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I usually drop my wife at our local station to catch a train to London Bridge, there was a lot of traffic so we got to the station late.
Her story "she arrived at the station the queue was so long" the inspector let her through the barrier after she told him she will buy her ticket when she gets to London.
On getting to london she was on the queue to buy her ticket when a floating Inspector asked her for her ticket, which she was just about to buy, others were on this queue from the same train but she singled her out, in short she had to pay a fine and the fare.
Is this fair? do you think she can appeal - has she was let through the barriers at our local by a station inspector in the first place.
What you need to do is write into the appeals address stating your reasons for appeal and remember to include the following bit:
http://www.ircas.co.uk/docs/SRA%20-%...les%202002.pdf
7.3 An authorised collector must not charge a penalty fare under
rule 6.2 if any of the following circumstances applied at the
station where the person joined the relevant train.
a There were no facilities available to issue the appropriate
ticket or other authority for the journey which that person
wanted to make.
b Warning notices were not displayed in line with rule 4.
c A notice was displayed which indicated that passengers
were allowed to board that train without a ticket or other
authority to travel.
d A person acting, or appearing to act, on behalf of the
operator of that train or station indicated that the person
was, or people generally were, allowed to board that train
without a ticket or other authority to travel.
Also state how long you had to queue for. The rules state you shouldnt have to queue for more then 5mins.
Given your account of what your wife says occurred of course she should appeal
However, playing 'devils advocate' as always, it is worth noting that there are two other factors that must be taken into account
The first is the bit that always seems to get missed out when quotes from the Penalty Fares (Railways) Rules are referred to and that is as follows:
3)Paragraphs (1) and (2) of this regulation shall not prevent a person from being charged a penalty fare where he had been invited by anybody acting on behalf of the operator of the relevant train or any preceding train to obtain a ticket or other authority while travelling on or present on the relevant train or that preceding train.
This relates to where a change of trains takes place and means that if someone was given verbal authority to go on board and pay at the first opportunity for example any Guard, but did not do so, they could still be issued with a Penalty Notice on the second part of the journey.
The other point is that the Penalty Fares (Railways) Rules do not set a rigid rule in respect of queuing time.
The reference quoted is in the Southern Passenger's Charter document and this states that the operator aims to ensure that you do not have to wait more than 5 minutes.
Your wife should send her appeal to the office address stated on the notice that she was issued within 21 days of the date of issue.
4.12 Where penalty fares apply, passengers must allow enough time to buy a ticket, including time to queue, if necessary. Under normal circumstances, passengers may still be charged a penalty fare if they join a train without a ticket, even if there was a queue at the ticket office or ticket machine. However, we expect operators to provide enough ticket windows, ticket machines and staff at staffed stations to meet the queuing standards set out in the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement and their Passenger’s Charter under normal circumstances. This standard is normally five minutes at peak times and three minutes at other times. If queues at a particular station regularly fail to meet these standards at certain times or days of the week, the operator must either take action to sort out the problem before a penalty fares scheme is introduced or make sure that passengers are not charged penalty fares when these queuing standards are not met. This might include providing extra staff or ticket machines. A penalty fares scheme must include arrangements for telling authorised collectors when long queues build up at ticket offices (see paragraph 4.33).
Yes, I understand that is a part of the document, but it does not set a rigid time rule. It expresses an 'expectation' and does make clear reference to where failures in respect of queuing 'regularly' occur.
Please be assured that my post was not intended to be critical of the traveller in any sense.
I thought that I made clear my earlier post had an element of 'devils advocate' about it, this is not a defence of any failure that might have occurred on the part of Southern Railways staff .
Personally, I do think that with the technology now available, no-one should have to wait 5 minutes to buy a ticket, but I always bear in mind the fact that occasional exceptional occurences might occur.
I simply offered the earlier comment to provide a stimulus in order that all the likely rejection excuses are thought about before any appeal is written. They will not all be relevent in this particular case anyway and I thought it might help others in the future.
Something that might help is to understand the questions that we would have asked when
I was directly involved in this sort of thing and which would require just a little more clarification by the original poster.
For example I would ask the question: was the queue for a ticket where the lady was subjected to a spot-check made at London Bridge station barriers? I'm sorry if that seems churlish to ask, but for the appeals investigator there is good reason for needing to know the answer.
If the answer to that question is 'Yes, the queue was at the barrier on arrival of a direct train in London Bridge', then the question asked at the beginning was
"Is this fair? do you think she can appeal - has she was let through the barriers at our local by a station inspector in the first place."
Given the answer to my question was 'Yes, the check was at London Bridge barrier line' then my answer to the specific question posed in the original post, would be: No, it is not fair, and any appeal made by the traveller should be successful on that basis.
I hadn't realised there's been other post on the thread, reading through has been very helpful.
We have to make sure we send the appeal before its too late.
To clarify she was on the queue to buy a ticket at the London bridge barriers, when she was asked for her ticket, the train was a direct train to London Bridge, and the 1st opportunity to buy a ticket after boarding the train was at the barriers at London Bridge(They have a ticket office just by the exit).
I feel she has a case, as she didn't jump the barriers, only way to board the train was to be let through.
Southern Train fine
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Originally Posted by fro
thanks again