I WAS amazed to read the recent article in your paper, where North Western Trains accused people of fare evasion on the Bolton to Manchester line, and their need to have staffed barriers at stations to stop this.

I would point out that travelling to Manchester after 7pm there is no one serving tickets at Bolton Station. The ticket machine (if it is working) does not serve the ticket required for the journey to Manchester. The guards/ticket vendors on the trains do not bother going round to collect fares when they must know there is no facility to buy a ticket at Bolton.

Regularly, there are many persons on the platform in the evenings travelling to Manchester, whose fares will be "avoided", not because they aren't willing to pay, but because North Western Trains cannot organise themselves properly.

I don't know how they've got the cheek to say people are evading fares, when it is their organisational incompetence that causes them to lose revenue. Do the management not know what is going on in their company?

William Hartwell, Bolton

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