Dear LPG, 

I use the railway station at Bromley South on a weekly basis and, with the advantage of a senior Rail Card and my Freedom pass the fairs are really good when you compare them with the normal fares.

But one day not so long ago, I got to the station to be told that the ticket office was closed while the person who works there was on a break.  

We are all led to believe that the ticket machines are the answer to everything and one of the people on the station offered to help me to get my ticket electronically.   It was not long before he gave up because, when my freedom pass and rail card were involved, he was unable to get the machine to produce a ticket at the price I am used to. I was told that there was a ticket office at a station on the way to my destination.

The internet informs that a train is likely to stop for about two minutes at each of the smaller stations enroute and this would mean my having to get off the train, to the office which is usually on a floor above the platform and back, and I have no doubt that I would not be able to do that before the train’s station-stop window would force it to leave me even if I were a world class athlete.

I travel nearly every week, during the height of the day, and I have seen people who have not been able to show a ticket when asked on a train in transit.  Many of them have genuine reasons for not having one but you cannot help but hear when the £20.00 on-the-spot fines are being given out (fines that BR staff tell me are about to rise to £100.00).  The decision is up to the guard, and I don’t feel that it is fair to be put in that position because I don’t know how to use the machine.  

It has only happened to me once so far and this may be old news to some, but I now hear that the government is trying to save more money (the money we pay them) to eliminate manual ticket offices altogether (resulting in many more of us older travellers finding ourselves having paid our taxes to receive yet another headache).   If a BR member of staff has problems providing me with an electronic ticket, what of the foreign tourist who wants to travel and does not have sufficient command of the English language to master the machine, or the pensioner who does not know how to use any computer or a mobile phone and let’s not forget the gamble you take when trying to obtain a fair that includes more than one concessionary element.

I put this to a member of staff and was told that they have enough to do without trying to help travellers get the right ticket, and that they encourage train travellers to complain about the plan to do away with all manual BR ticket offices.  

I am writing this in the hope that any other train travellers, frequent, regular or occasional, register their disapproval of the plan.   Are we going to have to all be rocket scientists to travel by train as well? 

GA, Bromley

GA shares one report of this plan…

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LPG has learned that Bromley South Station is controlled by South-eastern Railways and below are their online contact details…

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…and LPG adds some information on today’s celebration…

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