Northern TVM refusing to sell a return

[Miles Bown]

Yesterday evening I took the 21.14 train from my local station into Hull for a drink with a couple of friends, intending to catch the last train back at 23.25. I regularly travel in the evenings, though not usually this late, so I'd never encountered this before, but the TVM on the platform simply refused to sell me a return, with only single options appearing. After some unsuccessful digging I just bought one on railboard instead, but it did feel rather disingenuous to me given that the single is priced only 10p under a return and an unsuspecting passenger is likely then to pay double what they need for two singles. Even more odd was the continued availability of the anytime single - surely if they're going to remove any option it should be that one given the morning peak period ended twelve hours ago! Is this normal for Northern TVMs?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@Miles BROWN. Are we talking about a day return journey from Cottingham to/from Hull? On a Friday or a Saturday? Not as if you can go to the (Northern) ticket office there, it's an unmanned station, isn't it?

I suppose the 'Promise to Pay' option won't be available to use either, unless you can readily pay the fare in cash. Hull station ticket office won't be open late evening. Might be able to pay, in conjunction with a Promise to Pay coupon, onboard or at the barriers at Hull. But what fare would be offered even then?

Also, ignoring "Hull Trains only" restricted tickets, should Anytime Day Single or Anytime Day Return tickets ever be offered by the Cottingham TVM, if on a Saturday? Further thoughts, anyone?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Yesterday evening I took the 21.14 train from my local station into Hull for a drink with a couple of friends, intending to catch the last train back at 23.25. I regularly travel in the evenings, though not usually this late, so I'd never encountered this before, but the TVM on the platform simply refused to sell me a return, with only single options appearing.

Even if it wasn't shown in the popular tickets list, both the "Quick buy" and "Buy tickets" flows should have surfaced the Day Return assuming one was available for the journey.

The exception would be if it was a ticket that's restricted to a specific Train Company, in which case it wouldn't show up in the "Quick buy" flow if the next train wasn't operated by that company.

 

[Miles Bown]

I tried the "Buy tickets" function afterwards but to no avail, although I think it was specifically searching for advance tickets for some reason (it must've applied that filter automatically). Mind you, I'm not convinced of the merits of separating the two functions - what is the difference between a 'quick buy' and a 'normal buy' to the average passenger? A ticket is a ticket, and hopefully buying them should be a fairly quick process no matter what! I find that Northern aren't particularly customer friendly when it comes to ticketing, with ticket machines which obviously don't take cash and resemble nothing more than large advertising screens, and in my experience malfunction frequently. I just wonder if there is any reason why the return wouldn't be offered straight away given that there was still over two hours of service left when I bought ticket in the first place. No TOC restricted tickets were thrown up as the only ones for that flow are Hull Trains, whose last train into Hull from Beverley leaves at about 8 o'clock in the morning!

 

[CyrusWuff]

"Buy tickets" takes you through the full journey planner flow, so will show Advance tickets where available, but it's slower because it makes you pick a specific outward train before it shows any tickets.

"Quick buy" only shows walk up tickets that are valid on the next departure. So if, for example, you were at Leamington Spa and using a Chiltern TVM (which are the same as the Northern ones) to buy a ticket to Birmingham it won't show "Chiltern Only" fares if the next train is a CrossCountry one.

 

[Haywain]

A ticket is a ticket, and hopefully buying them should be a fairly quick process no matter what!

Even in a manned ticket office that can be far from the truth.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2026 ==

I just wonder if there is any reason why the return wouldn't be offered straight away given that there was still over two hours of service left when I bought ticket in the first place.

I have a feeling that the problem may be in the default settings for how much time should elapse between the outward journey and the return journey.