Bought an e-ticket at the ticket office!

[dmncf]

A few weeks ago I used the CrossCountry website to buy one adult and one child Advance tickets with Family & Friends Railcard discount. Later my plans changed, and I needed to add a second child ticket.

I went to the ticket office at Middlesbrough Station yesterday and had an interesting experience! I believe the ticket office is operated by TransPennine Express. I explained the situation and proactively handed my phone to the ticket office staff member so he could examine my two existing e-tickets.

I was pleased that he was willing to sell the additional child Advance ticket, with the Railcard discount.

While I was paying by credit card, he asked if I wanted it in e-ticket format to match my two existing e-tickets, and I replied yes. I hadn't really clocked that this seemed unusual, but I assumed he would then ask for my email address.

He then started using my mobile phone to take a photo of his computer screen. I thought to myself 'oh no, the conductor won't be impressed when I show them a blurry photo of an e-ticket'. I said to the ticket office staff member, 'apologies that the camera on my phone isn't very good', and he replied 'no problem, it's the first time I have done this, but it has worked', and he handed my phone back to me with the e-ticket loaded in Google Wallet; not a photo at all. I said 'wow, how did you do that?', and he showed me his computer screen that was a big barcode image that he had photographed to transfer the information using "Add to wallet" on Google Wallet. Amazing!

 

[Starmill]

Yes this is a wider rollout of something Virgin Trains started doing about 2018.

 

[father_jack]

Your glee may be ill advised. The phone I'm typing this on is an Samsung S23 so I'd have hoped for better but despite being charged to 100% twice today is now on 24%. That orange piece of paper or card might come in handy.

 

[Horizon22]

Your glee may be ill advised. The phone I'm typing this on is an Samsung S23 so I'd have hoped for better but despite being charged to 100% twice today is now on 24%. That orange piece of paper or card might come in handy.

Sounds like you need an external battery, or yours is faulty. Also if you're using any location-based services (Maps are a killer) that will drain it harder, as will the warm weather.

 

[yorkie]

Your glee may be ill advised. The phone I'm typing this on is an Samsung S23 so I'd have hoped for better but despite being charged to 100% twice today is now on 24%. That orange piece of paper or card might come in handy.

In addition to the advice posted above by others, if either of the accompanying passenger have a suitable phone, then it can be worth adding the tickets to their phones too, as a backup.

In this case, as the passengers are children, they might not do, but I would definitely advise travelling with either more than one device, or with a battery back/charging cable.

However, the merits of paper tickets (for which no backup can be held) vs e-tickets has been extensively debated in other threads previously, and we're not having that debate again!

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

Your glee may be ill advised. The phone I'm typing this on is an Samsung S23 so I'd have hoped for better but despite being charged to 100% twice today is now on 24%. That orange piece of paper or card might come in handy.

It's a mid-range Samsung, over 2 years old. It needs replacement or a bit of work to keep going, probably a new battery.

Probably needs a good factory reset too - nice fresh install, everything up to date, reinstall the apps you actually need etc.

 

[dodecahedron67]

It’s a feature of the TTK system that TPE have (relatively) recently moved to. We can do it on-board too, but it does take a little longer than just PRT

 

[Wallsendmag]

Just for balance this is also available on Worldline @station TIS nothing new to see here apart from TPE beating the rush to move away from Fujitsu.

 

[saismee]

Your glee may be ill advised. The phone I'm typing this on is an Samsung S23 so I'd have hoped for better but despite being charged to 100% twice today is now on 24%. That orange piece of paper or card might come in handy.

Definitely sounds either faulty or over-used. My phone (Samsung Galaxy S22) can last all the way from 0730 to 2100 on one charge. I have power saving mode turned on at all times, as well as adaptive battery protection. It won't help an old battery now, but it's a good idea to enable it on your next phone.

 

[185143]

Yet another benefit of keeping staffed ticket offices! And a case of the railway evolving as technology evolves too.

Must admit personally I've never seen the benefit of ticket offices being able to provide e tickets, I'd have thought surely unless paying cash, if you want one of those you'd just buy online. Though cases like this are very much an example of where it's an excellent feature to have.