And seeing as 90% of tickets including complex ones are purchased online where you have a chance to compare prices and routes, book easily in advance to get the best deal and voids the lottery of whether the station you go to has a manned ticket office and its open I dont really see a problem.

Driverless trains next please.

Must be nice in your world.

Except the online sellers don’t give you the best deal.

E.g. they won’t split a ticket, even though the site advertises ‘split-save’. This is because the fares are ludicrously complicated. Some old crusty rail enthusiast with 40yrs knowledge will beat any online seller every time.

It’s about saving money and releasing the property for commercial investment (retail). Very short-sighted and not required or demanded by passengers.

Some old crusty rail enthusiast with 40yrs knowledge will beat any online seller every time.

While that would be great in reality an online site could easily calculate every possible permutation along with the cost in a very short amount of time. Sorry but ticket offices are past their sell by date. I’d even argue the days of lots of automated ticket machines are numbered.

The consumer websites do not always give you the best deal. Some don’t even have access to the full range of tickets.

UK rail fares need to be made simpler. We don’t need to be left to ‘figure it out for ourselves’

At least with a ticket office you can interrogate the member of staff, who has access to all the options. I just don’t see the massive benefit apart from being able to stuff a concourse with shops instead. The stations (and ticket offices) should remain in the public sector. They also provide a sense of security for vulnerable passengers.

What you’ll end up with is a couple of people milling about with basic ticket machines. No backup. It’s a shit idea.

The government should be investing in better rail infrastructure like electrification and replacing victorian architecture to accomodate larger trains.

While that would be great in reality an online site could easily calculate every possible permutation along with the cost in a very short amount of time. Sorry but ticket offices are past their sell by date. I’d even argue the days of lots of automated ticket machines are numbered.

Yet currently if you travel to Glasgow before 9.59am from Dunblane, all the online sellers or ticket machines could sell anyone with a Railcard a ticket that’s under the minimum amount and leads to a fine. Ask me how I know.

While that would be great in reality an online site could easily calculate every possible permutation along with the cost in a very short amount of time. 

While that may be true in reality not every passenger is literate, tech-enabled, online or robotic enough to punch in exactly the right detail that enables a **** website to calculate and sell you the right ticket…even if it knew how.

A guy in a ticket booth saved me hundreds of pounds on return tickets London-Edinburgh, and that was after I’d spent hours pissing around online trying to find the cheapest tickets.

I’m very anti-social but sometimes you just want to speak to a human that can point you in the right direction.

Ask me how I know.

Did you buy an off peak mega saver intranetwork unaccompanied dog owner ticket without making a seat reservation 36 hours in advance?

As I’ve said before, it’s the fare structure which needs reform, not the way they’re sold.

Sorry but ticket offices are past their sell by date.

I tend to agree. I’ve used a ticket office twice in the last 20 years. First time they tried to charge me a penalty fare because the machine at the starting station was broken; the second time they sold me the most expensive ticket possible. Even the guard on the train told me that the same journey could be completed at less than half the price.

Ticket machines are deliberately confusing, in my opinion, to generate maximum revenue. That’s an easy fix.

Don’t know enough about train staff / drivers etc to comment.

That’s not an issue, it’s complete cobblers.

Pay rises don’t disadvantage the lower paid.

Just back to this @politecameraaction – missed your answer and you missed one very important character. I said % pay rises, the point being it’s absolute £’s that matter, not what % people get.

As for the ticket offices. Ticket machines are in general great in my opinion, as long as you are reasonably e-literate and know what you want. As soon as you depart from that (and not meant to be a criticism about e-literacy, particularly among the more elderly) then they can be difficult. So now couple forcing those that will find it harder, trying to work out what they want and then having to cancel back out and start over, etc….. and suddenly ticket machines don’t work very well for those behind no matter how easily they can use them.

It’s not just a ‘ticket office’, it’s manned stations, which mean you have access to information, support, safety, etc, as for online ticket sales, last two times i’ve done London trips i’ve saved by going to a ticket office and asking in person a couple of weeks beforehand.

The sad fact is we’re losing our rail infrastructure a little at a time, all at the same time as we’re throwing tens of billions at HS2, a vanity project that could have paid to update the entire network to reduce delays from the decaying system that’s currently in place.

🤣