Problems with buying tickets/seat reservations in advance after 6:00pm (Paddington and elsewhere)

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

A while ago now, there was an extremely helpful young man in the Thames Valley ticket office at Paddington ... 

Amateur mistake. He still works there from time to time.

On the contrary: I chose my words very carefully.  The Thames Valley ticket office at Paddington closed on 15 November 2008. 

[LiskeardRich]

From the horse's mouth

No need to accuse this person of being a horse either.

Or before you know it they will be in a burger 

[EBrown]

I could patiently explain to you the difference between using an idiom and accusing someone of making an 'amateur mistake' but I think I may just be doing this:

Oh dear; you've taken this far too seriously. Don't hit your head too hard.

[Ollie]

I guess I should give a little bit of a timeline, I don't have exact dates to hand.

May 2006 - Ollie joins FGW^▸ (First Great Western) at the London & Thames Valley Ticket Office at Paddington
November 2008 - The LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) ticket office closes whilst I am on Holiday. I return from holiday and do some work in what was the Customer Reception in front of platform 2 and 3.
June 2009 - Get put on a brief secondment to provide some support to the "putting customers first" training course
September 2009 - Secondment ends, go back to customer reception, during this time customer reception closes and staff moved to help desks under departure screens. I then get moved to Advance travel but occasionally found in tickets for today or on help desk if required (bit of a jack of all trades)
May 2012 - Present: Seconded to Social Media

Hope this helps settle anything between you all..

[thetrout]

From the horse's mouth

No need to accuse this person of being a horse either.

Or before you know it they will be in a burger 

Being a Vegetarian since before I was born... I really, really shouldn't find that funny... But I've just spluttered my coffee across the desk through laughing! Thanks. Cheered me up no end that has!

Also my nickname of veggiesaurus has been recently been changed following the purchase of a new livery by ladyfriend trout:

[grahame]

OK ... Thanks to Ollie, I have an answer to the original question:

Paddington has an exclusion in the agreement under "Schedule 17" ...

There are different staff / rosters in the two offices, with different training  and

My experience with the staff in tickets for today is: If they knew how to do the ticket you were after then they would ...

Thanks, that clarifies it for me.  My understanding that if there's a manned ticket facility open, all tickets must be offered was simplistic; that is the rule, but there's exceptions made, and Paddington is one of them ...

[eightf48544]

OK ... Thanks to Ollie, I have an answer to the original question:

Paddington has an exclusion in the agreement under "Schedule 17" ...

My understanding that if there's a manned ticket facility open, all tickets must be offered was simplistic; that is the rule, but there's exceptions made, and Paddington is one of them ...

Why the exception? Paddington is a major London Terminal it should have 24 hour ticket selling facilities for all types of tickets.

Or are we out to rook people by making them buy Anytime tickets from machines!

Perhaps we should  just  accept that as nation we are totally hopeless at customer service.

[Ollie]

Looking at the schedule 17 document linked to earlier, some other London Terminals are the same. I suspect it will come down to the fact there are 2 offices with 2 intended purposes.

[grahame]

Looking at the schedule 17 document linked to earlier, some other London Terminals are the same. I suspect it will come down to the fact there are 2 offices with 2 intended purposes.

Follow up to me (by p.m.) from Ollie, and my reading of the document:

The following FGW^▸ (First Great Western) operated ticket offices have manned ticket offices which are allowed to sell a restricted range of tickets at certain times.
Bath Spa
Bristol Temple Meads (No reservations sold on Sundays!)
Ealing Broadway
Exeter St Davids
London Paddington
Maidenhead
Newbury
Oxford
Reading
Slough
Taunton

Thanks for the link ;-) ... http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/File/SCHEDULE%2017%20-%20December%20%2712.pdf

The site which I've used in the past to find out when to go to the station to buy tickets - National Rail - doesn't seem to document these restrictions obviously. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/pad.html just says "Ticket office opening: Monday-Sunday 24 hours, Saturday 24 hours, Sunday 24 hours without any clue as to the restrictions.  And I've looked at the page for Temple Meads and it gives no clue that the Sunday ticket sales are limited.  Are the public really supposed to read the ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) document before buying tickets for future travel?

Edit - corrected "FGW operated stations" to "FGW operated ticket offices". Network Rail operate Paddington station, so my initial post was imprecise!

[Southern Stag]

There's also a large number of stations which can't sell advance purchase tickets at all as they don't have the facility to make reservations. It's mainly small stations, particularly in the Thames Valley area. The situation is repeated across most TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), with lots of smaller stations not offering reservation.

[johoare]

Is that document available to all? That is very interesting if so/if not.. Apparently, according to it, reservations at Maidenhead stop at 5pm although the ticket office is generally open until 9.. I do wonder how this is advertised to the general public??? I have commuted from there for 20 years and have never seen anything to suggest this might be the case.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hmm. 

See also a previous topic on this forum, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10678.0 - which I'm minded to merge with this one, "purely in the interests of continuity and completeness", as I usually explain ...   

[Trowres]

In the ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) document, I liked the following entry for Oakham:

THURSDAYS OPEN UNTIL 1545
NOT FOR TICKET SALES

[BandHcommuter]

The availability of advance purchase ticket sales at stations seems to be fossilised in time, and appears to be based on the prevailing practice at individual stations at the time of privatisation.

Thinking back to the mid 1990s, the purchase of an advance tickets with reservations appeared to be a time-consuming affair. Staff referred to the printed timetable to plan the journey, made reservations by typing codes into an old green-screen computer, and hand-wrote reservation details onto the little blue reservation tickets, or on the back of the old apex tickets. In fact the process was so specialised that many stations had segregated windows or separate travel centres for these types of transaction. At smaller stations without segregated facilities, advance purchase tickets were not sold at peak times, because the extended transaction times would have caused excessive queues.

Nowadays, with new ticketing technology, the issue of most advance purchase tickets appears much more straightforward, with the whole process taking a fraction of the time, and everything done on a single ticket machine which contains all the necessary timetable, fares and reservation data. In fact it is so easy now that passengers are encouraged to do the work themselves by booking on-line. So it must be an absolute doddle for an experienced ticket office salesperson. At the same time, self-service ticketing machines are provided at many stations, meaning that passengers with straightforward ticket requirements no longer have to queue at the ticket window if they do not wish to. There is possibly an argument that the staffed ticket office is now only relevant for complex transactions or customer service/aftersales activities, and operators should be concentrating and encouraging these interactions with customers, rather than turning them away.

It's probably time that the role of the ticket office is reviewed to reflect the customer needs of today and the foreseeable future (rather than those of twenty years ago), and the old schedule of booking office opening hours and product range availability is given a much-needed update.

[trainer]

My experience this morning at a small staffed station (reluctant to identify the sole member of staff) may show why staff at windows designated for tickets for immediate travel at large stations may be reluctant to get involved with arranging tickets for future travel.

Firstly, let me record that the lady on duty was excellent in her manner and patience and couldn't have been more helpful.  I wanted a 1st Class All Line Rover (with Senior Rail Card) and then to reserve a seat for Monday morning to Paddington.  It took about fifteen minutes to process the transaction because the ticket couldn't be found for some time (I'm not sure one had been sold by this member of staff before) and the reservations refused to be made (apparently) until a return journey was put in.  I was told that the system is new and I guess unfamiliarity with the system, the product being sold and the unusual combination of ticket and reservation may well have caused the delays, but it illustrated to me what could have happened if even one or two people had arrived ten minutes early for their train to purchase a ticket for immediate travel.  I deliberately went to the station 'off peak' and fortunately no-one else appeared until the reservations, were being printed, which was eight minutes after the Rover. 

I note BandH's comments about the way in which technology has simplified the process, but my experience today suggests the complexities of the job are still a challenge when even the most helpful staff are asked for something a bit out of the ordinary.