Guilty until proved innocent: Northern Rail's response

Richard Allan, head of marketing and communications at Northern Rail, has sent this response to my previous post (scroll down to read it)...

"We are aware that some tickets are fading because of the number of times they are removed from wallets or purses to be inserted into ticket gates and this problem is being resolved with the manufacturer of the tickets. There is no problem with the gates at Leeds station.

"Our policy is that when tickets are faded we take customers' details (in order to check that the ticket is valid - fare evasion costs more than £200m per year across the entire rail industry) and ask them to get a replacement issued, free of charge, at Leeds ticket office.

"When Mr Behrens was asked for his details he refused to give them, at which point our conductor withdrew his ticket so that it could be checked.

"We are disappointed that Mr Behrens published his 'blog' before we had a chance to respond.

"For the record, we are running 91% of trains on time, the highest-ever for local services in this region, we are carrying 34% more passengers than when we started five years ago and our average fare is just £2.19.

"You don't have to buy any ticket in advance with Northern unless you want to purchase a season ticket and we don't charge hundreds of pounds for a journey.

"Finally, we have nearly 5,000 employees across the north of England who take great pride in running a vital public service.

"Our trains are older than the industry average but we have improved their reliability by 40% and we have worked very hard to introduce more and newer trains to meet that huge increased in demand."

Rail passengers: Guilty until proved innocent

Years ago I watched an Eric Sykes comedy about people who wear uniforms. Put a peaked cap on someone, said Sykes, and you give him ideas above his station. Even the most ineffectual little chap becomes a parade ground sergeant.

The guard on my train last night certainly had ideas above his station - that station being Leeds. Last year they installed automatic ticket barriers there, which, if you use them often enough, eventually wipe the ink off your ticket. My annual season pass still has six months to run but it's already had to be replaced because the machines wore it out.

Nevertheless, it's still a valid ticket and the machines still read the magnetic strip on the back of it.

But that wasn't good enough for last night's guard. He couldn't read it, he said, so he confiscated it.

That's right - he took my £700 ticket with six months still to run - and kept it.

The guard - let's call him Conductor 3224, since that's how he identified himself - said he'd need to take my name and address. Why, I demanded? The ticket is valid and it's hardly my fault if your machine's rubbed the ink off it.

I had a responsibility to ensure it was readable, he lectured me. Those were the rules. They know all about rules, men in uniform.

But having already been a victim of identity fraud once this year, I wasn't about to shout out my name and address in a crowded train for him to scribble into a tatty notebook and then do goodness-knows-what with. How would that square with my rights under the Data Protection Act? (You see - rules work both ways.)

So I was deprived of my season pass. This morning I had to buy a ticket to get to work, then queue for 20 minutes to apply for a new pass - which they couldn't issue because - guess what? - Conductor 3224 still had my ticket.

I called Northern Rail's press office about this. Why do these jumped up, uniform-wearing little twits persist in criminalising the fare paying public, I asked, in slightly fewer words.

Ah, fare dodging is a big problem - we have to vigilant, said the press officer.

So what? Shoplifting is a big problem, too, but I don't have to run a gauntlet of accusing looks from checkout staff every time I go to Tesco. They know how to handle their customers.

It's a lesson the rail industry, and much of the rest of the public sector, has never learned. As a regular, fare-paying customer of Northern Rail, I expect - and frankly deserve - to be treated better than that. If the ticket machines don't work - and they don't - Northern Rail should acknowledge the problem and take steps to fix it. If the ink has rubbed off (and honestly, is that truly a problem anyway?) customers should be offered replacements without cost or inconvenience.

But that's a side issue anyway. The real problem is this attitude among guards like Conductor 3224 that customers are guilty of something until proved innocent; that passengers are sitting targets, to be lectured and penalised when the mood takes them; that their peaked cap invests them with a status somehow superior to the rest of us. If you're reading this, Eric Sykes, you were right.

Of course, not all guards are as officious as Conductor 3224, but neither is he the only one. So, for all of them, across the entire rail industry - it's my turn for a lecture...

WHEN you and your colleagues can make the trains run on time, all the time...
WHEN you can provide enough seats for everyone to have one...
WHEN you can provide rolling stock that doesn't look like it's been shipped over from a coal yard in Eastern Europe...
WHEN you start to run a Hoover over the carriages now and again...
WHEN you stop charging hundreds of pounds over the odds for tickets that haven't been booked far enough in advance...
WHEN you take an enforced course in customer relations...
THEN, and only then, can you start lecturing ME on how to use the trains.