Great Western Coffee Shop

While traveling to Slough on Friday night on the 19:22 HST from Paddington i was pleasantly surprised to find the overbridge ticket barriers in operation the first time i have actually seen them in use. My question is this now a regular occurance or are they only put in to operation on an ad-hoc basis?. Interestingly though many of the barriers on the suburban platforms were locked open eventhough there were plenty of staff around. As usual both of Sloughs barrier lines were in full working order.

Thanks in advance

Blimey, that is odd. They were useful in my last few visits to Paddington, no queues and ticket didn't get rejected due to what it was!

I was surprised to discover today that the barriers at Reading are very easy to get round.  I got a lift from the platform and found myself on the "landside" of the overbridge.  What is the point of barriers if they are so easy to get arround?

I know the situation at Reading is ridiculous as is Bath with its alternative exit. The staff at Exeter St Davids must also be the worst barrier staff in the country there are only 4 gates and every time i have used the station the wide gate has been left locked in the open position with the three revenue protection staff everywhere but by the open gate thus allowing anyone without a ticket free access through the barriers. I was actually shocked at how three members of staff could make such a hash of it.

At Bath there is usually someone manually checking tickets at the manual gate on teh up side and sometimes on the downside (and there are plans to remove these entrances and allow step-free access via new lifts) , but at Reading there didn't seem to be anywhere that tickets could be manually checked even if staff were available to do so (checking before entry to the lift seems a bit difficult because tehre are multiple lifts) and once you are on the public side of the overbridge you could have come from teh car park rather than the platform.  Reading has been gated for ages so I thought that they might have sorted it out by now.   

Afaik - it's only the lift between five and eight that goes landside of the gates at rdg.

Ok, don't normally bother with lifts but had lots of bags for the Railair bus to LHR and Munich

2 lifts at Reading, lift down to Platform 4 (next to 4a and 4b) and also the lift for Platform 5,6,7 and 8
Both are landside down to platform.

The lifts can be remotely controlled (which is why they sometimes have a delay) and have CCTV for the purpose that a ticket could and probably should be showed to gain access, but I have not seen this done before.

There was a sign in the lift about a possible delay but I hadn't made the connection, and if there had been a delay I would have missed my (unofficial) connection with the bus.

Maidenhead is as bad.. The newly constructed ticket barriers don't include platform 1 and are generally (in my experience) left open and unmanned. 

In fact the Saturday before last  I travelled up to London and back and could have done the whole lot without a ticket.. Although obviously I had one. Maidenhead barriers (well at least the ones on Shoppenhangers road) were open and unmanned. We came into Platform 13 at Paddington and the barriers to the main concourse were open and unmanned. This was lunchtime It was the same situation on the way home early evening..  ???

Hmm.  I rather get the impression that the staff manning those manual gates at Bath Spa are quite happy to do so - if only because they are 'outside' the station there, so the smokers among them (cough) can smoke.  Or is it pure coincidence that every time I've seen any member of staff there, they've been stubbing out a cigarette just as the train arrives, as they get ready to start checking tickets?  ::)

Having been to Exeter several times in the last couple of months - I must say that my impression was "why have barriers at all ?"
To get to the "station" cash machine you have to go out to the car park
To get into the buffet/shop you have to be "land side"
I got the impression that there were so many people who were trying to get to/from these facilities from the platforms, and whose tickets wouldn't let them out or in,  that the barrier staff had just found it easier to leave the barriers open all the time.

BTW, my ticket went through the automatic gates at Bath, wasn't checked on the train (as is the norm at the moment) , but the coach-driver had an assistant at the kerb side who was looking at then scribbling on tickets before I was let onto the coach.   

A few times I've had to go to the cashpoint at Slough (which is outside near the taxi rank) when I am changing trains there and the staff are always very happy to let me go out (I don't dare ever put my ticket in the machine). It does make me laugh though when two minutes later I reappear to the same person who let me out, and they always look surprised and as if they've never seen me before.. I guess they see so many passengers each day though so kind of makes sense

I was at Plymouth the other day, barriers shut ( :o :o :o :o), they let me out, but then a few minutes after visiting the shop refused to let me back in  ???

Odd.

Just to add to thread on the lifts at Reading, both lifts are monitored by CCTV which is viewed from the Gateline supervisors office. When the call button is pressed, a buzzer goes off in the office and the supervisor will look at the CCTV to see if the use of the lifts is justified - i.e. for prams, luggage, wheelchairs etc. If it is, they press a button which allows the lifts to be used - the cage moves to the level it is needed and the doors open. Hence the possibility of a delay. If it isn't justified - usually some oiks attempting to evade the ticket check - the lifts are not released and the oiks hang around waiting for a genuine ticket holder to come along. There is an intercom that allows the supervisor to speak to people waiting for lifts, e.g. to advise them to use the escalators and come through the gateline.

When oiks do manage to get into the lifts alongside a genuine user, they are often surprised to be met at the next level by the gateline or platform supervisor, who have monitored events and communicated by radio.

The situation is complicated by members of the public with pushchairs using the overbridge to cross from Vastern Road to the town centre, and then using the lift on platform 4 to get down to concourse level. They then approach the gates and ask to be let out without a ticket.

Its a situation that demands common sense and awareness. On the whole, it works quite well.

When the gates are unstaffed, the lifts are switched to automatic operation.

Well just to re-iterate the study I did last year when I had a season and I worked out what I COULD have gotten away with if I wanted to.....

Over the last five weeks I could have gotten away with ONE return ticket a week only a couple of one way singles in the morning.

Reason: My tickets were never gripped - except on three notable occasions - I know the trains and the times - ive been keeping a record in case anyone here doubted me!

So buy a return on the monday - the out is valid for five days - covers me to friday.  The return for a month.  The only times my tickets became invalid were when the barrier guys - on four occasions in the last five weeks - insisted on putting a hole in my ticket for me to keep it as a receipt.  When changing trains at Reading I have used the lift to avoid the bottleneck at the manned gate when going to M&S.....and they never seem to look at the ticket on the way in - quick flash of the ticket wallet and bobs your uncle.

In fact ti seems that the TM's only check the to and from stations since one morning I thought I had bought a ticket the previous week - I buy one the train on the way home for the next journey - but my plans got screwed up and I got confused.  The ticket I flashed during his inspection in fact wasnt valid!  I had bought it on the tuesday for travel on the wednesday but ended up WFH rest of the week  - by the time Monday came around, it wasnt valid.  On his next ticket check, I asked to buy a ticket - looked confused - so I explained - and he said "easy mistake to make and I didnt see the date" - hmmmmmm

Armed with the above - just what could one get away with if they are bright enough

Great in theory - except I have used it myself when getting off on six at the wrong end of the turbo and seen the masses trying to get up the escalator.......Now im fat (although not as fat as I was and getting smaller - but still fat) and usually have a back pack - but you could not look at me and say I cant use the escalator or the lift - its not a trailblazers backpack - just a large laptop one

Never not been held or met at the top.........me thinks its a flawed system - maybe  I look innocent.  I am - but I have in the last few years worked out so many ways you could play the system and get away with it - WITHOUT PROPER TICKET CHECKS ON THE TRAIN!

I think you miss the point. Its a system that relies on common sense. So, if you have not had a problem using the lift, someone has made a call which has turned out to be a good one. The staff there are not in the habit of chasing apparently genuine customers.

Of course, it is a flawed system - the gateline was installed after the bridge and lifts had been built - and anyone with a bit of nouse, which is most of the users of this site, could get round it. The point is that it works most of the time.

Anyway, it won't be for much longer. The overbridge will be an early casualty of the rebuild.

Exactly. If 0.1% of the punters are intelligent enough to work it out for themselves, or 'in the know' by reading about it on sites like this, the 99.9% who don't make whatever they get away with a drop in the ocean in terms of lost revenue. Reading's footbridge design means that the only possible solution has been adopted.

I'm I supose to be flattered that I didn't look like an oik or insulted that I looked too feeble and unfit to barry my rucksack up the escalator?

 ;)

The Reading situation will be resolved in the rebuild won't it, when the subway becomes the 'land side' north-south through route?

Paul

Is there not a direct route from the overbridge to the multi-storey car park that would bypass the barriers?

The route from the car park to the station concourse is outside the barriers completely as far as I can remember.. There is half of the overbridge within the barriers, and part outside..