Yet when my tickets with a railcard discount have been rejected at barriers I have never been asked to produce the railcard. Often the barriers have just been opened without the operator even looking at the ticket. I see others have encountered the same.Almost certainly this - it's an opportunity for a human to see the railcard. And yes, it's infuriating and clunky.
You'd think with most operators using barcoded returns & period tickets with ticketer machines it would be able to print a rail barcode, tbh the staff at Derby are good at letting you past had a few times where they've let me grab a Greggs as Cross-country have pulled a Cross-country on me (canned my train) or have a longer connection.I've had problems with my regular run (Snow Hill lines - Derby route) in the past, but I think it has been fixed now. And possibly more so at Snow Hill than New Street.
Worse than this is the bus/rail Derbyshire Wayfarer (as purchased on a bus) which doesn't have a scanny thing to work the barriers in the first place! But the gateline staff at Derby have happily let me through
Not all gates display a code.On the gates themselves there will be a display which will have a two or three digit code; you can compare that to these lists to see the problem.
Yes variations on this are common.What's really annoying is when you know from previous (very recent) experience that your ticket won't work the barrier, so you head to the manual gate which the gateline assistant is already holding open for someone else and they just look at you and your ticket and patronisingly point and nod towards the barriers, completely deny your claim that it won't work, take the ticket from you and try to put it through the barrier themselves, only to be denied, and then just reply with "Oh, you're right." before eventually handing back your ticket and opening the gate (which they were holding open at the start of the whole exchange) just causing unnecessary delay.
Hello and welcome to Birmingham New Street where due to a delay you have just 3 minutes to make a connection across 5 platforms and two sets of ticket barriers to hurdle with the second never letting you through due to a pass back timer.'Pass back' codes often appear when doing a perfectly normal thing of passing through the barriers, buying a snack at a station outlet and then returning to continue the journey. In such circumstances I have more than once been told "you have come back too soon" - nonsense, there is no minimum time limit specified in any relevant Terms or Conditions.
Cubic Gates do, S&B don’t (they display a reason, the reason list being in the first list that I linked to in the post you quoted). Given the OP said the barrier tells him to “seek attention,” he will be using Cubic gates; the actual wording being “seek assistance” but this is nothing like what S&B gates say.Not all gates display a code.
B end use the B end!Hello and welcome to Birmingham New Street where due to a delay you have just 3 minutes to make a connection and two sets of ticket barriers to hurdle with the second never letting you through due to a pass back timer.
Makes me wonder if the different zones' (red, green, blue, purgatory, Aztec) barriers aren't aware they're in different zones and think you've done something you shouldn't.
The public do not need telling to be attention seekersthe barrier tells him to “seek attention,”
I'll learn one dayB end use the B end!
If your train arrives at the A end and the connection also departs from the A end going right down to the B end bridge can cause you to miss it as I found on Saturday. I only did this becuase of previous 'pass back' problems at the A end but the walk to the B end was further than I remembered.B end use the B end!
I really don't understand the point of the barriers at Manchester Piccadilly, they were half installed on request of Virgin Trains and now they just have rude Northern employees that rudely grab your ticket and inspect it like you've robbed a ticket office. Always a pain when wanting to grab a snack or drink on the concourse and return. Half the time the same person will check your ticket when leaving and entering like you're a completely different person.The barriers at Manchester Piccadilly are so rude, always glad when it's a machine instead.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's been a related thread on the topic of the ticket gates at Piccadilly in the last week.I really don't understand the point of the barriers at Manchester Piccadilly, they were half installed on request of Virgin Trains and now they just have rude Northern employees that rudely grab your ticket and inspect it like you've robbed a ticket office. Always a pain when wanting to grab a snack or drink on the concourse and return. Half the time the same person will check your ticket when leaving and entering like you're a completely different person.
I know you don'tThe public do not need telling to be attention seekers
It's ridiculous - they should have installed barriers across the whole line. It's a Network Rail station too so I'm unsure why they've only half bothered with it. Who pays the rent-o-thugs anyway?I really don't understand the point of the barriers at Manchester Piccadilly, they were half installed on request of Virgin Trains and now they just have rude Northern employees that rudely grab your ticket and inspect it like you've robbed a ticket office. Always a pain when wanting to grab a snack or drink on the concourse and return. Half the time the same person will check your ticket when leaving and entering like you're a completely different person.
Remember if you're drawing attention to yourself by photographing trains, just bore anyone who asks with information, they'll eventually regret asking and do anything possible to move themselves onI know you don't
I suspect it being a network rail station is the problem, network rail don't run gate lines/revenue proection.It's ridiculous - they should have installed barriers across the whole line. It's a Network Rail station too so I'm unsure why they've only half bothered with it.
I would assume they are paid for by the TOCs whose names feature on their Uniforms. TPE for the low numered platforms, Avanti for the middle platforms and Northern for the high numbered platforms.Who pays the rent-o-thugs anyway?
Exiting Guildford station on Wednesday reminded me that there was one such occasion, which was when there was a big revenue check at Guildford with lots of RPIs and BTP present. Then my ticket was refused by the gate, and as soon as "seek assistance" came up, one of the RPIs asked to check my railcard before letting me through manually."Theoretically" being the operative word. I've quite often had to get a manual check when my ticket has been rejected by a gateline. The majority of my tickets in the last decade have been valid only with a railcard, and yet I can't recall ever having been asked to show that. (It's always in my ticket wallet, but I have to take the ticket out of that to feed it through the gate reader).
Not so much gate memory which is cheap nowadays, but the fairly limited basic info held on the magnetic strip.There's only so much "memory" in the gate systems and rovers don't work as normal day tickets do.
Yes - including once when I accidentally pulled out my Plymouth to Exeter for the next week instead of the ticket I was travelling on!I suspect they'll work at Birmingham New Street! Anything seems to work there.
Submit a complaint and follow it up for answers and action.Every single day that I have travelled in these last two weeks, my ticket doesn't work at Guildford or at London Waterloo. I travel with a 16-25 railcard, sometimes weekdays and sometimes weekends.
This has become extremely annoying because the long queue for the manned gates can mean I don't get a seat. In one case, I actually missed the train. The worst part is often the staff aren't even checking the tickets/railcard and just wave me through, so if this is a deliberate move by SWR, then it's rather pointless.
I've checked with tickets bought straight from the machines, so it's not the magstripe getting affected by cards in my wallet or something.
Either SWR are doing this deliberately and it's really annoying, or there's a mistake in the gatelines for railcard discounted tickets that they need to fix.
Same here once when I pulled the (apparently valid) Willington to Birmingham via Derby trick and the 'XC-lite' service was wreckage. The staff member even said, "there's a pub opposite", to which I replied, "there's a better one just down the road " They've even let me out to buy a ticket when I've commenced an outward journey from Willington*. No complaints from me!tbh the staff at Derby are good at letting you past had a few times where they've let me grab a Greggs as Cross-country have pulled a Cross-country on me (canned my train) or have a longer connection.
Indeed I shall complain next week, and keep this thread updated with any responses.Submit a complaint and follow it up for answers and action.
That TVM got me into trouble at University and had to pay more, recently as its one of them card only ones, XC don't manage any stations so it's same at the next stop down Burton but that's going green now as the paint is peeling.!
*Willington now has a TVM, so I don't know if things have changed. Being an EMR station (although not served by their trains) the machine is purple but it doesn't have its top formed into the shape of an 'M'. They missed a trick there...
I am sorry to hear you have encountered issues whilst at Manchester Victoria using the ticket barriers. We are aware not all tickets are recognised by the readers at the barriers but I can assure you your comments have been logged. They will be fed back to the wider company to highlight the issues our customers are experiencing.
Don’t put tickets in the same pocket as keys . . .
Learnt that lesson the hard way with a 3 day pass for the Paris Metro denying me access to a station - problem made worse as I had to find a station with a manned ticket office to get a replacement pass
Guy behind the glass fronted ticket office asked, “keys with ticket” ? Oui I replied, he raised his eyebrows, shook his head & leant back in his chair
Is this common at stations? I suspect this is the case at Guildford where my ticket has been rejected every single time.They might have the gates set to reject railcard discounted tickets for checking.
It’s not that unusual. There‘s many previous references to it in this forum, perhaps due to the numbers of people ‘forgetting‘ to renew their railcards, or not actually having one in the first place.Is this common at stations? I suspect this is the case at Guildford where my ticket has been rejected every single time.
I posted about this recently in another thread which was closed before I had a chance to post an update.Every single day that I have travelled in these last two weeks, my ticket doesn't work at Guildford or at London Waterloo. I travel with a 16-25 railcard, sometimes weekdays and sometimes weekends.
This has become extremely annoying because the long queue for the manned gates can mean I don't get a seat. In one case, I actually missed the train. The worst part is often the staff aren't even checking the tickets/railcard and just wave me through, so if this is a deliberate move by SWR, then it's rather pointless.
I've checked with tickets bought straight from the machines, so it's not the magstripe getting affected by cards in my wallet or something.
Either SWR are doing this deliberately and it's really annoying, or there's a mistake in the gatelines for railcard discounted tickets that they need to fix.