South West Trains. Liars? Thieves? Generally unhelpful.

callum9999

kerby_crawler wrote: »

I think the best way to penalise fare-dodgers would be to escort them back to the point at which they should have bought a ticket (and charge them a fair price to cover the costs of doing so).

This would be so annoying that the possibility of travelling without a ticket would soon come to be seen as unlikely a possibility as leaving Tesco's with a free bagful of groceries on a promise to send the money online as soon as it has all been eaten.

For the last couple of years, I have travelled 2-3 return trips a month between two non-barriered stations less than 15 minutes apart, and I have had to produce a ticket on no more than 3 occasions (it's probably only twice, but I can't be certain). If the train company was operated by BetFred or William Hill etc, then I might decide to take a punt on getting away with it!

It's a bit like the old 'finders/keepers' debate.

So basically, you are saying railway workers should be given powers to arrest people? Because if not I can't see on what basis anyone could possibly be "escorted" back to the original station!

kerby_crawler

callum9999 wrote: »

So basically, you are saying railway workers should be given powers to arrest people? Because if not I can't see on what basis anyone could possibly be "escorted" back to the original station!

If you walk out of tesco's without paying, you can get 'detained' - why should train companies not have similar powers?

prowla

kerby_crawler wrote: »

If you walk out of tesco's without paying, you can get 'detained' - why should train companies not have similar powers?

The OP didn't complete his journey before offering to pay.

kerby_crawler

prowla wrote: »

The OP didn't complete his journey before offering to pay.

If I walked past the till at tesco, and offered money to the security guy at the store exit, I would be sent back to where I came from!

callum9999

kerby_crawler wrote: »

If you walk out of tesco's without paying, you can get 'detained' - why should train companies not have similar powers?

You get detained yes, they don't then transport you to a different location, possibly hundreds of miles away!

kerby_crawler

callum9999 wrote: »

You get detained yes, they don't then transport you to a different location, possibly hundreds of miles away!

At Tesco's, I would be taken to a room at the back of the store. The railway company's 'store' is thin but very long - if it entails a journey of hundreds of miles, then so what?

As prowla has stated, the journey is not complete until you leave the railway's premises.

prowla

kerby_crawler wrote: »

If I walked past the till at tesco, and offered money to the security guy at the store exit, I would be sent back to where I came from!

But not marched around in reverse putting all of the items back on the shelves.

callum9999

kerby_crawler wrote: »

At Tesco's, I would be taken to a room at the back of the store. The railway company's 'store' is thin but very long - if it entails a journey of hundreds of miles, then so what?

As prowla has stated, the journey is not complete until you leave the railway's premises.

This argument is ridiculously silly... If you can't recognise the difference between putting someone on a train and transporting them 100 miles away and taking someone to the security room in a store then discussing it further is futile...

Not to mention that the railway company does NOT own the railway tracks. The equivalent scenario with Tesco would be them bundling you into a Tesco van and driving you down to some sort of "security headquarters" 100 miles away...

kerby_crawler

callum9999 wrote: »

This argument is ridiculously silly...

I couldn't agree more...

The rules are clear - you need to buy a ticket before travelling

prowla

kerby_crawler wrote: »

I couldn't agree more...

The rules are clear - you need to buy a ticket before travelling

Except some stations allow you to pay the supplement at the destination station.

And how things are dealt with is discretionary.