Weird experience at Paddington gateline

[Norton Bridge]

This has just been reported by my son. He was travelling from Nailsea and Backwell to Heathrow. His ticket was a Super Off Peak Single, restriction code XC and as it was bought by his employer it was one of the credit card sized ones that the ticket machines typically issue and have been around for as long as I can remember.

When he got to Paddington this ticket didn't work the barrier so he had to engage with one of the gateline staff. He said that he was in discussions for at least five minutes, not about the validity of the ticket, but whether this was actually a ticket at all. It was only resolved when a supervisor was called. He was also told that the barriers don't work with tickets from small stations. Is this true?

Fortunately he was allowed on his way once it was esatblished that this was an actual ticket. I don't know if the validity was verified.

GWR aren't a company that I have to use, but I'm hoping that someone who works for them might see this and realise just what a laughing stock these staff are.

 

[Lewisham2221]

What a bizarre sounding encounter.

Was it definitely the actual ticket that he was presenting at the gate line, rather than a reservation? A lot of online booking systems automatically offer reservations for most/all ticket types and when shuffling through the half a dozen or so bits of orange and green card, people have a tendency to present the reservation for that leg of the journey rather than the ticket itself. On the other hand, some ticket issuing systems print the reservation on the ticket itself, which could potentially cause confusion with the barriers staff if the gates were rejecting the ticket for some other reason.

Barriers not working with tickets from small stations definitely sounds like something the staff have made up, it's certainly a new one to me.

 

[Norton Bridge]

What a bizarre sounding encounter.

Was it definitely the actual ticket that he was presenting at the gate line, rather than a reservation? A lot of online booking systems automatically offer reservations for most/all ticket types and when shuffling through the half a dozen or so bits of orange and green card, people have a tendency to present the reservation for that leg of the journey rather than the ticket itself. On the other hand, some ticket issuing systems print the reservation on the ticket itself, which could potentially cause confusion with the barriers staff if the gates were rejecting the ticket for some other reason.

Barriers not working with tickets from small stations definitely sounds like something the staff have made up, it's certainly a new one to me.

He showed me a photo of what he presented and it was definitely the ticket. He's a fairly seasoned rail traveler although more likely to use e-tickets if he buys them himself.

 

[Lewisham2221]

He showed me a photo of what he presented and it was definitely the ticket. He's a fairly seasoned rail traveler although more likely to use e-tickets if he buys them himself.

Fair enough! It was just about the only vaguely logical reason I could think of for such behaviour by the barrier staff. That said, other postings on these forums do suggest that Paddington gate line staff are something of a law unto themselves.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

At Paddington, a weird experience would be being allowed to use an off-peak ticket at the correct time. But I've had very good encounters with ticket office and on-train people. It's just the gateline.

 

[Leisurefirst]

Nothing would surprise me.
Avoided interaction there many years back after going to the advance ticket office to enquire about some fares but not buy right now to be told by the charmer "working" there with no queue "I'm not going to do that if you're not going to buy anything" and went back to reading his magazine.

 

[sh24]

At Paddington, a weird experience would be being allowed to use an off-peak ticket at the correct time. But I've had very good encounters with ticket office and on-train people. It's just the gateline.

Indeed. The Paddington gateline stuff are very erratic, whereas most other GWR staff are really pretty good.

 

[AlterEgo]

By the second sentence it was obvious what the rest of the story was going to be. This sort of bonkers, Kafkaesque encounter is entirely normal at Paddington.

 

[Norton Bridge]

By the second sentence it was obvious what the rest of the story was going to be. This sort of bonkers, Kafkaesque encounter is entirely normal at Paddington.

I've read all the tales about them on here, but this seemed to take things to a new level.

 

[styles]

Wonder if there's a legitimate way of getting to Paddington on a permit to travel. Would be a good laugh.

 

[michael8]

By the second sentence it was obvious what the rest of the story was going to be. This sort of bonkers, Kafkaesque encounter is entirely normal at Paddington.

Yes, surely a "Weird experience at Paddington gateline" would be using the correct ticket and being allowed to pass through without hindrance

 

[island]

Wonder if there's a legitimate way of getting to Paddington on a permit to travel. Would be a good laugh.

Permits to travel seem to be limited to a few SWR stations now, and if I recall correctly are only valid for two hours so it would be difficult to get to Paddington before expiry.

 

[stadler]

Wonder if there's a legitimate way of getting to Paddington on a permit to travel. Would be a good laugh.

Permits to travel seem to be limited to a few SWR stations now, and if I recall correctly are only valid for two hours so it would be difficult to get to Paddington before expiry.

Only five stations in the UK still have Permit To Travel machines (Beaulieu Road, Holton Heath, Longcross, Millbrook, Redbridge) which are indeed all SWR stations. They are extremely rare these days.

Longcross is not far from London Paddington but i do not think there are any permitted routes from there. You could easily get to London Paddington within two hours by changing at Reading but i highly doubt that is a permitted route.

The other ones at Beaulieu Road and Holton Heath and Millbrook and Redbridge do have permitted routes by changing at both Basingstoke and Reading and getting in to London Paddington that way. But it looks like all journeys from those are over two hours with the quickest one being about two hours and twenty minutes.

 

[island]

Longcross is not far from London Paddington but i do not think there are any permitted routes from there. You could easily get to London Paddington within two hours by changing at Reading but i highly doubt that is a permitted route.

I had forgotten about Longcross. You are correct that Longcross-Reading-Paddington isn't a permitted route, requiring two tickets, but someone wishing to make that journey is, I think, entitled to do so holding a Permit to Travel, albeit they may struggle if asked why they didn't sort out their ticket in Reading.

 

[Watershed]

I had forgotten about Longcross. You are correct that Longcross-Reading-Paddington isn't a permitted route, requiring two tickets, but someone wishing to make that journey is, I think, entitled to do so holding a Permit to Travel

Quite.

I think the notion of a 2 hour limit is also questionable in terms of enforceability. Not all journeys can be completed within 2 hours; and whilst you might pass an opportunity to pay in that time, you might not have time to use it without missing a connection).

albeit they may struggle if asked why they didn't sort out their ticket in Reading.

Not wanting to miss a connection would be a perfectly valid reason. The minimum connection time at Reading is 7 mins; it easily takes 2 or 3 mins to make the connection from the SWR platforms to the ones used by GWR departures to Paddington, even if you are fit and know where you are going.

 

[styles]

I think the notion of a 2 hour limit is also questionable in terms of enforceability. Not all journeys can be completed within 2 hours; and whilst you might pass an opportunity to pay in that time, you might not have time to use it without missing a connection).

I don't know the history of permits to travel, but I assume when they came about it was pretty much expected you would encounter a guard fairly quickly and buy a proper fare; whereas now with automatic ticket barriers etc the on-board ticket inspection element is slowly decreasing?

 

[etr221]

I don't know the history of permits to travel, but I assume when they came about it was pretty much expected you would encounter a guard fairly quickly and buy a proper fare; whereas now with automatic ticket barriers etc the on-board ticket inspection element is slowly decreasing?

My recollection is that when introduced, they were mainly a Network SouthEast thing, and it was far more likely that your first encounter where you could pay the balance due was on arrival at your destination.

 

[John R]

Nailsea and Backwell resident here. I have never had a problem with the usual credit card size ticket dispensed by the ticket machine at the station.

 

[Gaelan]

He was also told that the barriers don't work with tickets from small stations. Is this true?

My understanding is that barriers can only be programmed to accept tickets from a limited number of stations - so they'll allow any tickets starting from Paddington, of course, and some of the more common cross-London journeys that involve Paddington, but inevitably some obscure ones can't be handled by the barriers. I believe this limitation is specific to credit-card style tickets and not smartcards or barcode tickets.

Presumably, the gatelines were designed with this limitation under the assumption that they would be staffed by competent people who would wave any holders of more unusual tickets though with zero fuss.

 

[styles]

My understanding is that barriers can only be programmed to accept tickets from a limited number of stations - so they'll allow any tickets starting from Paddington, of course, and some of the more common cross-London journeys that involve Paddington, but inevitably some obscure ones can't be handled by the barriers. I believe this limitation is specific to credit-card style tickets and not smartcards or barcode tickets.

Presumably, the gatelines were designed with this limitation under the assumption that they would be staffed by competent people who would wave any holders of more unusual tickets though with zero fuss.

It wouldn't completely surprise me if this were true given some of the awful software on the railways, but this would be an odd limitation really, given the entire database of station codes + station names for the whole of GB is <100KB, and ~2600 items. Even for a high throughput system with a tiny processor, scanning 2600 memory-loaded items totalling <100KB is trivial. In fact the data could fit on the original Nokia 3410 sat on my desk, though it may not compute permitted tickets so quickly

If this is the real cause of issues, then the firmware provider for the barriers really ought to be tasked with resolving this.

 

[MikeWh]

It wouldn't completely surprise me if this were true given some of the awful software on the railways, but this would be an odd limitation really, given the entire database of station codes + station names for the whole of GB is <100KB, and ~2600 items. Even for a high throughput system with a tiny processor, scanning 2600 memory-loaded items totalling <100KB is trivial. In fact the data could fit on the original Nokia 3410 sat on my desk, though it may not compute permitted tickets so quickly

If this is the real cause of issues, then the firmware provider for the barriers really ought to be tasked with resolving this.

What you're talking about is every pair of origin and destination stations and whether that ticket is valid to go through the barriers, either for entry, exit or break of journey.

 

[styles]

What you're talking about is every pair of origin and destination stations and whether that ticket is valid to go through the barriers, either for entry, exit or break of journey.

Every station matrixed against every other station (which wouldn't even be necessary as you could exclude e.g. Aviemore to Kingussie), in code form would be 19MB. <60MB if each is to be marked valid for entry/exit/break. <25MB if you did the sensible thing of mapping integer IDs against each other rather than the three-letter station codes. Even if we extend this to ticket types, restriction codes, etc for a larger set of permeatations, I fail to see how this couldn't be held. Can get a 1TB U3/A2/V30 SD card for £55 inc. VAT if we needed some very extravagant data table and high read speed.

I don't know the industry internal cost of a ticket barrier but I can't imagine £46 (after VAT reduction) per gate would be a significant barrier (hehe).

Unless I'm missing something, this still seems like a poor excuse for barriers not accepting tickets.

Also curious that Paddington seems to have this issue more than other large interchange stations. Suggests it's not the full story imo.

 

[Watershed]

Every station matrixed against every other station (which wouldn't even be necessary as you could exclude e.g. Aviemore to Kingussie), in code form would be 19MB. <60MB if each is to be marked valid for entry/exit/break. <25MB if you did the sensible thing of mapping integer IDs against each other rather than the three-letter station codes. Even if we extend this to ticket types, restriction codes, etc for a larger set of permeatations, I fail to see how this couldn't be held. Can get a 1TB U3/A2/V30 SD card for £55 inc. VAT if we needed some very extravagant data table and high read speed.

I don't know the industry internal cost of a ticket barrier but I can't imagine £46 (after VAT reduction) per gate would be a significant barrier (hehe).

Unless I'm missing something, this still seems like a poor excuse for barriers not accepting tickets.

Also curious that Paddington seems to have this issue more than other large interchange stations. Suggests it's not the full story imo.

I don't think the issue is what's possible with modern technology. It's what was possible when the technology behind the barriers was designed. By and large, the older barriers were designed when that amount of storage and computation would have been unduly expensive. The designs - at least from Cubic, who TOCs in the London area are tied to because of Oyster/contactless - haven't really been updated much since then.

 

[Norton Bridge]

What you're talking about is every pair of origin and destination stations and whether that ticket is valid to go through the barriers, either for entry, exit or break of journey.

But is it not reasonable to expect that arriving on a direct train, with a flexible ticket, the barriers should open?

 

[htwestern]

What you're talking about is every pair of origin and destination stations and whether that ticket is valid to go through the barriers, either for entry, exit or break of journey.

I’ve arrived at Paddington on both Nailse&Bwell and Yatton paper tickets before and gone through just fine

 

[cornishjohn]

He was also told that the barriers don't work with tickets from small stations. Is this true?

In a trying to understand rather than defend mode, might there be nearby branch stations (Greenford branch perhaps?) that are set to "reject" for some short-faring/doughnutting-prevention strategy, to force a ticket check and conversation?

 

[John R]

In a trying to understand rather than defend mode, might there be nearby branch stations (Greenford branch perhaps?) that are set to "reject" for some short-faring/doughnutting-prevention strategy, to force a ticket check and conversation?

It was a ticket from Nailsea and Backwell, which isn’t known as a “short fare station” for those travelling to Paddington.

 

[cornishjohn]

It was a ticket from Nailsea and Backwell, which isn’t known as a “short fare station” for those travelling to Paddington.

What I mean is, is the gateline staffer aware of such a model of operation, and therefore giving a garbled (and wrong) explanation: They (think they) know a reason why gates do not open; here is a ticket for which the gates do not open; so that must be the reason why? [see the "all animals are dogs" reasoning for further details]

 

[Towers]

Is it not the case that a “Not via London” fare is available for this route? Which, presumably, would not open the Paddington gateline?

 

[Norton Bridge]

Is it not the case that a “Not via London” fare is available for this route? Which, presumably, would not open the Paddington gateline?

I've just checked on BR Fares and that is indeed the case. However, I've just checked the photo of the ticket that gave rise to this incident, and it is "valid via any permitted route".