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Ticket Office Clerk or Gateline Assistant
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ChrisTheRef
Established Member
Ticket office clerk. Money. More chance to progress to train crew.
ChrisTheRef
Established Member
It varies between operators, but for my employer, there's a £5,500pa difference
RJ
Established Member
Where I was, I was given the option of being in the ticket office or an RPI (gateline assistant, Penalty Fare/PACE trained.) Ticket office had a higher basic, but the RPI had the option of travelling in their own time to pick up and drop off an Avantix Machine at a station 20 minutes away so they could earn commission on ticket sales. If you make £30 a day, which is easily attainable then there is potential to to up your earnings quite nicely.
The Colonel
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- 1 Feb 2011
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Booking Clerk - like the church fete - indoors if wet!
Booking Clerks have chance of overtime, are indoors, seated & heated whereas gateline is outside, stood up and unheated. Check posts from Urban Gateline re overtime which he doesn't get on SWT whereas booking clerks can (and do) restday working and Sundays.
Booking Clerks have chance of overtime, are indoors, seated & heated whereas gateline is outside, stood up and unheated. Check posts from Urban Gateline re overtime which he doesn't get on SWT whereas booking clerks can (and do) restday working and Sundays.
Beveridges
Established Member
I personally enjoy working outdoors however not when you have to stand there, not moving, in cold weather with no way to warm up!! So I'd say Booking Office. Also Booking Office is just an easier job in fact its extremely easy if you end up at a really quiet station with hardly anyone buying tickets.
Gateline at a busy station looks like hard work constantly dealing with drunks, full trainloads of drunks without tickets trying to exit the station on Saturday nights, very high risk of assault, abusive passengers shouting insults, shouting the most really nasty comments imaginable, swearing, awkward passengers, and really difficult passengers. Constant customer enquiries as your the 1st person they come to, constant complaints about anything wrong with the service, and lots of people who arent even customers coming to you from the streets begging you for money or asking you how to get around the town/city you're at. Unbelievable amounts of passengers who can't work out how to put their ticket into the barriers properly.
Memorising the entire timetable (and connections) is required to answer customer enquiries on Gateline as you can be on your own with no info, Booking Office staff have a PC in front of them to find anything out accurately quickly and easily.
Also thats without mentioning the fact that Booking Office also pays another £5-8k more in some TOCs than Gateline.
So go with Gateline if you want a challenge and want to enjoy the good weather, or Booking Office for easier work, higher salary and at least your not standing outside on days or evenings when the weather is poor.
Gateline at a busy station looks like hard work constantly dealing with drunks, full trainloads of drunks without tickets trying to exit the station on Saturday nights, very high risk of assault, abusive passengers shouting insults, shouting the most really nasty comments imaginable, swearing, awkward passengers, and really difficult passengers. Constant customer enquiries as your the 1st person they come to, constant complaints about anything wrong with the service, and lots of people who arent even customers coming to you from the streets begging you for money or asking you how to get around the town/city you're at. Unbelievable amounts of passengers who can't work out how to put their ticket into the barriers properly.
Memorising the entire timetable (and connections) is required to answer customer enquiries on Gateline as you can be on your own with no info, Booking Office staff have a PC in front of them to find anything out accurately quickly and easily.
Also thats without mentioning the fact that Booking Office also pays another £5-8k more in some TOCs than Gateline.
So go with Gateline if you want a challenge and want to enjoy the good weather, or Booking Office for easier work, higher salary and at least your not standing outside on days or evenings when the weather is poor.
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RJ
Established Member
Experiences vary then! The booking office I was in had a really horrid icy draft in the winter which crept in through the facade and had a horrible habit of travelling up through the trouser leg...no heating provision either, unless you bought a portable one. In the summer, it was unbearably hot and the aircon spent more time out of service than in. I worked at a busy London terminal so always interesting enquiries and people to deal with. There was also the internet, TRUST and P2 for a sizeable amount of the country so enough to keep one entertained when it was quiet.
I'd also add another word for the booking office, though agree with RJ that being indoors doesn't necessarily mean you'll be warm - the adjustable counters in particular are freezing at this time of year, as they're made entirely out of metal.
As for the job itself, I work at a reasonably busy city station and I find the job to be interesting and varied. There are plenty of different enquiries and different types of customer - don't expect an easy life though, you'll get difficult people and depending on the locations you may also have to deal with TVMs, Avantix bags, car park machines and in some places, other duties around the station such as cleaning and winter weather preparations. Most locations seem to have plenty of overtime available too!
As for the job itself, I work at a reasonably busy city station and I find the job to be interesting and varied. There are plenty of different enquiries and different types of customer - don't expect an easy life though, you'll get difficult people and depending on the locations you may also have to deal with TVMs, Avantix bags, car park machines and in some places, other duties around the station such as cleaning and winter weather preparations. Most locations seem to have plenty of overtime available too!
Cherry_Picker
Established Member
What it is or how it works? TRUST is a daft acronym for the Train Running System, and it's simply a computer program developed by British Rail for monitoring the running of trains over the network.
It's almost omnipresent in office environments on the railway, signal boxes, ticket offices, announcers offices, train crew supervisors offices (etc etc) are all plugged into it.
I might be wrong, but I presume that all the realtime train running websites and apps get their data from it too.
Oh, and with regards to the original question? The choice between a ticket office and being on the barrier? Ticket office in a heartbeat.
It's almost omnipresent in office environments on the railway, signal boxes, ticket offices, announcers offices, train crew supervisors offices (etc etc) are all plugged into it.
I might be wrong, but I presume that all the realtime train running websites and apps get their data from it too.
Oh, and with regards to the original question? The choice between a ticket office and being on the barrier? Ticket office in a heartbeat.
causton
Established Member
I met someone photographing trains who had it on a PalmPilot as they were a freight driver (guessing by the fleece they were wearing)...
...and yes, most realtime data is sourced from TRUST however the raw signalling data can also be obtained directly to achieve more detailed results sometimes
Urban Gateline
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After a year and half of being a Gateline Assistant and working closely with Ticket Office staff I can safely say I'd rather be in their shoes.
Most of the reasons have been mentioned already, the worst is the environment, it gets bitterly cold and heaters don't always work! Also conflict is a big part of the job, although most passengers are genuine and pay their fare, some still become aggressive when you won't let them pass without a valid ticket, I myself have been threatened several times, shouted at, sworn at, sometimes it feels unsafe when you don't have an RPI working with you! But I refuse to let those type of people win, I make it hard for them and despite this I've not (yet) been assaulted!
The money is a motivating factor too, although it depends which TOC the OP is referring to, at mine the Ticket office staff get much better terms and pay, extra for working sundays/bank hols and overtime, also a higher basic salary and probably more chances of progression into a management role!
Most of the reasons have been mentioned already, the worst is the environment, it gets bitterly cold and heaters don't always work! Also conflict is a big part of the job, although most passengers are genuine and pay their fare, some still become aggressive when you won't let them pass without a valid ticket, I myself have been threatened several times, shouted at, sworn at, sometimes it feels unsafe when you don't have an RPI working with you! But I refuse to let those type of people win, I make it hard for them and despite this I've not (yet) been assaulted!
The money is a motivating factor too, although it depends which TOC the OP is referring to, at mine the Ticket office staff get much better terms and pay, extra for working sundays/bank hols and overtime, also a higher basic salary and probably more chances of progression into a management role!
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