I recently had a dreadful experience on a train when my student rail card went missing and a particularly Blakey-like inspector humiliated me by making sarcastic, sneering comments very loudly about everything I said to him - including my answers to the barrage of qestions he was firing at me, then when another member of staff turned up with my rail card he tried to play games by wafting it in-front of me, but refusing to give it to me, despite my making several requests. Eventually I snatched it off him and he gave up the game and went away - his colleague apologised for the situation. This is all in-spite of this being the second inspection I'd been through on that journey - something another passenger reminded him of mid-way through his routine.


I have seen and heard of some other horrid incidents with guards/ticket collectors on trains, has ayone else seen this in action? I'm wondering if it is becoming more common, the rail company were quite defensive of the whole thing and seemed to think it wasn't that remarkable. The Blakey-type guard seemed to think he was behaving perfectly reasonably too, when I spoke to him aout the whole thing at the station platform afterwards.

So, any similar stories to tell?

I don't suppose you got his name? If so I would recommend writing to complain. Actually writing to complain anyway might be a good idea.

I had a remarkably similar experience once with a member of staff in the National Archives of Scotland. He was going totally out of his way to be rude and obstructive to me, talking behind my back and much worse. I was a teenager at the time, and very upset by it. But I wrote to complain. I got an apology in writing from the NAS, and the staff member concerned was moved away to behind the scenes, no longer to deal with members of the public. Result.

I am frequently harrassed on my train. For some reason, I can't get a cheap day return with a railcard from the machine, so I have to queue for the man at the window - they're either not open or only 1 person there. PLUS, the car parking takes about 30 mins to sort out. So basically I arrive 30 mins before the train leaves to sort all this out. Sometimes the train arrives and I'm still in the queue so I've hopped on - thinking, if they can't organise themselves to be able to sell me a ticket within 30mins, then I don't really see why I should be penalised for not buying one.

I've had guards say they're going to charge me £50 fine and then the ticket cost or chuck me off at the next stop etc. they're pretty nasty, but I just act dumb, flutter my eyelashes and usually get away with it :$

ALthough now I deliberately take about 10 mins to find my ticket in bag, especially if they have announced "please get your tickets ready" beforehand :p

I hate train companies!

Blimey, I think I would have had a proper go at him Eska! We're quite lucky where we are (i.e. in the middle of nowhere!)... there are very few staff and my boyf often jumps on the train without paying to come visit me and no-one ever asks for his ticket or asks him to purchase one! Maybe he just looks very innocent lol! KB

Jobsworth ticket inspectors really wind me up, in this case you have good grounds to make a complaint. Some need to display common sense, once I was traveling in a group of 20 on a mix of adult + YP railcard tickets. We all had paid the approriate fare but one guys railcard had expire last month. We weren't looking to fare-dodge but it was an honest mistake, not according to the inspector who made us pay a full standard fare. I undertand we were technically in the wrong but we were hardly the fare-dodgers they were trying to clamp down on. Some common sense would have gone down well.

I feel I should defend some of the inspectors out there, perhaps the following true story of my brother's journey a few years back will help restore some balance.

He jumped on the train to go from Grantham to Hull via 3 different trains but had arrived at the station late so he hadn't bought a ticket. He sat down in one of the front carriages of the first train to find the ticket inspector sitting down next to him. They chatted for a while until the inspector said "I've got to go check tickets now, you've got yours I assume?". My brother told him the above story and the guy said "never mind, just make sure you get a ticket for your connection" and let him off.

That train ran late and so he again had to sprint across the platform to get his connection. Again he sat down only to have exactly the same thing happen, with the inspector letting him off without having to buy a ticket.

He got to the third train, this time without it running late and in no rush, but figured he'd push his luck on the last one. This time he actively sort out the ticket collector and took a seat next to him before striking up a conversation. Apparently this guy wasn't quite so lenient and asked him (quite rightly really!) to pay the fare. At this point my brother told him the whole story and said the guy should let him off because it would "make a better story". Amazingly this worked and so his entire journey was free! Goes to show that there are occasionally a few good ones out there too.