Damage caused by automated railway station gate

chrisgVRS

My wife was recently travelling home via train, when getting off the train and passing through the automatic ticket barrier her handbag was wedged in the closing barriers from the person in front.

The person in front put the ticket into the machine and walked through my wife then put her ticket into the machine and followed I believe without the barriers closing, walked forward and the gates closed onto her handbag smashing her sunglasses to bits. The member of staff then attempted to pull the handbag out without opening the barriers and was unsuccessful, he then manually opened the gates and let my wife through.

We have contacted the train company and our claim has been declined. The barriers were not faulty and that seems to be that, as you can imagine I am not very happy as I think the damage was caused when when the member of staff tried to 'yank' the bag out.

What should I do on this, I feel I am being fobbed off.

Many thanks in advance.

Fosterdog

If your wife tried to rush through without waiting for the gate to close from the previous passenger and for her ticket to be accepted then it is her fault her bag got caught. Were her sunglasses inside a protective case?

powerful_Rogue

chrisgVRS wrote: »

My wife was recently travelling home via train, when getting off the train and passing through the automatic ticket barrier her handbag was wedged in the closing barriers from the person in front.

The person in front put the ticket into the machine and walked through my wife then put her ticket into the machine and followed I believe without the barriers closing, walked forward and the gates closed onto her handbag smashing her sunglasses to bits. The member of staff then attempted to pull the handbag out without opening the barriers and was unsuccessful, he then manually opened the gates and let my wife through.

We have contacted the train company and our claim has been declined. The barriers were not faulty and that seems to be that, as you can imagine I am not very happy as I think the damage was caused when when the member of staff tried to 'yank' the bag out.

What should I do on this, I feel I am being fobbed off.

Many thanks in advance.

Thats where your wife went wrong. Not the fault of the rail company that she didn't use the gates correctly.

Zinger549

Usually if you put a ticket in when they are open it's keeps them open for longer.

PasturesNew

Treat her - pop into Poundland and buy her a new pair.

paddyrg

Yep, not a hard, fast rule. I used to work for a ticket gate company, the ones we sold to many Asian countries were open by default and would slam if a ticket wasn't inserted - you got much higher throughput that way.

RuthnJasper

Bad luck OP, I don't think you'll get anywhere with this. The other posters are right. "Tailgating" (or should that be "shoegating"? ) the traveller in front isn't a good idea.

Personally, I don't trust those barriers, so I always lift my bag up over them when I go through. There's always someone who blocks up a busy gateway with a wedged bag and I've been mortified when I've been that someone in the past...

Littlestars_2

You always need to wait for it to close then go through and not just assume the system has reset while the gates are open. Its more carelessness om your wifes part im afriad and a lesson learned.