David Biddulph wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message
oups.com...

Barry Salter wrote:
...
I can do a couple of examples of "mob handed" ticket inspectors for you:

First up, we have the inspector who checked a ticket on board a train,
which was fine, but he caught a glimpse of the corner of a Permit to
Travel in the wallet too, so he asked to see it. Said PTT had been
obtained from a station on a totally different TOC, and the punter had a
valid ticket for the train he was on, yet the RPI still PFed the punter
in question.

This needs a bit of explaining. Do you mean that the passenger started
the journey the same day on a different TOC and only bought a ticket
for the last bit?

If there was time to buy a ticket for the last bit, it's a very
different situation from if, say, the latter was a season and the
passenger had intended to get a ticket for the first bit of the journey
at the first station, without time to queue at the interchange.

In previous threads, it's been suggested that you can pay up for the
PTT at the end of the full journey, even if you have changed TOC
halfway.

Because my beef with the fragmented system is knowing what to do if you
turn up with half an hour to spare at, say, Dunton Green, intending to
buy a ticket for a journey to Winchester, knowing that there won't be
time to queue at Waterloo, but the office at Dunton Green is closed.
Other posters have suggested that a PTT from Dunton Green would work
all the way to Winchester.

"This permit must be upgraded to a valid ticket at the first opportunity."
according to
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_...alty_fares.htm

On some TOCs at least, a PTT is valid for only 2 hours.



In other words, despite turning up in plenty of time to get a ticket at
the start of the journey, you are forced to either miss the connection
at Waterloo or be penalty-fared. And of course, it's nothing to do
with SWT that an SET station wasn't staffed.

I face similar situations repeatedly, when travelling from south east
London to Brighton etc, having turned up at a local station in plenty
of time, and instead of a cross-platform interchange at London Bridge,
I have a long walk down to a long queue at the pathetically-staffed
ticket office there.

Until the relevant authorities put at least as much effort into making
tickets available as they do into catching people without a ticket, I
will never be on the side of RPOs. As far as I am concerned, they
should be staffing ticket offices, not blocking entrances and exits at
otherwise unstaffed stations.