 0811 pull in. (Often still up to 10 people waiting.) There's certainly the need for someone to sell tickets at those times.

What a carry-on. Charlbury has an early-turn booking clerk and a ticket machine and both seem to manage to function in parallel for the morning peak. Sometimes wish we had a machine at Moreton as well, when I'm stuck behind someone while Keith runs through his mastermind quiz for the infrequent traveller on what time they are coming back from London, what day, what Tube ticket they can have with which rail ticket, do they need a receipt, car park ticket....

[Chris from Nailsea]

Not really suitable for a last minute job though, as you have to; run up two flights of stairs, along the platform, up the footbridge, across, and down again, once you've bought your ticket. So I can understand why most passengers don't fancy that. 

Gosh, that's all much too energetic for me, John!

I tend to glance up at platform 2, and if I see a queue at that ticket machine, I stroll round under that tatty old road bridge, buy my ticket from the machine under platform 1, then walk back round to climb the steps up to platform 2!

However, I do take your point, it's not ideal - and if it's rained overnight, the chances are that both machines are too soggy to work, so we're all reduced to buying our tickets on board anyway! 

[devon_metro]

Just give him an avantix. Sorted.

[John R]

That's what he wants! (And so do we.)

[Chris from Nailsea]

Exactly, John!

I think we've established elsewhere that those ticket machines cost over ^20,000 each (and we have two of them at Nailsea) and the vacancy for a member of staff for Nailsea (to be shared with Weston, admittedly) was for a salary over ^10,000.

So why quibble about also providing him with an Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains) machine, just to 'complete the overall customer experience' at Nailsea - for example, when the ticket machines are waterlogged because some chump sited them out in the open??

C. 

[swlines]

Has he received appropriate training in order to be able to sell tickets? Has he been given specific training related to Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains)?? Ching ching...

[Btline]

Yet another use for the 180s.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

those machines are actually great and to be fair i can see many benifits to them and tho im sure the pros outweigh the cons it is irritating not being able to do the following.... purchace the devon rail rover from one.....purchase a ticket to okehampton on a sunday (i presume this is to prevent retards from buying on weekdays as its only a sunday service) and it would be really nice if the machine told you what the next train and connections were available wold print out on a ticket ..... now yes you should plan before you book but if your a pleb and buy a ticket at an unmannd station as your running late and dont really want to pay the stupidly high charge for parking at st davids then .... well you will laugh but in my haste to make the connection at st davids going to okehampton i bought a ticket at digby only to find out the next train was fifty mins away and you cant get a refund from a machine..... my mistake i know but an inocent one surly?