please empty your brain below
These timber windows, 1980s creations though they are, will at Bow Rd station be kept in-situ - not removed and bricked up as is the case in the majority of stations.

Moquette | 18.10.15 - 9:03 a.m. | #

Euston seemed to have better staffing and shorter queues without the ticket windows. They have something like 12 ticket machines, a member of staff managing the queue and two staff to assist at the machines. When they had ticket windows there was on,y one person helping with machines and doing the queue as two staff were behind glass.

Jon | 18.10.15 - 9:33 a.m. | #

At Euston what has really improved is the fact that they've now got one mega organised queue rather than all of the multiple queues for individual ticket machines and the one or two windows they had open. It makes life much easier for those of us who want to go straight to the barriers. It's hard to argue against the window closure at Euston I think.

Sean | 18.10.15 - 10:39 a.m. | #

People have "coped" because they have had to. When you take an option away then they have no choice. What is not at all clear is whether transaction volumes have been maintained or whether they have gone "off system" to Ticket Stops or other stations that can retail Oyster.

We are headed towards what will be a crunch time as many people have annual season tickets that need renewing and paying for with company cheques. TfL have scrapped company cheque acceptance entirely and annual tickets can't be bought at machines. In future it's an online purchase only with the Gold Record Card coming through the post and the discount having to be set separately at a machine. If people leave their renewal to the last minute they will potentially lose their Gold Card discount for a number of days. How that palaver compares to less than 2 mins at a ticket office window I know not.

Has anyone seen any publicity about all the stuff TfL has scrapped? Nope. Any publicity about things like Annual Ticket purchase changing? Nope.

Has anyone seen the new staffing set up work properly? I haven't. I've seen passengers being yelled at at Kings Cross, massive queues blocking two ticket halls, groups of staff standing around having a chat and not being anywhere near machines to help people. Gates left open with no one around. Surely it's not meant to be like this?

PC | 18.10.15 - 10:41 a.m. | #

Moquette, my reading of the mention of 1980s is not that the hardwood surround was newly created then. Much more likely the windows have looked like that ever since 1902, but at some point, possibly the 1980s, the woodwork was replaced as-is by new timber, possibly because the old stuff was a bit tatty. Much of the structure of any heritage building, particularly wood, has been so "maintained".

Malcolm | 18.10.15 - 10:57 a.m. | #

The queues at Victoria are easily a 40 minute wait for the poor tourists stuck in the mega queues at the main Underground station on weekends. The Euston queues sometimes backs all the way towards the escalators from the mainline station!

There's quite a few stations where people already queue very long with a ticket offices- e.g at Russell Square they queue outside the station with 3 windows open!

BringBackTheWindows | Homepage | 18.10.15 - 11:07 a.m. | #

DG, I thought that brass rail beside the ticket office was hanging your umbrella on ( and probably forgetting). 😉By the way, we don't all use the self service tills at supermarkets! Bad enough serving yourself!

Jo W | 18.10.15 - 2:25 p.m. | #

I would generally recommend that any one buying an annual does so from National Rail. The refund conditions are more generous and - as far as I can tell - if it costs more than £1500 and you buy it from Marylebone then you can get free travel on Chiltern, too.

Wolf | 18.10.15 - 4:27 p.m. | #

Oh blimey. Oh blimey. Bow Road used to be 'my station' so many yonks ago and now, the 'eyes' are going to be put behind blinkers. Oh blimey, oh blimey. Its bad enough finding stuff I used to use in the Docklands Museum...Xst, I must be ancient now that station features have to be boxed in just like Victorian and Edwardian features were in the 1970's (and within my living memory). Oh blimey. Oh blimey.

B | 18.10.15 - 5:43 p.m. | #

Jo W, I'm with you on the supermarket thing. I try to never use the self service thing in supermarkets. My thinking is the more people that behave like me/ us the more people the supermarket will need to employ. Perhaps I'm just a grumpy old man.

Lorenzo | 18.10.15 - 7:42 p.m. | #

At non-listed Brixton, the windows have been completely tiled over into a blank wall, erasing all trace of the windows. They then cheered the rather desolate corner up a little by installing some pot plants (no, not that sort, though). Staff are very present, probably reflecting that it's always really busy there.

NickW | 18.10.15 - 7:56 p.m. | #

@Wolf
"I would generally recommend that any one buying an annual does so from National Rail."
Curiously, when I had an annual travelcard (I switched to point to point when I realised that it is quicker to walk from the terminus to my office than to use the bus), I always bought it at a tube ticket office after I realised, following the Enterprise Rail ticket fraud scandal in 1996, that by doing so more of my money would go to funding improvements to London's transport system and less to Brian Souter's political campaigns.

timbo | 18.10.15 - 11:41 p.m. | #

As a tourist when I visited other cities (Berlin, LA, San Francisco) I have always either used a ticket machine and set it to English when needed it found a station completely unstaffed and I got on with using a ticket machine. I find the argument that tourists need ticket windows a little strange.

I don't think company cheques not being accepted should come as a surprise, cheques have been in decline for years. Also I've had annual season ticket loans from two different employers and neither issued cheques. One bought the ticket for me, the other gave me cash in my wages to buy it with.

If you can't cope with not having the gold card discount enabled for a few days then you are buying the wrong season ticket zones, you need your season ticket active right away, but the discount is for when you travel outside your normal area so shouldn't be needed as often.

Jon | 19.10.15 - 8:41 a.m. | #

I must be alone - almost - in preferring ticket machines. But then I also prefer self service tills at supermarkets - quicker to get to, pack at my own pace and no inane conversation with a till monkey trying to fein interest in my day. Or is that me being a grumpy old (wo)man?

MelM | 19.10.15 - 10:42 a.m. | #

The ticket office has indeed closed.

A member of staff I've never seen before is standing outside the barriers (not inside, where someone always used to be).

An electronic message advises passengers to use ticket machines #29 and #30, not that any member of the public knows what they are.

The ticket window lights have been covered up with tape in a bright shade of TfL blue. I hope this is temporary - the colour match to the original black is somewhat jarring.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 19.10.15 - 11:13 a.m. | #

I've heard a rumour that the ticket office closure programme is going somewhat faster than expected, and there aren't enough ticket machines to go round yet...

martin | 19.10.15 - 12:43 p.m. | #

Well said PC (or WW?). Privilege Tickets for retired and current rail staff have also been withdrawn by TFL, with the suggestion made that travellers get a Priv Oyster Card instead. Why would an occasional visitor from, say, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall or anywhere else from London want to, or be expected, to do that? The Priv scheme was an official BR/LT arrangement, honoured later by ATOC and LRT, what gives TFL the authority to rewrite the rules?

Kim | 19.10.15 - 12:46 p.m. | #

@Kim,

With the new ticket machines, it's really easy to get an Oyster and refund it (at least 48 hours after purchasing) if you don't want to carry it back to Scotland. As long as you can find a staff member to set the Priv discount, the new system is fine.

JQ | 19.10.15 - 10:22 p.m. | #











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