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What's the policy of evicting under 18's from a train?
Well behaved.
Do they have a ticket?
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People don't often get kicked off trains unless they've done something..
Vague post is vague.
under 18's from a train?
Rail bait.
Do they have a ticket?
No. But neither did the four adults the guard sold tickets to before asking four kids to get off train, before it departed, and then left without them...
Seems odd, lots of stations don't have ticket buying facilities, in which case it's perfectly normal to buy the ticket on the train.
Did they slowly parcel out bits of info and the guard just got annoyed and kicked them off?
Vague post is vague.
You're right.
School trip.
Teacher didn't meet kids at departure station (Dunblane), hadn't told them exact destination station in Edinburgh, hadn't given them her mobile.
The ten pupils all arrived, jumped in train as it was cold and due to depart. As usual at Dunblane the ticket office wasn't open, and machine had a small queue waiting already.
Pupils thought 'no problem, we will buy on train'.
Guard gets on, starts selling tickets. Then arrives at first four pupils, tells them to get off and buy tickets at machine despite them all wallet in hand.
Lads dutifully get off, queue at machine. Train departs as first boy gets ticket.
Cue a half hour wait for next train, teacher then meeting the four lads at Edinburgh station, having joined train at Stirling, and departed before she realised they were four short.
I'm on good terms with school and understand well the schools/teachers mistakes here. I teach teachers to do field trips and outdoors.
I'm as / more concerned that it was deemed ok to boot juvenile's off, knowing train would leave, while serving adults tickets....
- from section 6
Report it in writing to the train operating company, usually on BTP have the authority to stop or remove persons from a train, unless theyre drunk then they will be refused travel
Yeah, I would report it too.
That’s not very nice behaviour and should be reported upon.
Get your facts right, detail, report.
Tickets should have been preordered by the school.. However that's a side issue...
I think that's complaint worthy, plenty of times I've been in a rush and purchased a ticket on the train or even at my destination station.
Train staff clearly being dicks, especially with minors.
Tickets should have been preordered by the school
This costs a lot more in Scotland for this class, as every over 16 is entitled to two free kids tickets under 16. The class are a mix of 15, 16 and 17 years old, and for the last few years all the kids at the right age play the cheap ticket shade cost game on Scotrail. You can't do this easily as a group preorder. 🙄
Did I mention the train has ace wifi everywhere up here too! 🙂
cheap ticket shade cost game on Scotrail
Does this game happen every time with the same conductor? Whilst it isn't an acceptable excuse it might explain the rationale for wanting them to do it on a machine.....
usually on BTP have the authority to stop or remove persons from a train, unless theyre drunk then they will be refused travel
The thing is when the guard tells you to get off, then well behaved polite people get off, even if the guard actually had no authority to kick them off. It would be interesting to hear the other side of this as unaccompanied minors travel on that line all the time. I suspect the guard thought he was stopping them ending up at the wrong station in the city with no teacher and a bigger problem. However its possible someone said something that upset the guard!
I would say this, it's my son, but that four are some of the best behaved, polite and well balanced teens in Scotland....I'm sure they have potty mouths at times, but find it hard to believe that on a train... (And I've spent days loitering around them and following them on DofE)
Oh you are dreaming. If the wifi is turned on, then a significant amount of time you can't connect to it, and even when you can its definitely not "ace" - more like one 3g connection shared between each carriage.Did I mention the train has ace wifi everywhere up here too!
I'd definitely want to know why the differing treatment to a group of young people as opposed to adults.
I think guards get sick of youngsters opting not to buy a ticket when facilities are available with a view to avoiding paying. Without researching I seem to recall the option to purchase on the train was more for when ticket purchasing facilities weren't available/open at the boarding station. I don't recall the weather being a factor.
You need a valid ticket to travel, same as any UK train service, which means either sorting it beforehand or being organised enough to turn up early in case of queues. If the youngsters aren’t responsible enough, it’s up to the teachers/parents. It’s not like they were stranded miles from home at night & missed the last train.
sounds bad on the face of it, but not being there to see it there’s no way of knowing why this happened unfortunately!I'd definitely want to know why the differing treatment to a group of young people as opposed to adults
On the bright side it’s a free life lesson, even if it’s “don’t give a jobsworth train guard any excuse to act like a dick”
School sounded quite amateur there, but the train ticket person was definitely out of order
Also, yeah, very shoddy from school. Presumably they have a policy for school trips, which is not being followed here?
You need a valid ticket to travel, same as any UK train service, which means either sorting it beforehand or being organised enough to turn up early in case of queues. If the youngsters aren’t responsible enough, it’s up to the teachers/parents. It’s not like they were stranded miles from home at night & missed the last train.
Got to have some sympathy for the kids here. Ticket machines are a PITA to use, in general.
Wonky touchscreens, stupidly slow, and only offering the most expensive peak tickets on the front page. I loathe using the one at my local station as it takes at least 3 times as long as buying from the guard and prints out about 6 "tickets" that aren't actually tickets. Repeat x 4.
I believe it has been the case that guards could not sell discounted tickets on the train, so juniors might have to get a ticket at the machine to pay their correct fare. No idea if that applies in this case, or now at all, but I did get caught up in a similar way many many years ago when student - though being suitably bolshie I did not get off the train - I was on the way to a job interview and would have missed it if I had!
Deep red Dave/Zoloft/captain,
There is no compulsion to buy a ticket before boarding a Scotrail train (as this was) unless the station is manned (which this apparently was not).
Most Scotrail machines only take cards (not cash) now and so children may find it especially difficult to use. I don’t know if the “kids go free” option Matt referred to is available at a machine.
Firstly, the school has to take some of the flak here for being so badly organised. The tickets should have been sorted out BY the teacher beforehand and given to the children the day before.
Secondly, given tickets were not provided in advance the children should have been at the station much earlier to sort their tickets out.
Thirdly, the guard probably gets this sort of thing quite a lot where teens just waltz onto the train with no intention of purchasing a ticket.
If there are ticket issuing facilities available to purchase tickets at a astation, you are supposed to use them. Saying there was a queue doesn't really cut it.
I find the idea of a queue at Dunblane station quite laughable, never remember more than a handful of folk at a time even when we were let out for the weekend.
That said, its amazing how slow people are when they get to atms, ticket machines etc. You would think they had been surprised by them sometimes!
If you can walk on a train without going through the ticket barriers, like at the bigger stations you can buy tickets on it, they usually charge you the peak fare for doing so though unless you got on at an unmanned station.
Can't really see why the ticket seller onboard would ask them to get off...
That said, its amazing how slow people are when they get to atms, ticket machines etc.
Given how well some of the Scotrail ticket machines work, it isn't amazing at all.