Great Western Coffee Shop

It looks like London Midland are going to expand their penalty fares scheme from 1st October.

It's now going to cover unstaffed stations between B'ham and Worcester/Shrewsbury from 1st October.

How are they implementing it? By dropping unrefurbished ex- Network South East Permit to Travel machines (taken from Govia's Southern area when TVMs were put in) at the unstaffed stations.

What happens if:

*I only have notes or cards?
*People just put in 5p
*The machines are vandalised.

Why not install TVMs and CCTV?

Can we have a source for this information please?

http://www.londonmidland.com/tickets-and-fares/penalty-fares/

Then click link, downloading the revised Penalty Fare leaflet.

As you can see, stations such as Hartlebury and Blakedown are included.

The leaflet also states that stations without a ticket office or TVM will have Permit to Travel machines installed.

Taking those questions in order:

1. You definitely need at least a 5p coin.
2. Just putting in a 5p coin to get a permit to travel is entirely legitimate. The precise wording is "all the coins in your possession" but staff do not have the authority to search you. This is one of the reasons that PERTIS machines have fallen out of favour - theoretically you can travel for up to 2 hours only paying 5p without doing anything wrong if you do not have the opportunity to purchase a ticket in that time.
3. Same as anywhere else - a penalty fare cannot be charged if there are no ticket issuing facilities at the station where you start your journey. That includes machines being out of service or vandalized.