Last night I travelled to Durham for a Railfuture North East committee meeting. I arrived at Morpeth at 17:15, just leaving myself enough time to buy a ticket from the machine for the 17:19 train. But the process was way more complicated than I envisaged. Durham is not a pre-selectable station so I had to type it in. Then the software asked me what train I was travelling on, but didn’t list the 17:19. It then offered me a ticket “valid for trains after 17:20”. I was astonished. An off-peak return is an off-peak return. Surely I could get any train? The station CIS wasn’t working (yet again). Perhaps the TVM knew something I didn’t – that the 17:19 was cancelled? If that were the case, I wouldn’t make the meeting and wouldn’t travel at all so didn’t need a ticket. I quickly tried to check on my phone. Another passenger came along and started to fume behind me so I explained what I was doing. But he told me he had already checked; the train was running – just a few minutes late. So why, at 17:15, is the TVM only providing a ticket for services after 17:20? I quickly selected the next train (different operator) and lo and behold my off-peak return came out – valid on any train. Come on Northern, this TVM software is way too complicated. If even I can’t figure it out, what hope for other passengers?
Returning to Durham for the 20.22 CrossCountry back to Morpeth (with 3 Railfuture committee colleagues), we found that the train before, the 20:16 LNER, was an Azuma service. We couldn’t resist the temptation, and all climbed excitedly on board, even though it would mean another change at Newcastle for those going to Morpeth or Berwick. Although we only had 15 minutes on the Azuma, it did look and feel very pleasant and I hope to get a longer ride soon. However, we were baffled by the onboard CIS. On arrival at Newcastle, it invited us to change for Bishop Auckland. Had the train overshot Darlington? Better advice might have been to find a hotel. But worse was to come. The exterior CIS, visible from the platform, advised us the train was going forward to Edinburgh stopping at Alnmouth, Dunbar and Abbeyhill Junction! Colleague Alison Cosgrove, Director of Railfuture Scotland, was most impressed. That’s another re-opening to clock up, as apparently the station closed in the 1960s, (re-opening briefly for the 1986 Commonwealth Games). No time to photo the strange announcement as we had to hurry over to platform 4 for the following CrossCountry service we had intended to board at Durham. But pity any tourist, perhaps a Hitachi employee visiting from Japan, who expects CIS information to be correct, and relies on it, finding it easier to understand than the spoken announcements.
The other comment to make about my journey to Durham is not once was I asked to show my tickets. Not on the outgoing CrossCountry train to Durham, nor at Durham station in either the outward or return directions (barrier gates here have recently been removed), nor on the short Azuma or CrossCountry trains home. Perhaps I didn’t need to fumble about with the ticket machine after all? No. seriously, it’s annoying, but SENRUG’s position is that passengers should always buy the correct ticket before travel if it is possible to do so. We don’t support ticketless travel, even though the operators, through their casual attitude, sometimes seem to.
