PRIV tickets on DOO services with no ticket office at origin & destination?

[yorkie]

I've seen what they've wrote and my response is to dissmiss their nonsesne of "not having an account" becasue when they get caught by an RPO that excuse doesn't work. You're a rail employee, you know the T&C's for using your PRIV and you KNOW there is a way to get tickets for DO services and unmanned stations online, i bet they have a smart phone right?.....Caught, diciplined and PRIV passes removed for 5 years. Good Luck.

This is not correct.

See the post below for the correct position (which applies to any passenger on the railway, including railway staff travelling for leisure):

Ultimately if there are no facilities to purchase the ticket the passenger needs then they're entitled to travel without first purchasing until they get to a place where a ticket can be purchased (and they aren't obliged to miss a connection to do so). ....

Spot on.

 

[pitdiver]

Just to add my bit. I'm retired Safeguarded TfL so can confirm we can't get an account with RSTL either. My nearest stn is Shirebrook, on the Robin Hood line. Unstaffed. So are most of the stations on the line. The only ones with a Booking Office are Worksop and Mansfield. When I visited Worksop Booking Office a few months ago they commented that they had never seen a TfL issued PTAC. Whereas Fort William had seen quite a few .

 

[Horizon22]

As others have said, there is no obligation to use the website. Have you ever tried using the RSTL website on a smartphone, in a hurry and outside? It's not easy. There might also be up to two hours of waiting for the TOD to be ready to print. That is not reasonable, and I doubt it's something you'd even consider doing yourself in your part of the world.

I've found the TOD is ready in a matter of minutes; I've done it on the walk to a station before! I will agree the UI is a bit dated though.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2025 ==

Just to add my bit. I'm retired Safeguarded TfL so can confirm we can't get an account with RSTL either. My nearest stn is Shirebrook, on the Robin Hood line. Unstaffed. So are most of the stations on the line. The only ones with a Booking Office are Worksop and Mansfield. When I visited Worksop Booking Office a few months ago they commented that they had never seen a TfL issued PTAC. Whereas Fort William had seen quite a few .

No suprirse a major tourist destination has had one, as well as one on the rather expensive Sleeper route for which the discount could be quite significant. It's one staff and enthusiats (which may be one and the same!) will often look to use. Worksop is quite far away from anywhere regularly dealing with TFL/London tickets (and outside even the Network Railcard area) so not much of a surprise.

Yes. For example there doesn't appear to be even one single London Overground location... except for the Liberty line of course...

Now I don't condone anyone using a Rail Staff Leisure Card to get free travel when it explicitly doesn't provide free travel on London Overground. But if they're going to make it this painful to actually pay correctly by refusing to offer a single location to get the discount added, and most stations having no or very limited staffed ticket sales hours, then I can almost see why some people go down the route of flashing the priv and fare evading...

The most recent guide (page 40) also has a little bit more to this (i.e all MTR/Elizabeth line managed stations in the central section) & Ilford and Romford and some limited Sunday availability but still 1000-1500 which is quite restrictive.

On an aside the fact that the document is now 46 pages long shows the complexity and nuance involved.

 

[Haywain]

I've found the TOD is ready in a matter of minutes;

Indeed. The idea of a two hour wait for a ToD to be available for collection is very much a thing of the past, and even when it was a thing it only applied to those retailers who chose to batch their bookings for sending to LSM (or it's predecessor, if there was one).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2025 ==

I will agree the UI is a bit dated though.

It's horrible on a desktop, but particularly user unfriendly on a mobile.

 

[Horizon22]

It's horrible on a desktop, but particularly user unfriendly on a mobile.

Agreed. I've got used to the terrible interface and the amount of clicks and the screen being full of random white space, but it's basically been slapped together to provide some - and I would say welcomed by many - staff online facility and you can tell and certainly isn't good for anyone not particularly tech-savvy. Ticket offices are obviously much better when time and facilities permit

 

[LowLevel]

Last time it happened to me I needed to board at Cricklewood to catch a Eurostar before the booking office opened. It took quite some persuading to get the bloke staffing the gates to let me in, on the basis that I'd need to pay on arrival at St Pancras. Can't imagine it's gotten any better.

 

[lawried123]

Last time it happened to me I needed to board at Cricklewood to catch a Eurostar before the booking office opened. It took quite some persuading to get the bloke staffing the gates to let me in, on the basis that I'd need to pay on arrival at St Pancras. Can't imagine it's gotten any better.

I am ex TFL so can't use the online system. I don't usually have too much difficulty except that it's often difficult to get through the barrier when the ticket office is closed and takes a lot to persuade the person to let me through. Some SWT guards who can't issue tickets give me a signed slip to get through the barriers at Waterloo where the barrier staff are particularly difficult. I tend to take the attitude that a little bit of difficulty his worth it for the concession I get.

 

[Starmill]

If you are refused by the gateline staff, rather than arguing with them, you could also buy an adult rate ticket from the machine and travel with that, then submit a complaint to the operator of the gateline.

There is absolutely no guarantee that you would get your money back. However, you would have a compelling case based on the RST guidance. If you did this regularly, RST may not be thrilled about it if they found out. The complaint would be due to the train operator however, and not them. I can see no way in which multiple similar complaints to customer service could be considered travel irregularities or worse.

If you only travel occasionally from gated stations without open ticket desks it may be more fruitful to use this approach than waste your breath arguing with clueless staff.

 

[bramling]

If you are refused by the gateline staff, rather than arguing with them, you could also buy an adult rate ticket from the machine and travel with that, then submit a complaint to the operator of the gateline.

There is absolutely no guarantee that you would get your money back. However, you would have a compelling case based on the RST guidance. If you did this regularly, RST may not be thrilled about it if they found out. The complaint would be due to the train operator however, and not them. I can see no way in which multiple similar complaints to customer service could be considered travel irregularities or worse.

If you only travel occasionally from gated stations without open ticket desks it may be more fruitful to use this approach than waste your breath arguing with clueless staff.

I’ve seen a few cases at my station where the booking office has been closed (at a time when its scheduled to be open, as is increasingly common on GTR), and people have attempted to purchase PRIV tickets from the gateline staff, and been given a completely blank look (as it also quite common with many of the agency staff GTR use), and just been let through.

Could certainly see this causing some issues with revenue, though to be fair most GTR revenue seem pretty reasonable with all this.

More of a problem if this occurs at the end of the journey, though if one has made two attempts to pay and especially if facilities haven’t been available at times they’re supposed to have been, then I don’t think the TOC would have much of a leg to stand on.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to over-pay, and nor is it reasonable for people to try finding a ticket of equivalent value which is only going to cover part of the journey.