Alloa Station

[SouthernCrescent]

I've not been yet along this new line (hopefully before the year is out though!). Photos of the new Alloa station show a station building, but the Scotrail and National Rail sites list it as being 'unstaffed'. Does anyone know if the building has facilities for a member of staff - ticket office etc? I was just wondering if they have put in place facilities for it to be staffed should demand be sufficient.

 

[djw1981]

No. It has a small room which crew go into - toilet? What looks like a cleaning / maintenance cupboard and a waiting room with a TVM. I fail to see why an hourly, or even half-hourly station would be staffed, when we have far busier stations unstaffed on the network. There is a TVM on site, and unless travelling with a RC there is no price difference if you buy on board, and the staff are flexible regarding this anyway - commission anyone?

 

[rail-britain]

Equally, all the services that serve this route will have a conductor anyway
Sad in this day and age that even a basic manned station could not have been constructed
However, I don't think they appreciated how busy the station/route was going to be!

 

[djw1981]

Indeed, but there are many more unmanned stations of quite high traffic!

 

[me123]

There is a TVM on site, and unless travelling with a RC there is no price difference if you buy on board, and the staff are flexible regarding this anyway - commission anyone?

In reality, they're not going to charge you for not using a railcard with a TVM; many people cannot use them, or take a long time to use them, and this can cause substantial delay for other travellers and yourself, even when you arrive in plenty of time. Given that, I can't see them penalising railcard holders on the Alloa branch; they certainly don't do it at Whifflet.

It was really short sighted to not include a TVM initially, though. The frequency of services does not warrant a manned ticket office; let's face it, they'd be doing nothing most of the time. But I can only imagine the chaos when there was no ticket facilities whatsoever and people were buying from a conductor.

The station itself... well that wee room djw mentioned which is very probably a small crew rest room with a toilet probably - this is pure speculation. Then there's a covered waiting area with the TVM. That's it - but let's face it, full facilities aren't really required for 1tph.

 

[Mojo]

And on the other hand you have stations, particularly in PTE areas which see hardly anyone and are staffed for the best part of the day!

This is something I've been researching for a while and last week I met a few people, one of them from NX East Anglia who were involved in the restaffing schemes for small stations with great success. All in all it depends on the individual station in context, there may be local factors that apply (high volume of season ticket holders, station mostly used on return journeys rather than outwards, etc.) There are also a few instances I know of where staffing (or remote monitoring) is a condition of the insurance! Of course as I said above, most stations in some PTE areas I think have always been the exception to this.

 

[me123]

^ Not too many around Glasgow that fall into this category, really. Most manned stations around here have a steady, albeit sometimes quite light, passenger flow. In reality, the staff shouldn't have too much time on their hands.

In fact, there's quite a lot of unmanned stations in Glasgow. All of the Paisley Canal and Whifflet lines are unmanned (excluding GLC), and the vast majority of the Cumbernauld, Maryhill, Shotts lines too. And quite a few North Clyde stops.

 

[Mojo]

Whilst we're on the subject, how do you pronounce Alloa? I have this vision of it being how the Chuckle Brothers say "hello" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/ne.../7013109.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1 at 0:25)

 

[djw1981]

Not quite........
My sister lives there and it is definitely pronounced locally as Al Oh Ah (or the Hawaiian Alloha but without teh H). Or as in Allo Allo, which an childlike 'a' sound (not an ay sound)/

I believe I may have just muddied the water.

Ah. Try http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7402369.stm about 5-6 seconds in.

 

[rail-britain]

The majority of Scottish stations, where a train terminates, are manned
However, there are some exceptions and Alloa is one of these
Most of the other stations are classified as unmanned halts, where trains may either terminate or pass through

The station itself... well that wee room djw mentioned which is very probably a small crew rest room with a toilet probably - this is pure speculation. Then there's a covered waiting area with the TVM. That's it - but let's face it, full facilities aren't really required for 1tph.

From memory the route and station are still covered under the experimental service, however plans are already well advanced to increase the service from next year to 2 trains per hour (the infrastructure was setup to allow for this)

 

[djw1981]

North Berwick is also unmanned IIRC, though it does have a newsagent....

 

[me123]

^In cases like this, would it be possible for the newsagent to sell tickets in the future? Just a thought, but it could reduce ticketless travel at a minimal cost to the TOC. Obviously, the newsagent would get some commission for agreeing to take part in this and rules regarding railcards need not apply.

But think of it like putting a post office in a newsagent; it could improve the business of both FSR and the newsagent. Just a thought.

This could also be possible at Alloa with Asda, but I doubt that would work too well: Asda smartprice train fares

 

[djw1981]

Merseyrail kinda tried with M-to-go but that was the ticket office becoming a shop. SPT have their local tickets (daytripper IIRC) and zonecards sold by newsagents. Daytripper are scratchcards completed by the customer, and the zone cards have limited options, which are marked on the ID card portion.

I think that for anything more complex than a simple 'one price' fare it would be beyond the call of duty especially as the newsagents may then need to train up several staff.

 

[Mojo]

There is a line in either Devon or Cornwall where local retailers sell 'Carnet' tickets - books of multiple tickets that are valid for a journey on the line and it is proposed that this be extended to the Severn Beach Line in Greater Bristol. This is a much simpler system than training staff on ticket issuing systems (and ATOC want Travel Agents to sell something like £25,000 per annum.)

I met the man who runs Chester le Street (Chester le Track) last week and asked him about having station ticket offices being expanded to sell things like drinks and newspapers but he said it would be difficult because train tickets are 0% VAT and other things are not.

 

[djw1981]

you can always use 2 tills, as some shops do for their National Lottery sales/prizes.

 

[jopsuk]

Whilst we're on the subject, how do you pronounce Alloa? I have this vision of it being how the Chuckle Brothers say "hello" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/ne.../7013109.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1 at 0:25)

A lot of the locals pronounce it without the "ll". djw81 kinda gets it right though (or at least, that's how those of us from the area with more than half a braincell pronounce it).

 

[SouthernCrescent]

It is not unknown for a terminus to be unmanned but I thought it was strange to construct it with no provision for staff. It is not essential to have staff in a station but I would say preferable at a terminus.

 

[djw1981]

A terminus with 1 tph, with a fairly long layover, when on train staff are available anyway?

 

[me123]

Exactly. The problem is that there are few people at Alloa station outwith the 10 minutes before departure. That's 50 minutes of doing virtually nothing every hour. Surely that's not beneficial to First Scotrail in any way shape or form.

However, if the station would soon be receiving two trains per hour, it may be worthwhile having a ticket office installed. Perhaps the solution is to man the station on a part time only basis, such as happens at Huntly? The problem is that so many people are on the train for the short Alloa to Stirling journey, which doesn't allow much on board selling to occur, and by doubling the frequency, a ticket office certainly wouldn't be out of the question.

 

[djw1981]

But Stirling has barriers, and a=staff with advantix, so pay on arrival seems to work ok with minimal queuing.

 

[me123]

A lot of passengers seemed to moan, though, because of the queues at Stirling because there was initially no machine. Now, of course the machine will ease that slightly, but in my experience ticket machines take a wee while for the general public to use; I'd imagine that no more than 40 people would use/be able to use the machine per service, and that's a high estimate!

 

[Spaceflower]

Perhaps the solution is to man the station on a part time only basis, such as happens at Huntly?

So how would this work? Man the station for ten minutes each hour?

Horsforth is another station manned part time, although I think this is due to it being very busy in the rush hour. Hartlepool is another full time manned station which sees only one train per hour, each way (or at least did until grand central started operating). It is my opinion that alot of the quieter staffed stations generate a significant proportion of their business from the longer distance market.

 

[SouthernCrescent]

So how would this work? Man the station for ten minutes each hour?

Horsforth is another station manned part time, although I think this is due to it being very busy in the rush hour. Hartlepool is another full time manned station which sees only one train per hour, each way (or at least did until grand central started operating). It is my opinion that alot of the quieter staffed stations generate a significant proportion of their business from the longer distance market.

I think you are right about this. Dingwall is my local station and there is a constant stream of non travelling customers coming in to make bookings for long distance journeys. I think my original thought with the view to Alloa being maned was my assumption that being in a town (rather than a suburb) people would use it rather like Dingwall station or a travel agent if you like to book their long distance journeys. Does the presence of a ticket office result in more long distance bookings? I imagine of course that people can find out this information online or by phone but why do they trek down to the station if they can do that? What happens when there is no ticket office, do they find another way or not travel? I wonder if anyone has actually looked into this.

 

[rail-britain]

Several stations in the former SPT area are manned in the weekday morning peak only, there is little point after 11:00 and at weekends
Perhaps this would be of benefit at Alloa

 

[me123]

Similar to what happens in Huntly, where it's only open for the peak time travellers. Certainly would work. However, at Alloa there is a fair amount of passengers even off peak. I used it on a Saturday afternoon and it was fairly busy; probably about half full. On a 170, that's about 100 customers, most of whom were running just to Stirling. Now, I don't know if that was just the novelty of the train, but if loadings stay this high, I don't see why a ticket office would be out of the question. Even if it was just manned at peak times provisionally, then it could open fully if demand required.

 

[rail-britain]

As I've mentioned before, passenger loadings between Alloa and Stirling are far in excess of what was expected
Hence why there is already the proposal to increase the frequency from 1 to 2 trains per hour, which is almost unprecedented for an experimental service Other experimental services include Paisley Canal and Whifflet, which have remained almost unchanged since they were reintroduced

 

[me123]

Other experimental services include Paisley Canal and Whifflet, which have remained almost unchanged since they were reintroduced

Certainly the Alloa route gets more usage than Whifflet, which was my local line. There is no need to expand the Whifflet service (however, 2tph is a good service anyway) with the possible exception of Sunday services.

The success of the route to Alloa has certainly not been expected by anyone. It's one of the best services I've seen, from the profit perspective (I'd imagine) and the community perspective, and if any route deserves enhancement, this is most certainly it.

 

[djw1981]

If anyone has ever (regularly) used the A907, it is a very slow route to Stirling, and with the Kincardine bridge works, commuting by car from Alloa to Central Belt is very very frustrating. The new bridge will partially relieve that ongestion, but with the issue son Forth Road Bridge, the rail link is onto a winner.