{"id":1151,"date":"2011-09-16T13:00:34","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2011-09-26T11:04:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T11:04:40","slug":"more-on-templecombe-ticket-office-to-become-an-assisted-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=1151","title":{"rendered":"More on Templecombe: Ticket office to become an “assisted channel”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Templecombe is just one of 600-odd stations whose ticket office is threatened with closure. Another is Rotherham,<\/strong> where the ticket office has been closed for rebuilding, and the locals are concerned that it might not re-open. (Compare Templecombe, where the associated signal box will close at some point in the future, and then what will happen to the ticket office?).<\/p>\n

At Question Time on the 15th October, at about the same time as SW Trains\u2019 Andy Pitt was telling us there were no plans to close the Templecombe ticket office, The Transport Secretary, Phil Hammond. was telling the House of Commons that ownership of stations was being transferred to the train operators \u201cso that they can have a more direct, hands-on involvement\u201d\u00a0 Translation: Can shut ticket offices without any reference to Government or Network Rail \u2013Ed<\/em><\/p>\n

Rotherham\u2019s MP, Dennis MacShane, told the Minister \u201cmany constituents do not do computers and need help and aid\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister agreed \u2013well sort of. \u201cI agree there will be the need for assisted channels\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr MacShane: \u201cAssisted channels?\u201d (possibly uttered like Lady Bracknell\u2019s \u201cA handbaaag?\u201d)<\/p>\n

Mr Hammond: \u201cI will tell the right hon. Gentleman what assisted channels are. Even as the purchase of tickets, over time, is bound to become more computer based, as new technologies are deployed and more tickets are bought online, through mobile technology and so on, there will still be a need for an assisted channel, and we will ensure that there is one. Translation: We will regard people who do not like computers or ticket machines as disabled and provide limited, minimal facilities at inconvenient times (or rather times which are convenient to the train operator, but not to anyone else \u2013Ed
\n<\/em>
\nUnfair? Cynical? We shall see. Watch this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Templecombe is just one of 600-odd stations whose ticket office is threatened with closure. Another is Rotherham, where the ticket office has been closed for rebuilding, and the locals are concerned that it might not re-open. (Compare Templecombe, where the associated signal box will close at some point in the future, and then what will … Continue reading “More on Templecombe: Ticket office to become an “assisted channel””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-iz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}