On Nov 15, 7:13 pm, Mizter T wrote:


Sounds distinctly like a ticket selling problem at Watford Junction.
It really sounds as though London Midland need to pull their finder
out and provide better facilities here, like more staff and more
ticket machines.


To be fair to London Midland, I've never bought a ticket at WJ since
they took over and with both LU and LM now operating from WJ there may
be more staff available. I've typically had the worst problems on a
Sunday when the travel centre is closed and there is often just one
open window. At least now when I'm travelling with people who have a
mainline connection to make at KX provided we leave enough time to
catch the DC line we'll have an option (although, of course, the
decision will have to be made based on the queue length. I've had some
anxious times when I've been the next person in the queue and it's
taken the person infront of me 15 minutes to organize their tickets.)

The ticket machines are extremely unreliable as well and won't sell
tickets for travelling with a gold card holder. (One of the two
machines at Euston near the 8-11 platform barrier will do this, the
other won't so it's clearly possible "under the rules". IIRC the one
that will do this won't accept cash.

There's no chance of it happening either - TfL are very
keen to push Oyster PAYG (and hence daily price capping) on to the
railways, and your proposal would counteract that effort.


I'm resigned to the fact that you're probably correct. After all, if
it was going to happen it would already have happened. However, I'm a
bit resentful of the fact that I'm being used as a pawn in the
political battles between LU and the TOCs.

OTOH, at least for myself, I'm hopeful I'll be able to have my gold
card on oyster soon (obviously this wasn't possible prior to WJ
accepting oyster at all). 99% of the time I'm travelling with a
bicycle so I have to go through the manual barrier but occasionally I
don't have the bike with me and I'm always frustrated how difficult it
can be to get the ticket out of the wallet in order to put it through
the barrier - especially if you've arrived at the station with a train
in a couple of minutes and you've got gloves on.

I've wondered whether it would be possible[1] to have a ticket that
keeps the automatic barriers open for longer - the staff have a ticket
that opens the barrier and it doesn't close again, occasionally I'm
let through the barrier like that and generally it's slower going
through the manual gate because there are also all the people with
invalid tickets trying to get through but a ticket that would hold
open the barrier for 10 or 15 seconds after it would normally close
would probably be sufficient.
It's also frustrating that the manual gate at Euston is on the wrong
side so (although you can't enter the underground here at the moment)
you get the cyclists trying to get out of the station crossing paths
with the passengers going through the barriers trying to get to the
underground. I suppose it's to keep the manual gate by the ticket
office.

[1] Technically possible - I'm absolutely certain that nobody would be
prepared to issue tickets that actually did this.

Tim.