EMR Guard Refusing To Accept Post Strike Day Ticket

[ainsworth74]

They are correct, essentially for the same reason that any itinerary generated by nationalrail.co.uk is de facto a valid route no matter what the Routing Guide says.

If the railway is to be a reliable form of transport at all, customers need to be able to rely on authoritative information sources. Whether that source is nationalrail.co.uk or a TOC’s customer service department (in this case responding via Twitter) is immaterial. A railway where you can be forced to buy a new ticket on the basis of “oh, you asked Jim in the ticket office? He’s always wrong” is no railway at all.

Well yes I agree. But in the situation you have a guard who doesn't take that view I'd hope they'd accept the ticket and then give their, to be clear, wrong explanation as to why it isn't valid. Rather than charge again.

 

[FenMan]

Just pointing out some people behave badly, who're very often the same people who don't listen to anything they've been told but think they know it all.

The big but is, they have real power when it comes to the railway.

A severe chat without tea or biscuits ought to happen, at the very least.

But, would management fancy getting embroilled in a potential dispute with the RMT?

Easier to pretend it never happened, eh?

*I'm not anti-railway staff, but those who work in the industry will know who the bad 'uns are, those puffed up in their uniforms to lord it over, erm, customers. There was an occasion where a guard on my local line behaved very poorly, and aggressively, and I called him out to make him stop. I got verbal abuse from him on that occasion, but, strangely, he's never looked at me in the eye since. Bullies wearing uniforms need to be called out.

 

[bramling]

Just pointing out some people behave badly, who're very often the same people who don't listen to anything they've been told but think they know it all.

The big but is, they have real power when it comes to the railway.

A severe chat without tea or biscuits ought to happen, at the very least.

But, would management fancy getting embroilled in a potential dispute with the RMT?

The unions cannot overturn company rules, procedures and standards. So if someone has done something which breaches something, the unions will represent the employee for sure, however they cannot prevent a company from carrying out its own procedures. What they will do is attempt to ensure those procedures are correctly and fairly applied, which I’m sure we would all agree is reasonable.

If anything there is a bigger problem with managements being wary of taking on such people, often because they don’t have the confidence in their own knowledge or ability to be able to robustly confront an issue, and do it in a way that’s in accordance with procedures.

It really isn’t the case that you’ll have a whole depot walking out because someone is in trouble for doing something stupid. In fact, in most cases these sorts of individuals aren’t particularly popular with their colleagues either.

 

[WAB]

If the social media team (or indeed any member of railway staff) are incorrectly authorising travel, then that's a problem for the railway to deal with, not the passenger to be troubled by. Any guard incorrectly charging customers should be taken to task in line with their TOC's disciplinary policy.

 

[robbeech]

They were travelling early the following morning, which was indeed as close as possible to their original itinerary for two reasons:-

1. In terms of elapsed time from the booked services, the first train of the morning is the closest possible
2. From the passenger's perspective, they had to be in a certain place by a certain time, which necessitated taking the first train, so from her perspective, any later train would not have been possible.

There’s clearly ambiguity in what “as close to the original time” means.
Elapsed time or clock face time?

The railway sees this (operators have stated this in the past) BOTH as someone with a ticket on the 1043 on Tuesday using the ticket Wednesday should try to use the 1043. It also sees it as getting the next train you can so the first one of the day. Rather unsurprisingly it picks and chooses which one suits the bullying agenda best. Whilst only speculation, I’d suggest that the type of guard that would force charging an excess for someone who got the 0618, armed with several pieces of evidence suggesting it was valid would also charge someone a new ticket for the 1214 for not getting the next available service. (I appreciate this is an off peak return so likely valid on this day anyway) The railway can do without staff who wrongly force passengers into additional costs however we can also do without ambiguous guidelines that can cause staff and/ mot passengers to make mistakes.

And that would be unprofessional behaviour. If the guard is proved to be wrong then passengers can end up paying more for future journeys because a guard was too stubborn to admit he was wrong. Saying "I didn't think that was the case" would be an acceptable statement.

The guard has to look at all the reports, all the evidence and make a decision. It was the wrong one on this occasion, both by the rules and certainly from a customer service point of view but that doesn’t directly make them unprofessional.

by this logic, it would be acceptable to excess them for travelling at a 'peak' time (through no fault of their own).

This already happens a lot, I believe we have both witnessed it (or at least an attempt) first hand, and I suspect it goes unreported many times each day.



When we look at all the evidence presented to us (which may be incomplete) we see how the railway has used ambiguity and different interpretations of its own guidance to generate more revenue.

The passenger was let down by the railway and tried their best to get back on track (excuse the pun) to get to their destination in time for a lecture. They used the service closest to their original itinerary which was the first service the following day, their ticket is already valid at this point. They haven’t had a moan at the railway and demanded a taxi the evening before, something which until the latest version of the NRCOT they would have been entitled to, they haven’t considered delay repay, something that again they would have been entitled to until they stripped passengers of that right in 2022.
Not satisfied that the actual rules were enough to provide them with a hassle free journey (it’s as if they’ve used the railway before), they decided to ask BOTH operators using social media if their intended plan was acceptable. It was agreed this was valid. Regardless of all this evidence, due to the way things are written the railway successfully extracted £10.20 from them, more than 50% extra on the ticket they had.

Nobody here has suggested this was the right course of action from the guard, including the views of one of their colleagues but it’s quite alarming the way people are very quick to jump on the “gross misconduct, off with their head” mentality.

If this passenger also has a car and a license to drive I suspect they’ll be making the most of that next time they want to travel.

 

[northwichcat]

The guard has to look at all the reports, all the evidence and make a decision. It was the wrong one on this occasion, both by the rules and certainly from a customer service point of view but that doesn’t directly make them unprofessional.

Being unprofessional in a customer service context isn't the same as misconduct. Arguing with a passenger who's clearly in the wrong could be unprofessional.

In the past I've seen guards experience an issue issuing a certain ticket type. On multiple occasions they've resorted to making a phone call to check. One time when I alighted a train at an intermediate station, the guard went in the same direction to the ticket office window and asked the ticket office clerk a question about ticketing zones. If they're unsure they have communication channels available to check. A passenger intending to travel from Matlock to Derby is on the train for 30 minutes, the guard could have easily said "I'll come back to you" and then made a phone call.