East Dulwich railway station office recommended for closure?

[Alex K]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033882/Want-rail-ticket-Use-machine-customers-told-manned-offices-faces-axe.html

Yes, nothing's ever eaten as hot as it's cooked; yes, the DAILY MAIL specialises in heatings-up.

But the list of railway stations slated for closure -- Queens Road Peckham, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, Gipsy Hill, Brixton, Loughborough Junction, Nunhead, North Dulwich -- is kick after kick in the face of South London. Or so it seems to me.

[the-e-dealer]

just a little sensational- its the ticket offices not the whole stations.

[Alex K]

Agreed -- I've revised the thread heading to reflect that. Apologies offered!

[the-e-dealer]

but its still bad. A little girl died on the tracks there during the unmanned period.

[prickle]

It looks like a wholesale culling of stations on our line. Interesting to compare with the superb Great Eastern Line serving East London. Can't see a single one of those stations on the list.

Seems like it's Southern Rail's effort at cost cutting.

[Marmora Man]

I have used E Dulwich station now for almost two years. as I use an auto top up Oyster card I have never felt the need to use the ticket office. I would think that this is probably the case for 80% of travellers.

Keeping the ticket office manned is unlikely to affect safety - if they have to be in the ticket office they'll not be on the platform looking after passengers.

High fares are criticised - but this seems to me a fairly rational decision.

[intexasatthe moment]

Noooo - please tell me this is a wind up !

[Coach Beth]

I think it's really not good if the station was to be without an attendent. Ok, they aren't patoling the station platforms but there is at least someone there should you need to call upon someone for help. And you never know when you might need to call upon the help of the station attendent. Earlier this year, I was on the platform and witnessed a woman lose her shoe which fell onto the track! It sounds strange but it was a sort of sandle type thing and as she walked to the edge of the platform she somehow must of sort of kicked it off. Anyway, she was there with one shoe on her foot on her way to work and somone got the attendent who had this pole thing and used it to get her shoe. He said that people lose all sorts of things down on the tracks like phones, bags, etc.

[Bic Basher]

I'd feel much more safer if I could use the ticket office at all times, instead of the ticket machines on the main road at East Dulwich.

You can't beat asking the booking clerk at ED where as you may make a mistake booking a ticket to somewhere further afield.

Also there is the option of booking a ticket online before you leave the station, which you can pick up the tickets from the machine, but what if it breaks?

For those of us at the other end of LL/Forest Hill Road. Honor Oak Park and Forest Hill ticket offices are not proposed for closure.

[EM74]

Until the Southern network was re-franchised a couple of years ago the ED ticket office (like most on the route) was only open for the first half of the day - something I would guess had probably been the case since BR cost-cutting in the 70's or 80's.

It was only due to funding from Transport for London that all Southern ticket offices within Greater London were then opened all day, every day, (regardless of customer levels) which seemed odd as it was at the same time as they were at war with Bob Crowe due to partially closing ticket offices at suburban underground stations.

I may be completely wrong, but my guess is that this commitment is pretty much locked in to the end of the franchise and that the national report quoted simply looked at the national list of station usage figures and said if all ticket offices at stations below a daily usage of 'x' were closed then '?y' would be saved.

Having said that I'd be curious to know how many customers per hour they actually deal with during the extended times that TfL (i.e. us) are funding. Although I commute by bus, the times when I do come back by train in the evening the person invariably has his/her head in a paperback.

[dbboy]

http://www.togetherfortransport.org/content/category-e-stations-your-station-list

[peckhamboy]

I'm pretty ambivalent about whether the ticket office is staffed or not. In 5 years of living here and using the station every day, I've not once used the ticket office (well, actually, I tried to buy a travelcard there on my Oyster once and was told I had to use the machine...)

But I'm surprised that ED is on the list of category "E" stations, given that these are "675 small staffed stations which typically have only one member of staff in attendance at any one time. Many stations will only be staffed for part of the day. Trips will be typically up to 250,000 per annum and revenue up to ?1 million."

Surely ED has a lot more trips than that? Although I can appreciate that revenue may be less than ?1m, especially if they disregard ticket machine revenue.

[Cassius]

Apart from the inconvenience for those people who do not have Oyster cards and are occasional travellers and who prefer interaction with a human being not a machine, (which will probably be out of order or only taking cards when some of us prefer to pay cash) the main guy who works at the ticket office at ED is absolutely lovely and I would be really sorry if he lost his job. This applies to other staff at other stations too - I hope they are redeployed and not made jobless.

[Penguin68]

If these stations are not to be manned then they must at least be regularly visited by supervisory staff, so that things like lighting, hazards, working machinery etc. can be checked. The stations cannot be abandonded, even where ticketing staff are no longer to be available. Perhaps the wonderful Barry could indicate what will be the planned support to those stations who lose permanently based ticket office staff? Will there be non-ticketing staff there, at least some of the time?

[James Barber]

This is old news from over two months ago.

A report sponsored by the previous government was issued in June/July from memory.

It makes recommendations that would involve all rail station ticket offices closing in Southwark except a handfall of major one's - London Bridge.

For a summary I made 1 July:

http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/2011/07/01/east-dulwich-station-ticket-office-closing/

[dbboy]

it might be old news to you but to some of us it's current news, hence why it's a concern.

[njc97]

Odd report. Can't see QRP closing with the East London Line serving it in 12 months.

[Ridgley]

Not everyone fines the ticket machine straight forward, what happens if it not working I feel there should be some sort of presence there especially at night a lot of the South East London Stations are not well lit, what about the safety of passengers as there not been a few incidents that has happen?

[Loz]

How does a bloke locked away in a room in ED station really improves safety on the platform? Or is it you just feel safer, like a security blanket?

[the-e-dealer]

he or she would make a rogue think twice. And if anything kicked of they could either intervene or call for help.

[Loz]

How? From the platforms they are 50m away locked in a fairly sound proofed room. And you can bet that they are not watching the cctv at all, would (quite rightly) refuse to approach any 'rogues' and can't call the police any quicker that you can.

The difference to safety between them being there and not being there is very, very, very negligible.

[the-e-dealer]

If someone stuck a knife in my ribs i wouldnt be able to make a phone call. And Im not aware of any soundproofing in the offices.

[Marmora Man]

e-dealer,

Do you require someone to look out for you everywhere you are?

You could be mugged in the street, on a bus, in a crowd, in a pub, on Peckham Rye or anywhere else. You might be alone or accompanied.

What makes a station so special? What additional duty of care should a travel company have - beyond providing you with transport and a place to catch that transport?

[the-e-dealer]

well there's the british transport police what do they do?

[the-e-dealer]

ensure drivers are trained

check rolling stock for safety

check tracks

operate signals

sell tickets

operate defibrillator provided at major stations. glad you aren't trying to run anything important. you are not are you?