Great Western Coffee Shop

Me and a friend occasionally make journey's such as Bath Spa - Bristol Temple Meads, As I have a Disabled Railcard, we both get the discount.

As I don't live in Bath I have to make onward an Onward Journey. Now my friend does live in Bath and the question I have is this.

Do I need to escort him off of railway property, or can he get of the train, and I stay on train for the onward journey?

99% of the time, I would get off the train and walk him to the bus stop or the Abbey Taxi Rank. But the remaining 1% of the time, is because we're on the last train of the evening. In this situation, could he be fined for not being able to produce the railcard upon trying to leave Bath Spa Station? I know the likelyhood of getting checked that late at night is highly unlikely, and he would be prepared to cover the costs anyhow. But was just a query! :)

Regards,

TT ;D

"You must carry your Railcard with you on your journey and when asked by rail staff, you must show a valid ticket and a valid Railcard."
(Disabled Railcard  Ts & Cs)

I suppose it depends on the definition of "journey".  Does it end/start when the passenger enters the station or boards/leaves the train - or when  ?

You could perhaps provide him with a photocopy of your card, so he could show that when explaining these circumstances, if he is ever challenged?  :)

Last train of the evening? Highly unlikely that the barrier will be manned.

However, having no Railcard or a photocopy could leave your friend open to having to pay a full fare or even prosecution if he was unlucky enough to encounter any revenue protection staff. They could show discretion, but equally they would be perfectly entitled to issue a full fare or seek prosecution, despite the excuse.

use the gate next to the Car Park?

Officially, you should have the railcard until you are through the barriers.

Whether you are checked/barriers open/leave via a different route is another matter  :)

I don't know what barriers do with DSB-discounted tickets, but in my experience absolutely all of the time they are programmed to accept Y-P discounted tickets without question. If that was also the case for DSB-discounted tickets and the barriers were operating, that avoids the potential problem.

I'll admit it's a slightly grey area in terms of legitimacy though. It's just occurred to me reading this thread that a few times I've made trips on GPS-4 tickets with friends who lived in and around Bristol, they've left and I've carried on the train back to Oxford. Now, our travel was completely legitimate as we stayed together as a group between the stations indicated on the GroupSave ticket but I suppose technically they could have been challenged if leaving the station without me.

It does concern me slightly though that the onus seems to be on the passenger to prove that they have made the journey legitimately, not on the train company to prove that abuse has occurred.

Really - because at slough - my Y-P were always referred..........always got through the human gate

But at Reading, they never are

Different programming for different gates?

Yes, At Oxford they selectively blocked all Carnet tickets for approx 6 months, had to queue to hand them over. Then they removed the block for leaving Oxford, then finally removed the block for arriving at Oxford.

They had proof on Carnet abuse - being used more than once & wanted to check how many people were abusing the system.

Chris,

Yes they explained this and said it would be for a few weeks, as I said it lasted almost 6 months!

The arriving in Oxford barrier was set up to swallow the ticket, so these carnets were not a problem yet they still insisted on collecting them by hand.

It was more widespread than first thought.....

Barriers can be programmed to accept/refer all sorts, e.g. all Child tickets can be referred.

When gates are first installed, they are sometimes programmed to accept ANY ticket, once customers have got used to using them they become gradually more strict in what they allow.  If they were in "STRICT MODE" from day one the they would cause too much work for the staff manning them and delays for passengers. 

Not strictly true, they try and avoid putting them on "Accept all" from day one as by doing this the ticket isn't kept by the gates, thus the customers would get used to their tickets being returned. The gates can be programmed to do many things, like reject Y-P railcards, forces railcards, they can block tickets from certain stations, certain ticket types.
I've seen RPI's at Exeter st Davids have the gates to reject tickets from St Thomas when they've had RPI's at St Thomas so that they can catch people buying "short tickets".

How do you prove that?  Would seem to be very difficult to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that someone arriving at ESD with a ticket from EST did not infact travel from EST without looking at CCTV footage etc.  If the RPI didn't see you go through the gate at EST, how can he prove you didn't go past him when his back was turned or arrive at EST on another ticket. 

I know it isn't a FGW station, but in November the newly installed (and unmanned) automatic gates at Darlington were set to "accept all".  A sign was posted next to them admitting this and saying that it was done in order to test the gates and get customers used to using them.   The Darlington gates were of a slightly different design to the other ones I've seen.  They looked cheap and nasty to me and were very slow opening. 

Hmm. Obviously progress with the barriers at Darlington is a little slow then - they were set to exactly the same thing when I last visited in mid-August!

There are no gates at EXT  :)

I thought that RPI's were put at EXT so people then trying to buy tickets at EXD were caught as they would have had to have bought one from the RPIs.

Excuse me for hijacking this thread, but I thought it would be best to ask this here as we're on the subject of railcards.

I've got a YP Railcard which I know lasts until I am 25. I was born on April 5 1985, so will be 25 next month, but my current railcard expires on Sunday (March 7).

Now, excuse me if I am not thinking straight, but as my birthday is a month after the renewal date of the railcard, when would I lose entitlement to it? It does say on the form that I can use the railcard even if I am 26 as long as it was issued when I was 25, so am I correct in thinking I would lose entitlement to it a month before my 27th birthday?

You lose the entitlement on the date shown on the railcard, even if you become 26 before this date.  The only exception is if you are a full time student - then you can renew the card.

So in your case, provided you renew the railcard before you become 26, it will be valid for a whole year from the date of renewal.

Indeed - I renewed my YP Railcard online in December and it is valid until 2 days after my 27th birthday!