Northern Penalty Fares Areas

[cuccir]

Durham already has the “massive yellow sign” which, at least on Platform Two, is quite small, and actually a sticker on the glass barrier that used to abut the gateline.

Agreed - very easily missed.

Took a Northern train from Durham to Newcastle today. Guard sold two tickets between Durham and Chester-le-Street in our carriage without any mention that penalty fares are being implemented this time next week.

 

[ainsworth74]

Guard sold two tickets between Durham and Chester-le-Street in our carriage without any mention that penalty fares are being implemented this time next week.

This area has been pay train so long it's going to take a massive culture shift not only of passengers but also guards to get out of the habit of buying tickets on trains! I can recall only one or two guards that won't sell the full range (i.e. off-peak tickets or tickets with railcard discounts) to passengers joining at Middlesbrough where there is a ticket office open through most of the day! I think all the stations (other than perhaps South Bank and Redcar British Steel) now have TVMs but still full range sold on board.

So going from that to having to buy before travel or face getting a Penalty Fare is going to take one heck of a change in attitudes!! I do worry that Northern HQ are perhaps not fully grasped of the reality on the ground up here and are therefore in danger of having a bit of a PR issue unless there is a very extensive education campaign (I'm thinking posters, announcements and conductors/RPIs issuing verbal warnings to people who could have got a PF) before they actually start issuing PFs.

 

[ricoblade]

I thought of this thread this weekend when I made 2 Retford to Sheffield journeys and 1 return. On all services, the guards were happily selling tickets to people who boarded at Retford, Worksop and Sheffield.

 

[palmersears]

I thought of this thread this weekend when I made 2 Retford to Sheffield journeys and 1 return. On all services, the guards were happily selling tickets to people who boarded at Retford, Worksop and Sheffield.

Same happens on the Hope Valley line. After an initial fanfare of roughly two weeks after penalty fares were introduced things have pretty much returned to how they were before. Guards still sell tickets (often delaying the opening of the doors, but that's another rant for another day), no warnings given, and the staff at Piccadilly still sell tickets as they did before. I've seen perhaps one PF issued. It's not helped by ticket machines often being out of service either to be fair. The one at New Mills Central hasn't worked at all since it was installed last October...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Same happens on the Hope Valley line. After an initial fanfare of roughly two weeks after penalty fares were introduced things have pretty much returned to how they were before. Guards still sell tickets (often delaying the opening of the doors, but that's another rant for another day), no warnings given, and the staff at Piccadilly still sell tickets as they did before. I've seen perhaps one PF issued. It's not helped by ticket machines often being out of service either to be fair. The one at New Mills Central hasn't worked at all since it was installed last October...

Theoretical PF schemes are nothing new. In LNR-land you will only be charged one if unlucky enough to meet the RPI team. Otherwise you'll get offered a "get out" first e.g. to return to the correct station, or if it's a guard and they do revenue (ha!) will just get sold a ticket.

 

[swt_passenger]

Theoretical PF schemes are nothing new. In LNR-land you will only be charged one if unlucky enough to meet the RPI team. Otherwise you'll get offered a "get out" first e.g. to return to the correct station, or if it's a guard and they do revenue (ha!) will just get sold a ticket.

I don’t quite see why anyone’s surprised by this, it’s exactly what still happens in areas such as SWR’s where penalty fare schemes have applied for far longer. There have been numerous previous discussions about this...

 

[LowLevel]

The guards don't care and have no incentive to care - would you go out of your way to support something that will reduce your take home pay through commission out of the goodness of your heart? If Northern and the DfT choose to wind up their passengers through changing many decades of established working whilst acknowledging that it will reduce their employee's earnings and doing nothing about that either it's their problem when passengers and staff stick two fingers up at it. Seen it elsewhere, it's nothing new.

 

[Starmill]

Nearly all guards, almost universally, ignore Penalty Fares schemes. I am not sure what else anybody expects them to do...

Getting somebody to buy any ticket is often impossible, let alone charging a Penalty Fare. I made a journey from Stafford to Crewe on WMT yesterday, and when the guard came through he gripped my ticket, and then asked the next passenger for theirs. They presented, and this is no word of a lie, a receipt from Tesco. The guard just said right, and have you got a ticket? No. Have you got any money? No. Right. You'd better get off at Crewe then hadn't you. Yes, that's where I'm going anyway. The guard simply walked off in exasperation. I have no idea what else they might be expected to do. This gentleman clearly knows there's very little chance of anything coming on him for not buying a ticket. So much so that he wasn't a bit embarrassed about presenting an effing Tesco receipt.

 

[Bungle965]

Penalty fare schemes go live on the following lines on Monday 13th of May:
Newcastle to Carlisle
Middlesbrough to Saltburn
Darlington to Middlesbrough
Doncaster to Scunthorpe
Sam

 

[MrEd]

Nearly all guards, almost universally, ignore Penalty Fares schemes. I am not sure what else anybody expects them to do...

This is certainly true of Northern guards and also of EMT guards on the Derwent Valley Line (who deal with the bizarre situation whereby Duffield and Belper are both Penalty Fares stations, but none of the other stations on the route are). On the Derwent Valley Line (my local line), this causes immense frustration on the five days a year (if that) on which an RPI (rather than a conductor) does come down the train, with everyone protesting 'but I've bought my ticket on the train from Belper every other time, why is it a problem now?' However, the situation seems to be very different (in my experience) in East Anglia on Greater Anglia services, where guards seem to be very pro-active in warning passengers about Penalty Fares. On the Intercity services between London and Norwich, I notice that the guards always make reference to Penalty Fares in their announcements and stress 'all passengers should have bought the correct ticket before boarding'. I was travelling between Cambridge and Ipswich a couple of weeks back, and a group of passengers got on at Stowmarket intending to travel to Ipswich, without having previously purchased tickets. When the guard came through the train, he gave them quite a telling-off, saying that they must use the facilities at Stowmarket in future as both Stowmarket and Ipswich are part of the Penalty Fares scheme. Although the passengers were none too happy, calling him a 'stupid jobsworth' or similar, he suggested that he was trying to help them avoid a PF! Perhaps it is part of Greater Anglia policy that guards should actively discourage buying on board in PF areas, to avoid people saying to RPIs 'well I bought a ticket from the guard every other day this week and it seemed fine'? If I were a guard, I would certainly want to warn passengers that it is not OK to buy on board in PF areas unless the facilities are closed/ defective.

 

[lyndhurst25]

Last week I had a Northern guard attempting to implement his own penalty scheme without even telling me. No mention of the official Penalty Fare scheme.

Travelling on a PF line, on a journey involving changing trains at Leeds, I tried to buy my ticket from the TVM at my origin station but it locked-up and went out of service as I did so. I couldn't get a ticket or a Promise to Pay voucher. Luckily the TVM spat out £0.00 credit card receipt as "proof" of it not working, but in the end I didn't need it. The TVM must have eventually reset itself as I noticed that another passenger managed to buy a ticket just before the train arrived.

On the train, the guard promptly appears.
Guard "Anyone need to buy tickets?"
Me "Day Return to X please"
Guard "£12.10" (the Anytime Day Return fare)
Me "Isn't it £10.20? Off Peak?"
Guard "Not if you haven't got a Promise to Pay it isn't"
Me "The ticket machine's broken down"
Guard "Okay then"


Northern guards are on commission for a percentage of ticket sales, aren't they? Maybe that's the reason?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Last week I had a Northern guard attempting to implement his own penalty scheme without even telling me. No mention of the official Penalty Fare scheme.

Travelling on a PF line, on a journey involving changing trains at Leeds, I tried to buy my ticket from the TVM at my origin station but it locked-up and went out of service as I did so. I couldn't get a ticket or a Promise to Pay voucher. Luckily the TVM spat out £0.00 credit card receipt as "proof" of it not working, but in the end I didn't need it. The TVM must have eventually reset itself as I noticed that another passenger managed to buy a ticket just before the train arrived.

On the train, the guard promptly appears.
Guard "Anyone need to buy tickets?"
Me "Day Return to X please"
Guard "£12.10" (the Anytime Day Return fare)
Me "Isn't it £10.20? Off Peak?"
Guard "Not if you haven't got a Promise to Pay it isn't"
Me "The ticket machine's broken down"
Guard "Okay then"


Northern guards are on commission for a percentage of ticket sales, aren't they? Maybe that's the reason?

Perhaps it was a misunderstanding of the penalties that are permitted to be applied by a non-PF trained guard (which is most, if not all of Northern's guards).

When a passenger fails to use available ticketing facilities the contractual penalty set out in the NRCoT is that one must pay the Anytime (Day) Single to your destination, without any Railcard discount. If course this might be misunderstood as meaning that you can only offer Anytime fares to passengers, which is not what the NRCoT say.

The correct thing for the guard to have done would have been to say "I can only sell you the Anytime Day Single as there are ticketing facilities at [your boarding station]", to which you would then have replied about the broken ticket machine, which he would have accepted and then sold you the ticket you wanted (thereafter reporting it to Northern Control).

 

[LowLevel]

Perhaps it was a misunderstanding of the penalties that are permitted to be applied by a non-PF trained guard (which is most, if not all of Northern's guards).

When a passenger fails to use available ticketing facilities the contractual penalty set out in the NRCoT is that one must pay the Anytime (Day) Single to your destination, without any Railcard discount. If course this might be misunderstood as meaning that you can only offer Anytime fares to passengers, which is not what the NRCoT say.

The correct thing for the guard to have done would have been to say "I can only sell you the Anytime Day Single as there are ticketing facilities at [your boarding station]", to which you would then have replied about the broken ticket machine, which he would have accepted and then sold you the ticket you wanted (thereafter reporting it to Northern Control).

It used to be the case that only the anytime single or return would be available on board until a few years ago when the anytime single to a place the train stops at revision was made. Bearing in mind the general lack of any refresher training in revenue for guards this would probably be the source of said confusion.

On the other hand where I work we are told not to work strictly to the only issuing singles business as it causes undue conflict and shouting and therefore undiscounted returns are generally issued as well.

Northern's crappy TVMs are a different issue entirely though and having indulged in several cups of tea on turnaround at Worksop while watching the ones there do all sorts of stupid things to passengers I tend to ignore them as a means of payment.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

It used to be the case that only the anytime single or return would be available on board until a few years ago when the anytime single to a place the train stops at revision was made. Bearing in mind the general lack of any refresher training in revenue for guards this would probably be the source of said confusion.

On the other hand where I work we are told not to work strictly to the only issuing singles business as it causes undue conflict and shouting and therefore undiscounted returns are generally issued as well.

Northern's crappy TVMs are a different issue entirely though and having indulged in several cups of tea on turnaround at Worksop while watching the ones there do all sorts of stupid things to passengers I tend to ignore them as a means of payment.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if the guard either doesn't know about the new rules or just showed some discretion (there being nothing wrong with that!). At the very least, Northern's ticket machines offer a source of entertainment if your train's been cancelled as per usual !

 

[lyndhurst25]

For a penalty to be an effective deterrent, those on the recieving end need to know that they are being penalised! Luckily I knew what the peak and off-peak fares are for my journey but many passengers would not, pay the Anytime £12.10 fare without question and be none-the-wiser that they had been penalised for not using buying a ticket before travel or getting a Promise to Pay voucher.

My feeling is that the guard's motivation here was to both avoid conflict and maximise his own takings. Given that he wasn't authorised to issue Penalty Fares, an Anytime Single to the next station/Leeds/my destination would maximise the railway's takings but, as mentioned above, would be likely to cause arguments. I wonder what penalty this guard would try to impose if I'd been making the exact same journey at peak times?

How ticketless travel in Northern-land is dealt with seems very inconsistent at the moment.

 

[sheff1]

On one of the rare Northern trains from Sheffield to York the other day, the guard came round after the 'Penalty Fare Stations' {sic} of Sheffield, Meadowhall, Rotherham and Swinton and sold any ticket requested to those without them despite the stations having ticketing facilities.

After Pontefract Baghill and Sherburn-in-Elmet, which are not in a Penalty Fare area and do not have ticketing facilities, he did not appear at all.

 

[johntea]

Around West Yorkshire the guards never mention the scheme and happily sell tickets, but if you get to Leeds without a ticket in your hands you're likely getting ambushed by the RPI contractors the second you go to buy a ticket from the fares window by Platform 1!

 

[johnnychips]

https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.u...0f1Jm9DiQnMJ-SgYwcmRwVMHRe-zWAUuYgXExDM2WUqSI

is an article in the Doncaster Free Press this week about the new penalty fare zone. I think the journalist copied and pasted it from press release and made up her own headline - we all know it isn’t a fine - and changed a bit, but didn’t check it all as it later goes into the first person: our and we. I don’t blame her for this; staff on regional newspapers have been depleted, but of course it does not give any chance for others to give their take on the scheme, as the journalist has no chance or time to seek other opinions.

 

[ASharpe]

On the Airedale line there it is normal in a morning on some trains for there to be a second member of staff just walking through selling tickets.

Quite a few guards will also make an announcement apologizing if the train was too busy for them to get through.