Rail firms have announced plans for a mass closure of England’s ticket offices, in the interests of “modernisation”. Yesterday, train operators informed staff of proposals to shut down almost all the 1,0007 remaining offices – asides from at the most popular stations – over the next three years.
Naturally, this was greeted with ire from the usual sources. The right can moan about the loss of a fundamental part of the traditional railway station; the left could rage against the implications for accessibility for the disabled and bemoan the loss of a sinecure or two for Mick Lynch’s boys and girls.
Usually, I’m on the side of the railway conservatives. I’m one of those slightly sad young Englishmen who made the natural transition from worshipping Thomas the Tank Engine, to playing with model railways, to looking at www.disused-stations.org.uk in his lunchbreak, and weeping.
But the confirmation of the decision by the Rail Delivery Group – the industry body – should be one happily greeted by anyone with an interest in the survival of our railways. It is not, as the RMT have called it, a “savage attack on railway workers”, but a step towards their industry’s survival.
Only 12 per cent of tickets are now bought at offices, down 85 per cent from 1995. For the average railway user, logging onto TicketLine, looking for the cheapest available option, and then plumping for the more expensive one that will get you their soonest, has become something of an art form.
Even then, as the RDG’s chief executive confirmed, 99 per cent of those available transactions can also be found at ticket machines, as well as online. The removal of ticket offices also doesn’t aim to gut stations of staff, but to have more available to help travellers – especially those with particular needs.
That the railways have had to even consider the closure of ticket stations is not only a recognition of changing purchasing habits. It reflects the reality of our post-lockdown, post-Covid, and pro-Zoom new reality. Fare income and commuter use remains more than 20 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels.
In the year to March 2022, the taxpayer subsidised the railways to tune of £13.3 billion – up from £6.5 billion in 2019/20. In the absence of proper competition, a return to pre-pandemic commuting, and with the requirement for franchises to turn a profit, the Government steps in.
Hence why even those who work from home and never have the pleasure/torment of riding our nation’s railways still stump up a considerable amount from their hard-earned cash each year. That is even before Robin Lynch and his Merry Men start demanding even more unreasonable levels of pay.
There is a Conservative case to be made for subsidising the railways. Travelling by rail is more pleasurable, environmentally friendly, and enriching for the soul than slogging it out on the motorways in some benighted SUV. Our continental cousins tend to do so on a far greater basis.
But at a time when Jeremy Hunt is scrabbling around for every extra penny, it is unreasonable to suggest that the taxpayer should be asked to plough an ever-larger amount into our network whilst their usage is shrinking. That is before one even gets onto the tergiversations of HS2.
In which case, scrapping ticket offices – confirming an existing trend – is an easier route to savings than the full-scale switch to Driver-Only Operated trains, and other technological wheezes that are long overdue. If a member of staff remains in place to assist those with mobility needs, who is really losing out? We’ve adapted to self-service checkouts okay.
If Lynch – and commuters – won’t play ball, today’s Dr Beechings must wield their axes. The bean-counter in me applauds; the train nerd watches, and weeps.