Closing the ticket office at Cross Gates railway station makes no sense whatsoever - Yorkshire Post Letters

I couldn't agree more with the comments in the letters from Roger Backhouse and Colin Moore and indeed the article by Tracy Brabin (The YP, July 19).

The comments they have made in their letters and articles concerning the stupidity of closing the rail ticket offices don’t need repeating but to reinforce the points I would like to give the example of my local station at Crossgates on the York line from Leeds.

The total staff at this station is one excellent lady who has worked there several years and is extremely helpful on all matters regarding local train journeys.

Northern Rail have advised in their consultation document that the ticket office will close and this one person will move “to be more visible around the station to help customers with a wider range of help and support”. What a load of rubbish.

By moving this person (if indeed that is what they intend) how do they save any money as they still have to pay her the same wage. Also where in the station will she be based? If a customer comes to the station, how does he/she find this person?

The two platforms are a long distance apart involving a 100 yard climb up a slope from one platform along the road bridge then down another 100 yard slope to the other platform. So if you are on one platform and spot this member of the rail staff on the other platform you are faced with a five minute arduous walk to the other platform or end up shouting to them across the railway tracks.

Eventually this problem could only be resolved by this rail staff person positioning themselves just outside the now closed ticket office because this is the first point of access that most people using the station come to.

Also it is under cover, so when it is raining it is the most sensible place to be located. So we would now end up having the ridiculous situation where the former ticket office clerk is stood outside the now closed ticket office offering only advice but not issuing tickets where he/she could still be in the office, warm, secure and comfortable giving customers all the service they need.

They can also help blind and disabled customers who cannot use the ticket machine and issue tickets when the automatic machine is broken or vandalised (as it invariably will be).

They can also give a wealth of advice on ticket choices such as when to use a Senior Rail Card or a West Yorkshire Metro card for the cheapest ticket prices.

They can also issue tickets from other stations. For instance, if travelling to York from Crossgates it is cheaper to issue the ticket as if travelling from Leeds City station rather than travelling from Crossgates, they can do this, a somewhat ridiculous anomaly, which the ticket machine cannot do.

She can also help many elderly travellers who are not comfortable using computers and automatic machines, as well as many tourists not familiar with our rail network

This whole issue has not been thought through and if carried out will only reduce the number of people using the railways.

The ticket clerk is the one remaining face the travelling public have with the railway system. It is not about how many tickets they sell but about giving customers a face to face service.