Travellers beware, Northern changes the rules.
For 8 years, since the inception of Northern Rail as the principal affordable means of travel between Slaithwaite, Marsden and the rest of the world, one has been able to but a ticket on the train.
Admittedly this has been a hit and miss affair as so frequently the guard has refused to leave his or her cabin to sell tickets. Even more frequently their ticket machines have broken down leaving the passenger unable to but a ticket en route.
But from today, it seems custom and practice has been abolished. A Slaithwaite resident was evicted from the 16.30 train bound for Manchester Victoria on the grounds that she did not have a ticket. When she pleaded with the guard to sell her a ticket as was the normal practice, he tried to call the police exclaiming that it is illegal to travel on a train without a ticket. The guard told her she had to go to the ticket office via the subway and buy a ticket before she could catch the train, re-affirming that,” it is illegal to travel without a ticket”.
He tried to call the police, but presumably it was pointed out to him that it would take a while for the police to get there as they would have to come from Leeds. Eventually after delaying the departure of the train for ten minutes, he set the train off, telling the other passengers that their delay was caused by the passenger refusing to produce a ticket.
Quite why this universal change of policy has occurred, no-one seems to know. It might just be a renegade guard standing on his dignity. Occasionally in the past a guard has refused to sell concessionary tickets, but no-one could recall an outright refusal to sell a ticket on the train.
The passenger tried to point out that she had boarded the train at an unmanned station hence her wish to buy the ticket on the train. His response was consistently, that she would have to miss this train and buy a ticket from the station office.
The guard insisted that he had told passengers ten minutes in advance that they would have to purchase tickets in advance from the station office, for the few people who heard this announcement; it appeared that they could not understand why they were being told this. After 8 years of buying your ticket on the train, when the guard was able to leave his cabin, one was not likely to jump off the train a few minutes before it was due to leave, race through the tunnel stand in a queue and hop to be able to race back to the train before it left. And this ignores the passengers who like our passenger from Slaithwaite who joined the train after the guard had made his announcement.
Quite this guard should suddenly behave in such an authoritarian manner, throw customer relations out of the window is not easily understandable. But one fellow passenger has indicated that Northern are worried that their seat at the table with the “Big Boys” in the new round of franchising might be endangered by their poor performance to date. The government has said that all new contracts to print money will be let before the next election in 2015. This does not leave Northern much time to improve. Perhaps this is why, after 8 years of waiting a ticket machine which works from time to time has appeared on one platform in Slaithwaite.
What further improvements can we expect from this company? More prison cells for passengers who cannot race down the tunnel to get a ticket. After all they only run one train an hour.
ACB
12 Mar. 12