Northern ticket offices/machines
 

On Saturday at Altrincham station I noticed the ticket office was closed and there were two men in yellow jackets issuing tickets from the type of machine the conductors on trains normally use.

The last couple of times I've travelled on a Northern service on a Saturday, the conductors haven't attempted to check or issue tickets while I've been on the train.

This seems very strange

Northern has an obligation to provide ticket office facilities for manned stations. If they can't use the ticket office they have to make other arrangements.

Should that have always been the case? When First North Western were the regional TOC for the north west area some vandals broke in to the ticket ofice at Knutsford station on a Friday night. On the Saturday the ticket office remained completly shut (probably because of broken glass.) However, for about a week the ticket office was opened but didn't have a working ticket machine and a blackboard was placed at the ticket window stating something like "Due to vandalism please purchase tickets on the train."

The reason I questioned what's happening at Altrincham is that there doesn't appear to be any maintainance work ongoing at the station and I think it's unlikely that if a member of staff was ill for the day that Northern would have sent two people who were trained in using hand held ticket machines but not the type found in ticket offices.

'Other arrangements' is a broad thing, they could allow passengers to buy on the train (the easiest option), or, if they have spare staff, send a team of RPIs (two people) to the station (the prefered option) to issue tickets. Whatever the actual action is, there has to be some.

It would be unusual for non-ticket office staff to have the knowledge of the office machine as they would hardly ever use them. Equally, it would be unusual for there to be a spare member of booking office staff trained for work at that location (they have to know site specific information).

Oh for the return to the little glass window in the ticket office at the station with the open coal fire in the corner, and Trevor Howard getting a piece of grit out of Celia Johnsons eye.
I must start taking more water with this medication.
Paul.