Are train ticket machines a waste of time?

I completely agree with this article. I far prefer to use the machines to queuing at the desk, but am always frustrated at the information available when buying a ticket for a journey I am not familiar with. There should be information on terms & conditions in plain English available at every stage. There should be a simple mode where you put in what you want to do (here to there now and back today at 15:00; or here to there now, then to there at 14:00, then back at 22:00; or to there and back next Tuesday afternoon) and it tells you the cheapest fares (and alternatives like first class). I thought computers were supposed to be good at things like that?

With complex arrangements and needing to travel as a group with my disabled daughter and my wife, I doubt that I would ever use a ticket machine. Frequently out of order and not able to give anything useful when they work, they have a negative incentive plan programmed into them. Most times it is not only faster but cheaper to use the car, e.g. we needed to go to an ice show in London. Station car park full up so no way to park, train travel needed 3 hours just on the train. We went on from the station to the car park near the venue and arrived in 50 minutes… What use is the terrible train system with its awful ticket ‘lottery machines’?

My local station [Diss, Norfolk] has a ticket machine on both platforms but the only ticket office is on the London platform requiring a double hike over the footbridge [30 steps each side = 120 steps] if taking a down train. Plus the ticket office is not staffed between odd [and variable] times during the day. Because the train conductors are some of the most officious rule-observing jobs-worths I have ever encountered I have mastered the ticket machine on the down platform for same-day returns although I made a few errors as I learned the technique. Up journeys are generally more complicated involving uncertain return dates/times, railcard discounts, oyster card add-ons, etc, so I usually use the ticket office despite the need to wait for up to twenty minutes while other similarly beleaguered passengers negotiate their transactions. It is fair to say that the recent "simplification" of the ticketing system is an improvement even though it does not go far enough – at least even I can work out that an "any-time off-peak return" is exactly what it says [once I’ve discovered when "off-peak" applies of course]. [I recently witnessed a young woman being turned off the train by the conductor at Chelmsford where – because not all Norwich trains stop – she would have to wait for an hour just because her ticket was for a train running thirty minutes later than the one she was on, and even though the train she was on had plenty of room and was emptying as it progressed. She said that she had booked the tickets on-line and was not aware of the restrictions. She had compliantly accepted the conductor’s orders which he might not have attempted to enforce with a less meek or male **********. The railways are still not working in the public interest and all ATOC [the passenger train operating companies’ representative body] says is that it must be all right because most people manage to put up with it.

I USUALLY BUY TICKETS ONLINE AND TRY TO COLLECT FROM MACHINES. AT SOME STATIONS, E.G. LONDON EUSTON, THIS WORKS FINE. AT OTHERS, E.G. EAST CROYDON, THE MACHINES NEVER RECOGNISE MY CARD AND I USE THE TICKET OFFICE TO PRINT THE TICKETS. THE TICKET OFFICE STAFF RECOGNISE THE MACHINES’ LIMITATIONS BUT SAY THEY ARE POWERLESS TO HAVE THEM UPGRADED/REPAIRED/IMPROVED. A SHAME AS THE MACHINES ARE USEFUL AND WOULD BE EVEN MORE SO IF THEIR LIMITATIONS WERE WORKED ON.

I lived in Japan for 17 years and have been bewildered at how confusing and expensive trains are in the U.K. Making sure you have a Railcard and checking prices online before travel are the things I do to try to somehow reduce the cost. The whole thinking behind fares needs to be simplified a lot before we can get to easier to use ticket machines.