Northern free journeys.

[abbo1234]

Hi,i have recently been visiting friends near blackpool for the last few sundays.Four out of five times now i have had a free return journey from Adlington Lancs to Layton because both stations are unmanned and no guard has come down the train.I just wonder how much money Northern loose on this service every week.

 

[Tibbs]

Probably less than it would cost them to hire a ticket seller to work each train, or staff at the unmanned station.

You'd hope they'd have done the maths at least.

 

[northwichcat]

Probably less than it would cost them to hire a ticket seller to work each train, or staff at the unmanned station.

The guard should be selling tickets on the train but sometimes they don't have a working ticket machine or they don't have time to sell to everyone or if it's a pair of units sometimes the guard can't sell to the front unit.

 

[ffm]

Remembering that it is the duty of the passenger to seek out the guard to pay for a ticket........though if they stay locked away in the rear cab.........

Probably a good place for Northern's revenue protection team to visit, all those lovely prosecutions, or £80 'get out of court' payments..... note visit on a Sunday, seems that there may be a regular ticketless visitotr

 

[neilmc]

Would only work if the guard came down the train very obviously selling tickets, otherwise there's no opportunity to pay. I wonder how often people who haven't yet paid approaching their destination jump out at an unstaffed station on the outskirts of town and complete their journey by bus? I recall Layton was quite well served.

 

[northwichcat]

Remembering that it is the duty of the passenger to seek out the guard to pay for a ticket........though if they stay locked away in the rear cab.........

It's the passengers duty to use ticket facilities the train operator makes available to them. There isn't any requirement in the NRCoC or bye-laws for the passenger to hunt down the guard and to make them sell a ticket to you, that's just something certain TOCs want passengers to believe.

Probably a good place for Northern's revenue protection team to visit, all those lovely prosecutions, or £80 'get out of court' payments..... note visit on a Sunday, seems that there may be a regular ticketless visitotr

If ticket selling facilities haven't been provided then they cannot prosecute for a passenger having no ticket unless the RPIs set up a ticket selling facility on the platform, like they do at platform 11 at Manchester Piccadilly.

I think the cost of having RPIs would be more than the £12.20 return fare between the 2 stations.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Remembering that it is the duty of the passenger to seek out the guard to pay for a ticket

I don't believe that is the case at all.
All that would do is cause chaos on many routes!

 

[xfield]

Are these weekend services heavily subsidised? Is it worth their bother trying to scoop up off-peak fares (vs applying the same staff during the week on lesser subsidised routes with peak fares)?

 

[northwichcat]

Are these weekend services heavily subsidised? Is it worth their bother trying to scoop up off-peak fares (vs applying the same staff during the week on lesser subsidised routes with peak fares)?

The Northern franchise is subsided as a whole but very few routes receive a subsidy specifically for the route. The only subsided Sunday services I'm aware of on the west side are some of the early Stoke-Manchester services are subsided by Cheshire East council while the Sunday Atherton line services are subsided by TfGM. Generally PTEs fund extra capacity on busy services opposed to funding the existence of the service.

 

[Jonny]

Or, perhaps, they want to ignore the journeys so that they can push the sales figures down and remove stops from the timetable that they currently make, with 'lack of demand' as the official excuse.

 

[Yew]

Or, perhaps, they want to ignore the journeys so that they can push the sales figures down and remove stops from the timetable that they currently make, with 'lack of demand' as the official excuse.

Maybe painting some station fences and signal boxes while they're at it pushing up the costs a la beaching

 

[ainsworth74]

Though that would only work if Northern are running more services than they are contracted to do. Otherwise any attempt to reduce the number of services as part of a new franchise is likely to cause all sorts of political trouble.

 

[abbo1234]

The guard should be selling tickets on the train but sometimes they don't have a working ticket machine or they don't have time to sell to everyone or if it's a pair of units sometimes the guard can't sell to the front unit.

I depends what time service i use,on two occasions it has been a four car unit and due to the location of the entrance to the station i did get on the first two carriages.But it was a four car unit when the guard did come down so i was able to purchase my ticket.No excuse for two cars though.

 

[yorkie]

Remembering that it is the duty of the passenger to seek out the guard to pay for a ticket...

There is no requirement to go walking up and down trains trying to locate a Guard. On some lines this would cause chaos, and would be an 'interesting' experience on 12-car FCC services...

 

[TUC]

Anyway, aren!t Northern always making far too many announcements about not leaving bags unattended etc? Are they wanting passengers to leave their bags in one carriage whilst they wander around looking for the guard or are they expecting passengers to lug their bags around with them whilst looking for the member of staff who's hiding away from his customers?

 

[313103]

Yet another 'lets bash the Guard' thread :roll::roll: .

 

[chorleyjeff]

Yet another 'lets bash the Guard' thread :roll::roll: .

Not necessarily. Just reporting actual experience.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yet another 'lets bash the Guard' thread.

Could you point to the posts which are 'bashing the guard'? The only post I can see from skimming the thread that even remotely come close also takes the time to point out that the guard's machine could have been broken, they might have been busy or in a different unit. Hardly 'bashing' the guard? So where is it?

 

[Starmill]

Money for revenue protection is one thing; money for facilities quite another.

Saying that "Oh it's not worth putting in a ticket machine/staffing the stations/employing an extra ticket seller/actually carrying out some on-train RPI work" is somehow not worth it because it is only £12.20 is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard, for obvious reasons.

 

[Howardh]

Maybe if the guards got a commission for selling tickets? Do they anyway??
Get on a train in Gtr. Manchester from an unstaffed station without a machine, wanting a Gtr. Manchester evening return, if the guard doesn't come round selling one, and you get off at an unstaffed station, you face paying double to return home. Hence banging down guard's doors on occasion.

No matter how many times I've read arguments against on here - let's have a machine on trains that lets you buy a ticket; and one that sells the right one too - unlike Bolton Trinity St. which the machine won't sell you (cheap) evening returns. the bloke on the counter KNOWS it doesn't, so the unwary will be forced to pay the full fare (not much, I know, but many a time there's a group on a night out) and there's not even a notice saying the GMER is available at the counter - and what he thinks of the operators for doing that isn't printable.

 

[pennine]

Yet another 'lets bash the Guard' thread :roll::roll: .

Yes, clearly that's what this is :roll::roll:

 

[craigwilson]

which the machine won't sell you (cheap) evening returns. the bloke on the counter KNOWS it doesn't, so the unwary will be forced to pay the full fare (not much, I know, but many a time there's a group on a night out) and there's not even a notice saying the GMER is available at the counter - and what he thinks of the operators for doing that isn't printable.

It's one of the annoying things about Northern, that some (all?) of their ticket machines won't sell you a cheap evening return, but others e.g. Virgin's machine at Piccadilly will.

It's ridiculous that Northern's own machines are unable to sell you the cheapest valid ticket for your journey.

 

[Starmill]

It's one of the annoying things about Northern, that some (all?) of their ticket machines won't sell you a cheap evening return, but others e.g. Virgin's machine at Piccadilly will.

It's ridiculous that Northern's own machines are unable to sell you the cheapest valid ticket for your journey.

Some of them do sell evening returns, Metrolink/other special fares etc; but I'm yet to find one that will sell a Super Off-Peak Of course none sell rangers of any type - most annoying when it comes to Evening/GM Day rangers!

 

[edwin_m]

Some of them do sell evening returns, Metrolink/other special fares etc; but I'm yet to find one that will sell a Super Off-Peak Of course none sell rangers of any type - most annoying when it comes to Evening/GM Day rangers!

Thereby creating an excuse for intending fare dodgers - "I wanted this cheaper ticket but the machine wouldn't sell it". And probably breaching some regulation or other, or at least risking being pilloried by the media, by not making customers aware of cheaper tickets that might be suitable.

Foot, aim, fire, ouch!

 

[Sheepy1209]

Most services between those two stations are 150s, single or double - Pacers are quite rare, so it's usually possible for the guard to walk through.

What time of day are you travelling? I find that there's usually a ticket check at some point between Poulton-le-Fylde and Preston, except on late evening services.

Of course there won't be many journeys between those two stations (near zero if ticket sales are anything to go by!) so it might not be as big a loss to Northern as you might think. It does seem a bit daft to me though that Layton is so wide open while Blackpool North has barriers, dogs and armed guards. Well, barriers anyway.

Much the same applies at Poulton-le-Fylde - while it's a staffed station there's rarely anyone checking tickets.

 

[Gathursty]

I've had a free ride in rural Lancashire on First Transpennine Express and Northern as a result of only doing a short journey and going from an unstaffed halt. Whether it's economically viable to have resources to capture revenue from people in OPs and my situation is an interesting debate though. My journeys on that day with a 16-25 railcard would probably get change from a £5 if I was found in time (Bentham to Wennington /Silverdale to Lancaster). I'd imagine extra guards and machines at these halts would be quite a few fivers indeed.

 

[mrmartin]

I think the other problem is that these small stations miss out on passenger statistics, which means that they look unused and therefore miss out on investment, which becomes a vicious circle.

 

[Moonshot]

I think a bit of a reality check is needed here .....as this is my very job and i work that route. On a busy service, its unlikely that a guard will be able to get through a whole train and capture every single passenger who has yet to pay for a ticket. 4 car units are an impediment to this if there is no gangway connection. Guards get 5% commission as an incentive......but no matter what the incentive is, there is a finite limit on just how many tickets a guard can sell even on a good day when the Avantix is performing at 100%. We have to balance the needs of retail with the needs of train safety and punctuality.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

The usual reasons why Guards like myself can/will not get through a train are

1. double set with no gangway connection
2. Too busy
3. Paperwork (UFN's seem to take forever)
4. Machine Fault
5. Book
6. Paper
7. Nap
8. All of the above
9. Because we can
and finally
10. Because a 10 hour shift starting at 4am can seriously wear you out and you just want to go home!

hope that clears things up

 

[edwin_m]

Also someone posted elsewhere that Northern require their guards to operate the doors from the rear of the train.