If the ToC advertises that certain methods of payment are available then the passenger should be free to use whichever of those methods they choose to use - and their obligation to buy a ticket should be at the earliest possible opportunity that their chose method is available....
Can you show me where it says a passenger can quite legitimately walk past a working ticket machine, or open ticket office, and board a train without a ticket (other than where a TOC allows payment on the train) if they have a method payment that is accepted by that machine, or ticket office, but which the passenger
chooses not to use?
....I see nothing the the NCoC or railway law that says that you must use your card to buy a ticket just because a ToC has put it's shareholders profits above adequately staffing its stations.
Erm, the NRCoC says that where there is a facility to buy a ticket you must do so before boarding a train, unless a TOC states that you can buy ticket onboard. If a ticket machine is provided, a facility exists to buy a ticket. Granted there is nothing specific in regards to the shareholders profits or staffing levels, but I don't really think that is necessary.
Equally, they have no powers to tell you to empty your pockets anyway to prove you don't have any cash if you only offer a valid credit card as the means of payment - if they can't process it then they can't accuse you are fare evasion. It should only be a problem if you knowing hand over a card you know won't work!
Quite possibly, but then if you open up your wallet to get your card and the guard sees there is a twenty sitting there, your line about not having cash is exposed as a lie.
It will be when it shows up in the Daily Fail that 87-year old Lucinda from Sheerness-on-Sea was left stranded at Sittingbourne with no money to get home!
Ah yes, good old trial by media, the last bastion of "a victim of an evil railway empire". Since when do the tabloid media need an excuse to have a go at the railway?