Train Ticket collection at Fast Ticket machines

[SavageHoutkop]

I regularly have to make two particular journeys by train. Due to the idosyncracies of the train pricing system, this means not only do I need advance tickets, but need to book the one journey as 4 separate tickets and the other as two (trust me, the saving makes it worthwhile).

Since I do these trips every week, this means that I need to collect 6 different tickets every week. I book online in roughly two-three month blocks; so today I needed to fetch 30 different tickets from my local Fast Ticket machine.

Now, to anyone who hasn't had the joy of using one of these machines, the idea is you trot along with the card used to buy the tickets, insert it for 'identification purposes' only (no entering pins); then you enter your 8 digit long reference number and it prints out your tickets.

Here's the catch. If there is only ONE ticket booked on your card, you don't need to enter the number.
If there is more than one ticket, you need to enter each and every one, except the last (by which time there is only one 'left' on your card).

Can anyone tell me WHY????

[I asked at the counter today if they could print them out en-masse for me and they said no, not possible]
[if you are wondering why I don't get them posted to me, the option is not there for some of the tickets I buy - neither is 'print at home']

 

[Arch]

Can anyone tell me WHY????

I suppose someone once said "What if someone has more than one ticket booked but only wants to pick up one of them at that time?" - the only reason I can see for having to discriminate as to which ticket sale number you want to pick up. I suppose if you are the sort of person who loses tickets, you might prefer only to pick up the ones you need straight away, having prebooked them all for the whole week...

Or they are just daft/bloody minded. My money would be on the second....

 

[marinyork]

Hmmm, that is interesting. I had always assumed that is was different types of ticket machine (in different cities). Sometimes I've needed the code, other times not - not sure whether it was dependent on the number of tickets booked. I'll have to take note next time. The things are annoying, the machines are so slow I've been known to cycle down the night before to pick them up.

 

[Arch]

The solution of course, would be to have an option on screen at the start:

"Collect ALL booked tickets for this card" or "Collect one ticket of those booked" - and if you choose all, then it doesn't make you enter the numbers....

 

[661-Pete]

Which online booking site do you use? We've used QJUMP a number of times for cheap advance tickets, I'd be surprised to learn that it doesn't offer the "post to your home address" option in all cases (or is it because you can't be at the home address to pick up the tickets?).

I can understand the phenomenon of several tickets to fill in a journey, adding up to less than one ticket for the whole stretch. Years ago I discovered that to travel from London to Brighton, it was cheaper to buy a ticket from London to Three Bridges and then another from Three Bridges to Brighton. Problem was, the fastest trains didn't stop at Three Bridges, so how do you jump off at Three Bridges to buy the second ticket ? Of course this was before the days of online tickets and advance purchase...

As for the ticket machines - well I've long sunk to the depths of despair when wrestling with those heaps of cr@p. But they have improved a lot. At least they incorporate a retail-style chip-and-pin card reader instead of the old type that used to suck your card right into its innards. So no more losing your card irretrievably just as your train is coming in... as happened to me once.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Which online booking site do you use? We've used QJUMP a number of times for cheap advance tickets, I'd be surprised to learn that it doesn't offer the "post to your home address" option in all cases (or is it because you can't be at the home address to pick up the tickets?).

I use cross country; mainly because it gives me the option to pick my seat - they run the trains on the leg I'm booking (ie where I can see my Brompton in the luggage rack from my seat, while sitting at a table - even though I do lock her as well to be safe). Or at least it gives me the option to pick my seat about half the time, when the seat map doesn't come up with a error message

I think it doesn't give me the option to post to home because some of my split-tickets are really cheap (£5 anytime single between Stafford and Stoke anyone?). Posting tickets on cross country also becomes £1 more [if it gives you the option, and I'm fairly sure this would be per ticket].

 

[SavageHoutkop]

The solution of course, would be to have an option on screen at the start:

"Collect ALL booked tickets for this card" or "Collect one ticket of those booked" - and if you choose all, then it doesn't make you enter the numbers....

EXACTLY!!!!!

Not hard, is it?

 

[Arch]

EXACTLY!!!!!

Not hard, is it?

Yes, but remember, we are normal people. That system will have been designed by someone Very Clever in Computers.

 

[hackbike 666]

I suppose someone once said "What if someone has more than one ticket booked but only wants to pick up one of them at that time?" - the only reason I can see for having to discriminate as to which ticket sale number you want to pick up. I suppose if you are the sort of person who loses tickets, you might prefer only to pick up the ones you need straight away, having prebooked them all for the whole week...

Or they are just daft/bloody minded. My money would be on the second....

Is that what you think of all rail staff?

 

[Bromptonaut]

I doubt a customer collecting thirty tickets at a time was in the design requirement but it's still a PITA if you're collecting 3 (split outward and a one ticket return for example).

The London Midland machines have a print all tickets for this booking/journey option. I think this links to whether you booked the tickets in one session (ie used the facility to add another journey rather than starting again). But perhaps it just means print mine & the wife's tickets together.

 

[Arch]

Is that what you think of all rail staff?

No, not at all. I was referring to the people who designed the ticket machines and software, who I suspect are not rail staff...

 

[hackbike 666]

No, not at all. I was referring to the people who designed the ticket machines and software, who I suspect are not rail staff...

I don't *ever* use ticket machines but with the state of the railway it may not be the fault of the people who designed the machines but probably more money orientated? No?

Everything seems to be based around money these days.

Plus the franchising of the railways probably makes the fares structure more complicated then it was in the BR days.Possibly.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Is that what you think of all rail staff?

Yes.... I mean no.... just the people in charge.

Phew! I think I got away with that.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

The London Midland machines have a print all tickets for this booking/journey option. I think this links to whether you booked the tickets in one session (ie used the facility to add another journey rather than starting again).

Hmmmm.... wonder where my nearest London Midland ticket machine is....
I do book them as a 'lot' of 8 tickets (that's the most you can book at once) but they are all separate journeys.

Perhaps I'll try picking them up at the other end of my trip; the machines I'm currently doing this on are Virgin run, where the ticket machines at the other end are First Great Western, I think.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Another question - if anyone knows the answer.

When you book online you have to specify the station you want to pick the tickets up at. Is this actually enforced, and if so why? Surely they all belong to the same network of machines?