A ticket machine ... with a sense of humour?

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

All change for student on train

A student hurrying to catch his train home almost missed it when a ticket machine gave him his change in ten pence coins - 187 of them.

Ben Hardy, 26, had just paid ^1.30 for a ticket to Yardley Wood from Birmingham's Moor Street station using a ^20 note. He said the change just came gushing out "like a torrent of 10ps".

"It was like winning on the slot machines. It took over a minute for them all to come out," he said. "I scooped them out of the bottom of the machine and put them in my bag and made it just as the train doors were closing."

Chiltern Railways which operates the machines has said it is unusual and offered to change the money over into notes.

[JayMac]

 

I, killing time recently, hit the jackpot and repeat on a 'bandit' at Temple Meads. Staff were unable to change the ^120 in pound coins into notes, and wouldn't let me borrow a cloth cashing up bag. I had no bag with me so had to fill my jacket pockets and my trouser pockets. 120 pound coins is a lot of extra weight and my jeans were struggling to stay up!

Had to stand on the train down the branch to Shirehampton, worried that if I sat down I'd start shedding coinage.

[vacman]

you should do the lottery!

[Btline]

Shame. Normally paying for >^5 with a ^20 note at a ticket machine or Tesco self check out is an easy (and cheap) way of obtaining more ^5 notes!

Now everyone, is this a valid excuse for being late on the platform? Delayed by TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) - which IS within the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s control!

[thetrout]

I had a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Bristol Parkway do something very similar... I bought a ticket which IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) was about ^35... which I paid in cash... It threw a paddy and refunded me ^40 in ^1 Coins...! Not Happy

It was highly amusing on the other hand to take the ^1 Coins to the Ticket Office and pay said rail fare with the ^1 coins... The bloke at the ticket desk was even less happy than I was...

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i have the record... ^500 from the arcade in exmouth on the seafront, for some mad reason i was too embarraced to get it changed up there so walked out with 250 golden nuggets in each pocket! i miss the good old days when i had money so didnyt need to win but did haha

[inspector_blakey]

Used to try that trick regularly when I was a student - we always needed 20p coins for the tumble dryer and there was a vending machine which would dispense 5 x 20p if you put in a pound coin and hit refund... Then one day to our delight we also discovered it was vending crisps for 2p and chocolate bars for 4p. Sadly that didn't last too much longer.