Station Ticket Office

Thu 22 Dec 2022, 17:16

Well, here's a conundrum.

On the one hand, the vast majority of railway users in Charlbury have decent internet access and really don't need a ticket office or machines at the station. And it's not beyond the wit of Charlburians to find ways the uninternetted can book tickets. But virtually all need somewhere warmish and dry to wait for the all-too-often delayed trains, and check on our train's likely arrival. Which we can't do after midday most days, at all on Sundays - and really ever, if we want a westbound train.

On the other hand, the ticket office is a listed building and, as it is, asbestos will delay and complicate any repair work still further. And with Charlburians probably not just accepting what GWR proposes first time, it's likely to be to be ages before we get even the minimum of a heated shelter restored. 

Isn't this a perfect opportunity for the town - which probably has close to the highest IQ per square yard of any town in Britain - to put its collective heads together while GWR's trying to find a surveyor? With a mandate not to propose solving all GWR's many failings, but, IMHO,  to give GWR a brief that will produce:

• Speedy restoration of a usable, distinctive, memorable and in its way really rather beautiful building
• Easy ticketing for all Charlburians (eg by using some other retail facility as fallback for the uninternetted)
• Possibly: swallowing the fact that these days the building doesn't need personning. So the saving in that salary could fund access throughout train operating hours and heating throughout the winter. And, in the current climate of almost impossible recruitment, there really has to be a question mark over the realism of a traditional ticket office.
• No net increase in operating costs

The last thing we want right now is anything that makes GWR believe frequent rail connections east and west from Charlbury are a drain on resources no national politician is currently likely to want to see poured further into the Cotswolds.