Does a Day Ranger look like a season ticket?

[ChrisMcFall]

Using my WMDR on an XC service the other week, the guard asked me "do you want to renew that? i can do it from here, you on weekly or monthly?"

Just wondering..I've never seen a season ticket myself.

 

[Daniel]

Depends what type of season it is, I suppose. Most of the ones I handle are combined travel/gold cards, they look completley different. But a 7 day season etc. could be seen to look similar to a rover I suppose.

I just find the fact he offered to do that funny, maybe looking for commission? lol..

 

[Mojo]

It would appear to depend on the TOC/ticket office they're being issued at. When I bought Monthly season tickets for 8 months they were always printed on Common Ticket Stock (orange) but now I understand some offices use different stock for Monthly seasons (but continue to use orange for Weekly tickets.

 

[ashworth]

Slight change of subject but it might be connected.

How closely did he look at your ticket?
The last few summers I have spent a week travelling around the North West with a very good value 7 Day NW Rover Ticket. I have always found the staff on all trains very friendly towards me when they have seen that I have one of these tickets. However, as soon as they see the type of ticket I am using and the large expiry date printed in the centre, they just quickly say that's OK without looking any further.
The print saying which area rover it is is very small and I can rarely remember anyone looking closely enough at my ticket to see it. How do they know that my NW Rover is not a NE Rover or indeed an All Line Rover? I would never try to get away with straying out of the NW area (indeed I have often paid access fares to visit places just over the boundary) but I do wonder if they really do look.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

well won't be the first time they just look at the date..

..In the days when Bath had human barriers, I usually went between bath and Bristol on the bus + Train day ranger ticket, and to switch platforms you go past these human barriers and they look at the date and take the ticket away (thinking its an outward ticket) and had to get my ticket back!

At BTM, I have on purposely gone out the side gates (which are manned) and showed them an out of date ticket, once which was from Trowbridge - Westbury and I got through, with the actual valid ticket (an in-date FOSS) behind it, the main idea was to see if they actually do read it or not.


Cheers,

James.

 

[TEW]

I always find staff to be very slack with rovers. They usually take one look, say OK and walk on. Its usually only the Revenue Staff that take a proper look at them.

 

[ChrisMcFall]

Yeah..I've found that people dont really look closely at them. I know from experience going to Belper on a West mids ticket. (dont ask!)


I've had one guard actually take the ranger from me and stamp it, was an XC one on a Manchester service. (Malcolm or something I think..he made some funny announcements!)

 

[yorkie]

...How do they know that my NW Rover is not a NE Rover or indeed an All Line Rover?...

Well, they have a few options
1) Not look into it in detail and accept it
2) Look at every detail, think "is it valid or not?" and try to guess - with the risk of getting it wrong
3) Look it up in the manual

Very few guards have memorised the boundaries of all the applicable rovers/rangers and new ones are being introduced, and boundaries changing, all the time.

Equally when using a point-to-point ticket, guards have to decide whether to say they don't think a route is valid, and risk being wrong, or to look it up in the Routeing Guide.

Guards don't like it when proven wrong[1] so if in doubt they usually don't query it rather than risk looking foolish.

Also, a lot of guards are enthusiast-friendly and they see you're on a rover, therefore likely to be an enthusiast. It's like that with PRIV but more so - any glimpse of a PRIV and they tend to accept anything.

[1] A guard who used to do (and maybe still does?) the Chiltern bubble car once got the conditions of a FAM railcard wrong and on a separate occasion tried to say you can't break journey on a CDR, he got so annoyed when proven wrong that he stopped checking tickets and hid in the guards area (slamming the door behind him) for the rest of the journey! He was anti-enthusiast and was annoyed because we were taking photos of the bubble car at Aylesbury. People like him are out there but they are very much a minority.

 

[Mintona]

Well, they have a few options
1) Not look into it in detail and accept it
2) Look at every detail, think "is it valid or not?" and try to guess - with the risk of getting it wrong
3) Look it up in the manual

Very few guards have memorised the boundaries of all the applicable rovers/rangers and new ones are being introduced, and boundaries changing, all the time.

Equally when using a point-to-point ticket, guards have to decide whether to say they don't think a route is valid, and risk being wrong, or to look it up in the Routeing Guide.

Guards don't like it when proven wrong[1] so if in doubt they usually don't query it rather than risk looking foolish.

Also, a lot of guards are enthusiast-friendly and they see you're on a rover, therefore likely to be an enthusiast. It's like that with PRIV but more so - any glimpse of a PRIV and they tend to accept anything.

[1] A guard who used to do (and maybe still does?) the Chiltern bubble car once got the conditions of a FAM railcard wrong and on a separate occasion tried to say you can't break journey on a CDR, he got so annoyed when proven wrong that he stopped checking tickets and hid in the guards area (slamming the door behind him) for the rest of the journey! He was anti-enthusiast and was annoyed because we were taking photos of the bubble car at Aylesbury. People like him are out there but they are very much a minority.

Not just guards, no one likes being proven wrong

 

[MCR247]

Not just guards, no one likes being proven wrong

Very Very True....

Especially me.......

 

[devon_metro]

I think most guards actually like rovers, as they don't have to bother stamping them. And of course the desperate ones love it, especially when they find somebody in Plymouth on a FOSS or something.

 

[mrcheek]

I think most guards figure its not worth checking rovers. Most people who use them are railway lovers, who surely wouldnt dream of cheating the TOCs out of revenue, or of straying beyond the boundary!
Plus, the know that the ticket holder probably knows more than they do about the validity, and dont want to get involved in an argument with some anorak.

If you have an ALR on the other hand, they may check it more carefully....

 

[Sleepy]

I think most guards figure its not worth checking rovers. Most people who use them are railway lovers, who surely wouldnt dream of cheating the TOCs out of revenue, or of straying beyond the boundary!
Plus, the know that the ticket holder probably knows more than they do about the validity, and dont want to get involved in an argument with some anorak.

If you have an ALR on the other hand, they may check it more carefully....

Why is that ? ALR is easy surely, in date or not !

 

[devon_metro]

If its fake, ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Some also forget to check box dates as well, I write the date in but I won't show them unless they ask.

Usually because I haven't showed them the day boxes and they ask for it, most have a grin on their face thinking I haven't done it, until I show them it, they aren't too happy


I agree about guards prefering to be right all the time, Once I was on a FOSW (in the wessex days, and when it was 24/7 valid) I got one one at Par at 6am or so, and the guard said it wasn't valid until 9am, I argued it is valid round the clock so he said he will ask control and see if I'm right, off he went to the back cab, never saw him again!!

 

[devon_metro]

Apart from the fact that the FOSW is only valid after 0900... (except for individual restrictions)

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Liam, note I mention this was back in the day before the 0900 restriction (Yes it was before, I know because I have read it before I done the FOSW)

 

[mrcheek]

Why is that ? ALR is easy surely, in date or not !

Apparently a couple of years back some ticket machines were stolen, and they used them to print off scores of ALRs! So when I did my 2 week ALR in 2007, the guy checking tickets would often make a note of the number of my ticket so he could ring up and check it was a genuine one!

 

[thefab444]

When I did my ALR back in April 2007, hardly any of the staff more than glanced at it, one or two were more interested and asked where we were off to etc. One seemed quite fascinated by the South West Trains wallet!

 

[metrocammel]

When I did my ALR back in April 2007, hardly any of the staff more than glanced at it, one or two were more interested and asked where we were off to etc. One seemed quite fascinated by the South West Trains wallet!

When I did an ALR in May 2008, the only thing any one commented on was the fact it was issued on the old-fashioned style purple rover ticket stock. The man on the Island Line train though was quite withered with the idea of an 'All Line Rover', and had clearly never seen one before!

The only 'problem' I had was at Aberdeen, as I've mentioned previously, where they claimed because it didn't activate the barriers, it wasn't valid.

Another curiosity was on EMT. I showed my (purple) rover to the gripper, and she just looked at it, but she actually gripped my friends' rovers, which were TRIBUTE issued orange type.

In reference to the OP, non-London season tickets do look very much like rangers/ rovers. Officially, TOs should sell monthly + seasons on a plasticized blue ticket stock, or very rarely, (as the case at Ipswich station) grey monthly ticket stock.

So, with a quick glance, a weekly season will look almost identical to a rover / ranger. The only noticeable differences being the lack of 'SEASON' on the bottom right, and of course, the words 'available' rather than from/to.

 

[yorkie]

The only 'problem' I had was at Aberdeen, as I've mentioned previously, where they claimed because it didn't activate the barriers, it wasn't valid.

Aberdeen are famous for shoddy customer service, for example the way the blind person travelling to Edinburgh was treated which made the papers. Some of them are a disgrace, and as you may recall I once let that shouty woman know just what I thought of her customer service skills when she shouted rudely at a so-called "customer". I also remembering explaining to someone from another country how most people in the UK don't act like that but we do have a small minority of them who give a bad impression.

I was quite pleased that on the last day they were unable to treat NXEC's passengers like scum and had to leave NXEC's ticket checking to NXEC, due to a power cut which rendered the barriers (which were used to harass NXEC's customers) had to be left open. The shouty woman looked very disappointed and rather lost without them and was rather subdued. I wonder if she still works there... I'd sack her if I had the chance.