On 6 Mar 2007 05:00:54 -0800, "Andrea" wrote:

I have travelled several times on the Silverlink Gospel Oak to Barking
service in the past fortnight. What has shocked me is the apparent
large-scale fare evasion on this route.

There is always a guard present on the train but he/she never
materialises to check tickets. I have heard dozens of people say that
they never buy tickets as there is no deterrent factor (many stations
are open and unstaffed, e.g. Leytonstone High Road). Access from the
overground to the underground at Blackhorse Road os open, so anybody
can access the underground without a ticket.

It really annoys me when Silverlink seems to be doing nothing about
this. Talking to several fare-paying regulars on this line,
ticketless travel is rife. Northbound trains in the morning also tend
to be cancelled, leaving many customers unable to board at
imtermediate stations, such as Leytonstone, due to the 2 carriage
train being full.

I imagine Silverlink have taken the view that as they are losing the
service they will simply keep it ticking over until handover. I imagine
they have no incentive to really pursue revenue protection given that
most of the stations are unmanned (they only staff Gospel Oak directly,
Bhr Rd is LU and Barking is C2C). I'd also guess that all of their
costs are covered either by franchise payments or TfL "top up" payments
for the extra peak, evening and Sunday services that run. As the line is
unlikely ever to make a profit they have probably adopted a "no minimum"
philosophy.

Years ago the guards did wander through the trains checking tickets but
stations are quite close together which makes it something of a slog to
keep returning to the back cab to control the doors.

Not heard about trains being cancelled on a regular basis though. It
used to be awful with the old slam door trains but they were on their
absolute last legs so it was perhaps understandable if nonetheless very
irritating if you were delayed in consequence.

I hope tFL will take a hard line on the revenut side of things when
they take over this line later this year.

As I understand TfL are taking the revenue risk on the North London
Railway concession they may well take a different line on revenue
matters. However I would argue they have a big task to get these
stations upgraded to the point where ticket selling could actually take
place at most of them and where there'd be decent staff accommodation.
They may simply put in portacabins as a first step which may well help
but the layout of the stations is not what I'd call particularly
convenient even for that approach. I very much doubt you'd see ticket
gates going in but I might be proved wrong on that score.

It will be interesting to see what actually happens to this line. The
plans are fine in theory but Network Rail have to spend money to sort
out the decaying bridges and viaducts before you can get any real
performance out of the line. It's currently very slow due to
infrastructure restrictions on the western part of the line. I just
don't see this line being the priority given the pressures to raise
capacity on the North London Line and to build the ELLX.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!