'We'll be railroaded into train ticket office closure by poor man’s Rasputin'
Everything went quiet on the train ticket-office closure front after a record 680,000 people objected.
Train company bosses and Transport Secretary Mark Harper, the Rasputin of the policy, were obviously shocked into silence by the scale of the protest. But now the softening-up of public opinion has begun – to deliver the shutdown of 974 station offices. MPs on the Transport Committee this week warned that mass closure was going “too far, too fast” and urged government to rethink.
They didn’t say that the direction was wrong and the whole idea should be scrapped. They merely said radical change should be piloted and evaluated before being rolled out. Rail bosses defended the shutdown, but offered to explore “a phased approach” to achieve their twin target of forcing passengers to buy from machines, and to sack 2,800 ticket clerks.
This is precisely what I predicted they would do: get the main objective established, and grind down the opposition until they get what they want. Hard-faced Harper is right behind them. In fact, he is the guiding hand in the strategy, part of his overall aim to smash the rail unions who oppose it.
He dismissed the MPs’ advice, insisting: “We want to get more staff out on to platforms and into stations to be able to better support customers.” Ticket clerks are already in the stations, helping the disabled and elderly. They won’t be on the platform. They’ll be in the dole queue.
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And my generation, who rely on a friendly face at a counter, will be left on unmanned stations, in the dark, trying in vain to negotiate complex machines. Campaigners hope watchdogs Transport Focus and London TravelWatch will reject the plans next week. But they have no veto. Ex-accountant Harper has the final say, and he’s done the sums. Let’s keep up the campaign to make him do them again.
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