On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 07:00:18 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:

It seems to be fairly common amongst the ex-Southern TOCs to employ
clueless members of staff at inner suburban stations, including London
Termini. And that's not a sweeping generalisation based on a few bad
experiences, it's based on nigh on 3.5 years of having to deal with the
results of their cock ups.

I'm not sure it was complete clue-deficiency, as he /was/ trying to
sell me something else, and seemed to know (or thought he knew) enough
to think there was a better alternative. I would expect most less
clued up staff would just sell what I asked for, even if there are
cheaper options. Maybe he just thought he knew, but was wrong.

As for the claim that he couldn't do a remote issue, that would have
involved him actually having to look something up and entering the fare
manually, requiring a whole...Oooh...10 extra button presses on his
APTIS, if that.

West Croydon have always seemed happy to sell me remote tickets, but
Sutton seem to explicitly refuse.

A while ago I wanted a ticket to near Cardiff and my local station
told me to buy it as two legs, without me even asking (someone esle
was paying!). Having said that, they are usually pretty good, and can
usually cope with obscure destinations.

FWIW, DB recently quoted me ~GBP350 for a ticket by e-mail. Phoning
them up got it down to GBP175 plus a cheap advance Eurostar ticket,
which should be a lot less than the difference. But then Zone 5 to
Zagreb is probably a fairly uncommon trip ;-)

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK