Reduced ticket buying facilities

[Harbouring]

This is sort of theoretical as I got a ticket in the end AND the service I wanted was cancelled

Situation: I arrived at the station 10 minutes before my train was due to depart, more than enough time to get tickets 99/100 however today 4 out of 5 ticket machines weren't working (2 grey full range of ticket machine. 2 Blue Tod machines) and further to this the 2 ticket windows were closed but there was someone selling tickets from a handheld machine. So 2 ticket buying facilities instead of 7 in normal use.

Question 1. What if I arrived in good time but was unable to get a ticket due to this scenario and got on the train?

Question 2. What if I arrived in good time, waited 15 minutes to get a ticket but missed my train, would for eg. Delay repay be due if the delay was appropriately long enough?

Question 3. Who decides how long it is reasonable to turn up at a station before the train to get a ticket? Should it be based on how long it usually takes to get a ticket (in this case 5 minutes max) or how long it should take to get a ticket if there was one ticket buying facility for possibly up to 20 people?

 

[island]

1) You would be committing a Criminal Offence and could be issued a Penalty Fare (if appropriate) or prosecuted.
2) Not an entitlement. You might receive something as a gesture of goodwill.
3) I am not sure if any such decision has been made in general, but there is some stuff in the Penalty Fares literature about how waiting times “should not” exceed 5 minutes peak and 3 minutes off peak. As the term is should rather than anything stronger, it isn’t binding and there are no consequences of it not being met.

 

[sheff1]

There are no hard and fast rules about a 'reasonable' amount of time either to arrive at the station or queue when you are there. What is certain is that, if a member of staff gives passengers permission to join a train without a ticket because they (the staff member) believe the queue is unreasonably long, that is sufficient for you to be covered under the National Rail Conditions of Travel. If you board a train without such permission, you could find yourself in trouble, regardless of how long the queue was.

At Manchester Airport station the other week the queues were horrendous despite all ticket windows being open, all ticket vending machines working and two people selling tickets from handheld machines. The Revenue Protection staff were calling forward anyone who was travelling beyond Piccadilly, and whose train was due to leave imminently, and telling them to buy their ticket on the train. There is no guarantee that the same policy would be in place were you to arrive at the same station on another day to find similarly lengthy queues