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Post by spsmiler on Oct 16, 2015 13:01:47 GMT
Once upon a time, stations had booking offices in which passengers could buy a ticket to travel on the railway from a staffed ticket sales window which sold the full range of available tickets. That however is history, and nowadays passengers who want a ticket which is not sold by a machine or cannot be paid for using an electronic chip card are left high and dry. To discourage passengers passing through Gants Hill from remembering how things once were done, the ticket sales windows have been hurredly replaced by a tiled wall. I say 'hurredly' because whilst the sales windows closed on 7th September it took less than a month for them to have been completely obliterated. My photo is from 4th October. See attached photos! Simon ---------------------------------- death notice
a mirage, a false memory which never was so
dead, but still there for all to see and mourn one last close look decomposed but with visible remains
no, never were any ticket sales windows here! |
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North End
Beneath Newington Causeway
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Post by North End on Oct 16, 2015 13:07:02 GMT
Once upon a time, stations had booking offices in which passengers could buy a ticket to travel on the railway from a staffed ticket sales window which sold the full range of available tickets. That however is history, and nowadays passengers who want a ticket which is not sold by a machine or cannot be paid for using an electronic chip card are left high and dry. To discourage passengers passing through Gants Hill from remembering how things once were done, the ticket sales windows have been hurredly replaced by a tiled wall. I say 'hurredly' because whilst the sales windows closed on 7th September it took less than a month for them to have been completely obliterated. My photo is from 4th October. See attached photos! Simon ---------------------------------- A sad sight all round the combine. I don't work in a booking office and rarely use one, however ... my feeling thusfar is that the booking office changes have not really worked well. Euston station has been total chaos since the booking office closed, it now takes longer to get in the station due to congestion in the booking hall area. Elsewhere, the situation seems to be one of: 1) No staff in sight, passengers left to fend for themselves. 2) Staff standing around with nothing to do, so eyeballing every passenger as they enter the station. If staff were behind a window, they would be able to carry out other useful tasks. 3) Chaos - with loads of people trying to gain access to the staff for help, no orderly queue, and people taking longer to buy tickets as a result. Maybe things will sort themselves out in time, but so far my feeling is a big thumbs down. |
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Post by spsmiler on Oct 16, 2015 13:16:29 GMT
I think the idea is to make ticket selling at Underground stations the same as DLR stations and Tramlink stops.
TfL want people using smartcards of one sort or another.
The problem is that the Underground is not a brand new stand-alone system and once size does not fit all stations. As I understand it some types of intercity mainline railway tickets still recognise London Baker Street as a London terminus; I wonder if the gateline staff know that such is still possible?
Its simply not right that without staffed ticket sales windows at stations such as Highbury & Islington and Kentish Town it is not always possible to buy the correct ticket for one's journey - because LU ticket machines do not sell them.
Simon
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Post by stapler on Oct 16, 2015 17:04:11 GMT
Unfortunately TFL do not need planning permission to do this - except where the station is a listed building. It will be interesting to see what happens (eg) at Loughton or Arnos grove, which are
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Post by marri260 on Oct 16, 2015 23:51:56 GMT
Obviously it is going to vary from station to station as to how quickly the Ticket Hall works are completed, but it is interesting to compare. I happen to have been on nights at Preston Road for most of the major bits of the Ticket Hall works there, and took great interest in watching the progress...whilst trying not to irritate the contractors too much!
It took about there weeks to get the new window in and working, and to brick up the seldom used second window. Would like to go into more detail but have to be professional!
After some skimming/rendering works internally and externally, bringing it up to a reasonably tidy appearance, it sat like that for almost 5 weeks with no further progress. The wall was left with a complete lack of tiles for the duration, and probably gave the impression to the regulars that works had been given up on.
Finishing work was completed earlier this week during my nights, and I have to say, it does look incredibly smart in my opinion. Contrary to popular opinion, we've actually gained an 'improvement' so to speak, in the new location for the large tube map, where the second window used to be. Much more useful for staff and customers in this new location.
All in all from start to finish, it was about 9 weeks in total for the works, which may seem like quite a while for what is a small local station.
Compare this to somewhere like Uxbridge which has been closed for some months now, has had very few alterations externally. This is the way it will stay as far as I understand, as I assume it is listed in some way?
To be fair, some pleasant Underground history posters linking in with Charles Holden's stations have been placed over the windows, and white boards have been positioned in logical locations to try to give people an extra hint that the windows are closed, so it doesn't look that bad at the moment.
There'll probably be a whole list of listed stations that will be in a similar situation to this I'm sure.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2015 13:55:25 GMT
Unfortunately TFL do not need planning permission to do this - except where the station is a listed building. It will be interesting to see what happens (eg) at Loughton or Arnos grove, which are Is there a definitive list of listed ticket offices? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2015 14:05:38 GMT
Well you want a definitive list - the last thing you want is a list that doesn't list all of the listed ticket offices ...  |
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