GWR advance ticket - train short-formed

[alastair]

I had an disappointing experience today - I had a first advance for the 1242 Totnes/Paddington. I was there in good time and glanced at the "staff info" tv type screen set into the wall on P2 where it said re. my train "5 cars, full and standing, no seat reservations" so I went to the ticket office and asked if I could travel on the next service at 1342 if my train was indeed full. As I have almost always found GWR staff to be generally helpful and friendly I was surprised to find the ticket office man (not the regular one) completely unhelpful and unsympathetic, no he could not authorise me to travel on the next service, I had to travel as booked. I enquired if that included standing all the way to Paddington and inexplicably (given the message on GWR's own system) he said "yes, but that is most unlikely to happen", however I could "argue it with the TM on the 1342 if I wanted to". I was then dismissed. Although I hardly ever use X/Twitter I asked @gwr Help the same question - within less than 5 mins they said it would be no problem to travel on the 1342 and also I should claim delay repay! The 1242 train arrived and not only were there no seats, there were at least 6 people standing in each vestibule. I travelled on the 1342 (10 cars) and the TM was charm itself and she apologised for what had happened. I'm sure, even without my twitter message, she would have been happy to accept my ticket but, given the dire experiences so often recounted on here, I did not want to take that chance without some official prior approval.

So all ended well and I'll probably get a decent delay payout but why would the ticket office man be so unhelpful? Could he really not authorise my later travel? At least he could have phoned someone to check? I must admit I had regrets that just a couple of months ago I had (as the notice in Totnes ticket office urged people to do) emailed my opposition to ticket office closures! Anyone without a smartphone and access to X/Twitter would have been in a bad position.

 

[Hadders]

There are some excellent ticket office staff but sadly there are a significant minority who like to make things difficult for passengers, make up their own rules and generally have a very negative attitude towards passengers. There is absolutely no excuse for the ticket office clerk to behave the way they did.

Please do complain to GWR because things will only ever get better if more and more people complain.

 

[mangyiscute]

Also the short forming today was awful, I also travelled on this route and my train from Exeter to Reading was 5 coaches, and had people standing all the way. Something needs to be changed

 

[trainophile]

Playing devil's advocate, but could it be that ticket office staff are not authorised to give permission to vary your journey on an Advance ticket?

Is it possible that a TM might have reacted with "well it's not up to him" when told you'd had authorisation from a ticket office staff member?

I do agree that it was the logical thing to do, as a three hour journey standing isn't at all pleasant, but just wondered if the guy on the desk had had his fingers burnt previously in a similar situation.

 

[alastair]

Playing devil's advocate, but could it be that ticket office staff are not authorised to give permission to vary your journey on an Advance ticket?

Is it possible that a TM might have reacted with "well it's not up to him" when told you'd had authorisation from a ticket office staff member?

I do agree that it was the logical thing to do, as a three hour journey standing isn't at all pleasant, but just wondered if the guy on the desk had had his fingers burnt previously in a similar situation.

I agree, you may well be correct. It just seems so totally cack-handed - successful organisations and companies routinely empower staff to resolve issues like this in the customer's favour (as the Twitter team are clearly authorised to do) but frankly we are not anywhere near that in GWR ticket office land. To be honest, if he had just apologised and said he could not help but why didnt I try Twitter I probably would not have bothered to post on here at all. It was just his attitude that he clearly did not give a damn that someone who had paid quite a lot of money might have to stand for nearly 3 hours that got to me a bit (although as I posted earlier this is thankfully NOT typical of GWR staff).

 

[Hadders]

Playing devil's advocate, but could it be that ticket office staff are not authorised to give permission to vary your journey on an Advance ticket?

Is it possible that a TM might have reacted with "well it's not up to him" when told you'd had authorisation from a ticket office staff member?

I do agree that it was the logical thing to do, as a three hour journey standing isn't at all pleasant, but just wondered if the guy on the desk had had his fingers burnt previously in a similar situation.

I've seen good service in similar circumstances at my local station. The staff stamp the front of the ticket or issue a chit with the necessary permission.

I don't know what the internal procedures of GWR are but it would be absolutely bonkers if their ticket office staff were not authorised to assist passengers in situations like this.

It's almost as though the staff member working in the ticket office wants his job to disappear and ticket offices to close.

 

[richw]

I’ve had issue with ticket office staff not too far from Totnes. Again it wasn’t the regular staff member I encountered. I wonder if we’ve both encountered the same relief person who gets about the network.
Mine was a TVM failed to print all of my tickets and a couple of coupons were missing. Web support asked member of staff to follow their instructions to check for a jam, and reissue if that doesn’t work, and the clerk refused to act under web support’s instructions. The steps they were giving were simple enough for me to follow as someone with zero understanding of their systems. Web support ended up emailing me a case number containing authority to travel.