Great Western Coffee Shop

For those who don't know Thatcham ( THA) is one of those small stations that doesn't have any ticket barriers and some local journeys on te Kennet line are often frequented by passengers who know the system and tat by alighting and disembarking at certain stations they can avoid paying for travel

As a regular paying customer this does annoy me but even I was surprised to the ticket checkers out in force on the westbound platform last night. I estimate there must have been about 5 fgw staff and at least another 2 q4s staff. I do remember this happening a couple of years ago and I also remember on that occasion one particular customer being particularly troublesome

Although at of passengers (including myself) had probably put their tickets away for the night it was a minor inconvenience to have them checked

It was probably coincidence that a group of travellers had started to occupy some land about half a mile from the station !

If the ticket machine at THA actually worked more than 5% of the time I'm sure that would increase the % of people actually paying to travel between the stations where there are no barriers/staff on the Kennet (B & H) Line  >:(

Saying that, I have also seen a few occasions (during the hours when the Ticket Office is closed) recently where a human replacement has been stood by the machine when it's u/s, but this obviously cannot happen all the time.