May 07, 2006

Inside Waverley


I'm bringing you inside the station today and you can see some people having got through the new ticket barriers, running to catch the train to Glasgow. The ticket barriers have been erected at the main stations in Edinburgh and Glasgow to cut down on people trying to dodge the fare on short journeys. The train companies say it's effective, but a lot of people find it a pain to be made to wait to buy a ticket to exit the platform, when they were unable to buy a ticket at the station they got on at, or on the train. Also if you arrive at the station without a ticket and your train is sitting there ready to depart, the chances of you catching it are pretty slim by the time you've gone to the ticket office to buy one. I can see the train companies' argument, but they really should install more automatic ticket machines in the stations and make the fare-system more user-friendly for the customers. A fact-finding trip to Japan would be in order for our train station operators.

4 comments:

Deetsa said...

I never ceases to amaze me that the more transit companies try to make things better, the more they actually make it worse for time and efficiency. And they wonder why people still use so many cars.

Nicola said...

Looks like you have some nice colorful trains.

Kris said...

impressive station! too bad its not efficient! In Budapest, no one uses the machine ..they prefer to queue..?????

Adrian said...

Trains in the UK are amazingly rubbish. Even when they have machines, they don't work 50% of the time. Totally agree with the comment about Japan - it all just works over there.