Guys. Many thanks for your replies & sound advice. TOC was Arriva Trains Wales. He's done this same journey a few times and usually been able to pay for his return ticket when he arrives at Cardiff BUT the ticket staff there never apply his rail card discount which is unfair particularly as he's a self-funding student. Hence on this one occasion he thought he'd get off early at Newport & hoped to buy a discounted full return. It seems if you board a train at a small rural station with no ticket machine or other facilities the TOC will catch you by either charging a full fare and ignoring rail cards, or alternatively employing the likes of TIL to threaten prosecution. We'll write to Arriva and ask them to consider all the facts & hopefully they'll see sense. Regards Dee

Evening, hope you can help. My 19yo student son got a very irregular, zero-hours contract P/T job in the summer. He doesn't drive so relied on train to get him to/from work. Often his employer would phone in the morning & ask him to come straight into work We live in a small SE Wales town, there is no ticket office, station staff or even any ticket machine. Unless we pre-book tickets days in advance it's impossible to board a train with a ticket & we therefore rely on ticket inspectors coming round in order to buy a valid return ticket. My son always bought a ticket accordingly, always had the right change etc available. This is important as he knows he needs a ticket to get through the barrier at his destination (Cardiff Central). On one day no inspector came round to sell him a ticket, my son had a cursory walk down the carriage to find staff, finding no one he decided to get off the train at the first opportunity (at Newport) and go and purchase a return ticket for his full journey there, knowing he had time to catch the next onward train to Cardiff. He explained things and the male on the barriers wouldn't allow him to buy a ticket, instead proceeded to interview my son. He then allowed my son to buy a ticket (£6.35 return fare with student rail card) & told my son "there should be no further action". Couple of weeks later my son receives a stern letter from 'Transport Investigations Ltd acting in Arriva Trains Wales behalf. That letter had erroneous details (his journey details totally wrong) he wrote back clarifying & also stating that (a) he couldn't buy a ticket before boarding as no ticket machine etc exists at our local station, (b) he didn't know in advance that he'd need to travel as only got called that day by his employer, © that he's tried to find a ticket inspector then got off at first station, breaking his journey at some inconvenience, to buy a ticket and (d) having then bought a ticket he was told he'd face NFA. Today, 7wks after his journey he's received a second letter from TIL demanding £69.50 or prosecution for failing to show a valid ticket when asked. This all sounds very unfair almost aggressive IMO. Surely if there are no facilities to buy a ticket when boarding a train and one makes excellent attempts to buy one at the first opportunity (looking for an on board inspector) then getting off at the next stop to buy a ticket then every opportunity to abuse by the law has been shown? He's young & possibly a bit naive - I'd have personally told the 'gentleman' at Newport station exactly where he could stick his interview note book - but equally fallen foul by being too honest when it would have been less hassle to have stayed on the train and bought his return ticket at Cardiff, something i myself have done on dozens of occasions when travelling to work on the same route and no one came round to sell me a ticket. Sorry to gave waffled on, does anyone have any advice on how to proceed please? What actual offence has been committed if my son couldn't possibly buy a ticket (no facilities) but then made every effort to subsequently buy one and did indeed buy a valid ticket? Many thanks Dee