Northern Rail would be better off selling tickets to passengers instead of looking to fine them - Yorkshire Post Letters

I returned to Horsforth railway station at around 1.20pm recently to find eight to nine Northern Rail staff stopping passengers from leaving the platform until they had shown their (valid) tickets.

Why are Northern Rail so obsessed with trying to fine their customers? If they want passengers to travel with a valid ticket their staff would be far better employed either selling tickets at stations, without a ticket office or selling tickets on trains.

One un-manned station I passed through had a ticket machine with a sign saying ‘Card Only’ on it.

Why don't Northern Rail send one of their ticketing staff to work there so that passengers like myself who pay by cash can actually buy a ticket?

The most ironic thing about this is that Northern Rail have made no money whatsoever from fining customers as they have been forced to repay all the fines they have imposed due to legal technicalities, yet they persist in persecuting and harassing the 99.9 per cent of their customers who have valid tickets.

I used to travel by rail several times a week. Since Northern rail have brought in their baffling and ridiculous afternoon ‘peak rate’ system, I may only use the trains once or twice a month and that is usually on a Saturday when travel is ‘off-peak’ all day.

While this means having to put up with the chaos of First Bus services, it is the lesser of two evils.