Re: A quick fix
You clearly missed those days when it took 20-30 minutes to get to the front of the ticket queue because you'd forgotten that it was Monday, so season ticket day, so you missed your train. And you'd get no sympathy from barrier staff if you tried to talk your way onto the platform without a ticket.
As to 'the process was straightforward', that's just bollocks. In every ticket queue there was someone who wanted to travel to Southampton via Maidstone and Reddich, returning two days later with an overnight stop in LlanfairPG, who wanted to take their dog and a box of racing pigeons with them. "Oh, that's expensive. What it I travelled on Thursday instead and returned via Luxulyan?"
These and the frequent far simpler enquiries ("what's the best train to get me to Reading by 11:30 tomorrow?") were all dealt with by good subject knowledge, if you had an expereinced booking clerk, and mounds of thick volumes (plus loose-leaf updates) containing times, routes, fares and restrictions.
Straitforward? Pah.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
