Why are some staff so ignorant about ticketing matters?

Gareth1990 · 30 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
On an Avanti train a few weeks ago, there was a passenger with learning difficulties who had clearly been given a ticket and told to show it to the ticket inspector when they asked for it. The passenger held a day return Carlisle to Preston, route via Penrith. It wasn't a split ticket. The train manager told the passenger that her ticket wasn't valid because the train wasn't scheduled to stop at Penrith, and insisted that she buy another one. The passenger was very confused and distressed, but the train manager simply insisted that she take out a debit card and sold her a new ticket.

I'm pretty certain that a ticket routed via Penrith is valid whether or not the train makes a stop there, but wasn't absolutely certain so didn't say anything at the time. Later in the journey, I went and found the train manager and quietly, out of others' hearing, suggested that she might have made a mistake with that lady's ticket. She told me she hadn't, and walked away. A little later, as she walked through the train, she made a point of stopping at my seat and told me that selling tickets was her job and please not to think that I know better than she does, before walking away again.

Regardless of whether the ticket was valid or not, though, the way the vulnerable passenger was treated was appalling. As was the way in which she went out of her way to make the scene that I had tried to avoid.

I would have gone to the press about that if it was me, a train guard bullying someone with obvious learning difficulties is beyond disgraceful

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MarlowDonkey · 30 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
I'm pretty certain that a ticket routed via Penrith is valid whether or not the train makes a stop there

Isn't that a standard way of indicating a route restriction? For example in the London area tickets which are only valid south of Banbury on Chiltern are coded "via High Wycombe" regardless of whether a train stops there.

Watershed · 30 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
On an Avanti train a few weeks ago, there was a passenger with learning difficulties who had clearly been given a ticket and told to show it to the ticket inspector when they asked for it. The passenger held a day return Carlisle to Preston, route via Penrith. It wasn't a split ticket. The train manager told the passenger that her ticket wasn't valid because the train wasn't scheduled to stop at Penrith, and insisted that she buy another one. The passenger was very confused and distressed, but the train manager simply insisted that she take out a debit card and sold her a new ticket.

I'm pretty certain that a ticket routed via Penrith is valid whether or not the train makes a stop there, but wasn't absolutely certain so didn't say anything at the time. Later in the journey, I went and found the train manager and quietly, out of others' hearing, suggested that she might have made a mistake with that lady's ticket. She told me she hadn't, and walked away. A little later, as she walked through the train, she made a point of stopping at my seat and told me that selling tickets was her job and please not to think that I know better than she does, before walking away again.

Regardless of whether the ticket was valid or not, though, the way the vulnerable passenger was treated was appalling. As was the way in which she went out of her way to make the scene that I had tried to avoid.

That's appalling, if you still know the train it took place on, I would put in a complaint to Avanti. Not just the fact that she came back to you and tried to "tell you off" (when you were only looking out for someone else) but that she doesn't understand one of the fundamental rules of how ticketing and route restrictions work. And then decided an appropriate course of action would be to wrongly charge a disabled passenger for a new ticket.

bramling · 30 Jun 2026

Definitely sounds like the train manager had a bad attitude. No need for her to start a confrontation like that either, could have really ended up making herself look very silly in front of the wrong person.

jfollows · 30 Jun 2026

MarlowDonkey said:
Isn't that a standard way of indicating a route restriction? For example in the London area tickets which are only valid south of Banbury on Chiltern are coded "via High Wycombe" regardless of whether a train stops there.

Pretty much.
It’s a constraint on the “any permitted” routeing shown by map GP at https://rgpp.iblocks.co.uk/maps, so doesn’t allow the route via Barrow to be used with this ticket. But the train manager was of course totally wrong in saying the train had to stop at Penrith.
It’s a ticket priced by Avanti but not restricted to their trains.

Watershed · 30 Jun 2026

jfollows said:
It’s a ticket priced by Avanti but not restricted to their trains.

And yet more evidence of why these inane route restrictions need to be binned. They add nothing of value. It's certainly not needed to avoid sharing the revenue with Northern due to fact it would otherwise be valid via the Cumbrian Coast.

Even in normal times (I.e. when Bransty Tunnel is open) it's a 3+ hour journey when the WCML route takes under an hour, so ORCATS will correctly assume that no-one in their right mind would use the Cumbrian Coast.

Hadders · 30 Jun 2026

Watershed said:
And yet more evidence of why these inane route restrictions need to be binned. They add nothing of value. It's certainly not needed to avoid sharing the revenue with Northern due to fact it would otherwise be valid via the Cumbrian Coast.

Even in normal times (I.e. when Bransty Tunnel is open) it's a 3+ hour journey when the WCML route takes under an hour, so ORCATS will correctly assume that no-one in their right mind would use the Cumbrian Coast.

Routeings like 'via York' or 'via Rugby; rather than 'Any Permitted' do need to go but routeings like 'via High Wycombe' as a cheaper alternative to 'Any Permitted' should stay.

Watershed · 1 Jul 2026

Hadders said:
Routeings like 'via York' or 'via Rugby; rather than 'Any Permitted' do need to go but routeings like 'via High Wycombe' as a cheaper alternative to 'Any Permitted' should stay.

Oh yes, agreed. I certainly wasn't complaining about "via High Wycombe" (though that really should be "via Banbury" to give flexibility in disruption, IMHO) but more the likes of "via Penrith" in the story given up thread. Similarly Cardiff to Bristol "via Newport" for example.

sabanda · 1 Jul 2026

I had an SWR staff member refuse to attempt to load a ticket onto my CrossCountry-branded Smartcard because "that won't work around here", instead insisting on issuing a paper ticket. In the same interaction they made several attempts to persuade me not to buy a first class ticket - despite this having been what I orginally asked for - because "the seats are no different from standard." This was for travel on a Class 158!

1955LR · 1 Jul 2026

I had an issue with staff refering to an OFF PEAK train last week . Return portion of an off peak Period return Hereford to Worcester . The restriction code is CS ,
eg Not valid on any train timed to depart after 04:29 and before 09:00.
I asked at Hereford ticket office if I could excess it to travel on train leaving at about 08:37. The answer its an off peak train your ticket is valid! I said I believe its only valid from 0900. No, you are wrong its an Off Peak Train. I eventually asked the train manager who agreed it wasnt but to travel & he would come round and sort it out. He never did.

Tetchytyke · 1 Jul 2026

bramling said:
Definitely sounds like the train manager had a bad attitude. No need for her to start a confrontation like that either, could have really ended up making herself look very silly in front of the wrong person.

This is why so many disabled people now start filming their interactions on the railways. Because if they don't then this happens and nobody will ever believe them.

If that disabled person is able to complain, or if someone is able to complain on their behalf, then I am prepared to bet one shiny Manx Pound that Avanti would simply deny that the interaction ever took place. It'll be the same if @Coleridge does complain.

Avanti, and Virgin before them, have lots of form on this type of behaviour.

styles · 1 Jul 2026

Haywain said:
Many of them struggle to buy simple tickets. As I recall, they are given a 'script' to follow and yet the report can highlight things that weren't considered by the script. For a while I received the reports and would challenge were they had been marked down - for example, the mystery shopper at King's Cross asks for a ticket to Doncaster "on the next train", gets sold a ticket for the next train and then marks down the seller for not offering a cheaper ticket on Hull Trains or GC over an hour later! After the ticket buying they then mystery shop the on-train experience.

Indeed.

I've done mystery shopping before, including on the railways, but mostly in shops.

The scripts can genuinely be quite strict with specific wording. I've had mystery shopping before which has told me to go into X supermarket, pickup Y product, and drop it on the floor, then time how long it takes for staff to arrive to clean it up. Also to then use a specific wording when asked what happened. Obviously the nature of conversation means the script gets less prescriptive as the conversation goes on, but often the opening remarks can be specific. I imagine in the context of mystery shopping buying a rail ticket the wording of the conversation opener will be very strict!

It's a double-edged sword really.

On the one hand you want some sort of consistency because you're trying to benchmark or assess against an expected benchmark; but on the other hand, you're missing out on all the ways people might ask for the same product, and what outcome that produces.

I haven't done mystery shopping in a while; I mainly did it as a student to top-up my beer fund, but it was actually a bit of fun, especially when your task was to go into a shop and drop a jar of pasta sauce, see what happens, then get paid £20 for the privilege! I might look into it again!

Adam Williams · 1 Jul 2026

styles said:
Indeed.

I've done mystery shopping before, including on the railways, but mostly in shops.

The scripts can genuinely be quite strict with specific wording. I've had mystery shopping before which has told me to go into X supermarket, pickup Y product, and drop it on the floor, then time how long it takes for staff to arrive to clean it up. Also to then use a specific wording when asked what happened. Obviously the nature of conversation means the script gets less prescriptive as the conversation goes on, but often the opening remarks can be specific. I imagine in the context of mystery shopping buying a rail ticket the wording of the conversation opener will be very strict!

It's a double-edged sword really.

On the one hand you want some sort of consistency because you're trying to benchmark or assess against an expected benchmark; but on the other hand, you're missing out on all the ways people might ask for the same product, and what outcome that produces.

I haven't done mystery shopping in a while; I mainly did it as a student to top-up my beer fund, but it was actually a bit of fun, especially when your task was to go into a shop and drop a jar of pasta sauce, see what happens, then get paid £20 for the privilege! I might look into it again!

I felt bad enough when I dropped a glass bottle by actual mistake - they wouldn't let me help clean it up either (presumably some liability if I cut myself?). I don't think I could bring myself to do it deliberately :lol:

styles · 1 Jul 2026

Adam Williams said:
I felt bad enough when I dropped a glass bottle by actual mistake - they wouldn't let me help clean it up either (presumably some liability if I cut myself?). I don't think I could bring myself to do it deliberately

It's a little frustrating that once it's all been sorted out, you can't then 'out' yourself to the employee and say sorry mate, it was a mystery shopping thing, but you did a great job! You have to leave the premises like a normal customer, then in some cases take a photo of the outside of the shop to prove you didn't just fake doing the mystery shop, then that's it.

I saw one mystery shopper task, but wasn't assigned it, which was to topple over a display TV in an electrical store. At some point you think well that's just wasteful, but I suppose the only way you find out how your staff deal with customers breaking pricey display products is by sending people in to break pricey display products and see what happens!

sheff1 · 1 Jul 2026

Those staff who are absolutely confident they are right when they are actually wrong should not be involved in ticketing matters at all.
I don't get why they are so confident.

I wouldn't expect anyone to know every nuance of ticketing without needing to check when faced with a 'rare' ticket, but some don't even know the basics yet insist their made up 'rule' is correct and won't accept otherwise even when presented with evidence.

Krokodil · 2 Jul 2026

Adam Williams said:
The mystery shoppers should buy excesses

Oh god yes. As a cadet I went down to Weymouth a lot. For some reason they always booked me a ticket from Bristol Temple Meads rather than Bristol Parkway. On the way back I'd ask the guard (on what would be a direct service) to pay the difference and was always charged for a single between the two. As a guard myself later in life I'd have excessed in that situation. In fact I frequently excessed even in situations when the passenger had no idea that it was an option and there was no commission in it for me (a considerable number of people buy/are sold tickets for Llandudno Junction when they really need Llandudno). It was a bit of a tedious process (it really should be possible to scan a ticket and excess from that rather than having to type the details in manually) but the passengers appreciated it.

Coleridge said:
It wasn't a split ticket. The train manager told the passenger that her ticket wasn't valid because the train wasn't scheduled to stop at Penrith, and insisted that she buy another one. The passenger was very confused and distressed, but the train manager simply insisted that she take out a debit card and sold her a new ticket.

I'm pretty certain that a ticket routed via Penrith is valid whether or not the train makes a stop there

Some years back (circa 2021, I think), North Wales-London tickets specified "via Rugby" or "Chiltern & TfW only". This did concern me as the direct services didn't stop at Rugby. So I asked the next passing Avanti guard who said that it didn't matter that the train didn't stop, passing through was enough. So clearly some of them know the right answer. "Via Rugby" has now reverted to "Any Permitted" so it's not an issue any more.

Talking of Any Permitted, there is one notorious Avanti guard who told passengers that a Manchester-Rhyl Off Peak Return (route ".", code "8A") wasn't valid on Avanti services and turfed them off at Prestatyn. When I picked them up at Prestatyn and realised what had happened, I encouraged them to complain.

Coleridge said:
Regardless of whether the ticket was valid or not, though, the way the vulnerable passenger was treated was appalling. As was the way in which she went out of her way to make the scene that I had tried to avoid.

I'd have formally complained. And I'm really not a serial complainant.

Tram203 · 2 Jul 2026

A few weeks ago, a group of RPI's boarded a Euston to Birmingham LNWR service at Coventry.

When requested I showed one my "Network 1 Day" ticket (also referred to as a West Midlands Daytripper).

Presumably seeing the word "Network" on the ticket prompted said RPI to ask for my Network Railcard. I explained said railcard has no relevance to my ticket or journey - although I do have a Network Railcard and had it with me - however it took confirmation from one of his colleagues for him to back down.

Trackman · 2 Jul 2026

SuspectUsual said:
There is definitely mystery shopping but I’m not sure whether it’s done on behalf of individual TOCs or collectively

We used to do it with NWR on behalf of a TOC(s) - completely voluntary, and would last about a fortnight.
It was not just about ticketing but attitude/customer service.

Starmill · 2 Jul 2026

Coleridge said:
As was the way in which she went out of her way to make the scene that I had tried to avoid.

A small number of front-line staff use escalation as a defence mechanism when someone says something they don't like. I have witnessed it myself personally, and what you're describing is a perfect example of an escalation.

This goes against all training they receive, of course, and yet they do it anyway. Usually people who do this know that they're incorrect, they will never admit it and just want to show the other parties up.

It's a key reason why the best idea is to not get involved.

chris53 said:
I have had one of those tickets and assumed it simply meant that it was valid via Penrith only as opposed to Preston to Carlisle via the Cumbrian Coast( Barrow, Whitehaven etc) . Have never had any issues whether the train called at Penrith or not. Must have done the journey dozens of times

Indeed. How anyone could think whether the train calls there or just passes through is in any way relevant is utterly bizarre. It makes me think they know they are wrong to be honest.

trainswitheddy · 2 Jul 2026

I had to explain to many a guard over the years that my season ticket was in fact valid for a return. :lol:

tumbledown · 2 Jul 2026

The ticket clerk at the Northern-run station I booked at today was well able to cope with my quite complicated requirements. I think he was an enthusiast.

Krokodil · 2 Jul 2026

No idea if the guard on this train will be able to cope with anything complicated. They'd have to leave the back cab first.

speedy1 · 2 Jul 2026

Starmill said:
A small number of front-line staff use escalation as a defence mechanism when someone says something they don't like. I have witnessed it myself personally, and what you're describing is a perfect example of an escalation.

This goes against all training they receive, of course, and yet they do it anyway. Usually people who do this know that they're incorrect, they will never admit it and just want to show the other parties up.

It's a key reason why the best idea is to not get involved.

I'm not sure why you say it's best not to get involved?

In reality the staff who act like that can only take it so far - they'll just use intimidating words and huff a bit. They're not going to punch you. I will take that if it means standing up for a disabled person for example - I've got broad shoulders

Tetchytyke · 2 Jul 2026

speedy1 said:
I will take that if it means standing up for a disabled person for example - I've got broad shoulders

I've done it before on TPE, standing up for a foreign student who'd been told to take the TPE train to the airport because several Northern trains had been cancelled. My intervention certainly wasn't appreciated by the RPI who then proceeded to look very closely at my ticket, desperately trying to find anything wrong with it.

The problem is that the sort of train manager who is prepared to behave like that to a disabled person and who is then prepared to behave like that to another passenger is also the sort of train manager who would also be prepared to allege "abusive behaviour" and get the police involved. I'm aligned with you, I would get involved if I see an obvious injustice, but sadly it isn't risk-free. It should be, but it isn't.

MarlowDonkey · 2 Jul 2026

Starmill said:
Indeed. How anyone could think whether the train calls there or just passes through is in any way relevant is utterly bizarre. It makes me think they know they are wrong to be honest.

It occurred to me that they had assumed the split ticket rule (train must call at the split) also applied to a single through ticket annotated as "via". Pretty appalling training though and surely a relatively common ticket heading south on Avanti.

Haywain · 2 Jul 2026

MarlowDonkey said:
Pretty appalling training though and surely a relatively common ticket heading south on Avanti.

And for all the criticism of the Avanti guard, we have another guard upthread (post #46) admitting to not knowing how such tickets worked themselves. Yes, they took the trouble to find out but it does show that it isn't just one guard.

Tetchytyke · 2 Jul 2026

Haywain said:
Yes, they took the trouble to find out but it does show that it isn't just one guard.

I don't think any of us would expect a guard/RPI/ticket clerk to know everything about everything.

The difference is that the good ones know they don't know and they bother themselves to check. The bad ones behave like the Avanti guard- either the one referenced in post 46 or the one further up the thread.

TUC · 2 Jul 2026

Tetchytyke said:
The problem is that the sort of train manager who is prepared to behave like that to a disabled person and who is then prepared to behave like that to another passenger is also the sort of train manager who would also be prepared to allege "abusive behaviour" and get the police involved. I'm aligned with you, I would get involved if I see an obvious injustice, but sadly it isn't risk-free. It should be, but it isn't.

There is a certain type of person who cannot cope with being challenged. I used to have responsibility for complaint panel hearings in the NHS and on several occasions I had NHS staff complain to me afterwards that I had allowed patients/family members to be rude to them. The problem was that on each of these occasions all I saw was someone who had done their homework, knew what they were talking about, and were calmly assertive. Unfortunately, that seemed a new experience to some staff.

Why are some staff so ignorant about ticketing matters?

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