Reader's letter - Why a train journey from Sheffield to Barnsley 'ruined day' of older ladies on trip out after being stuck in the house

We travelled from Chapeltown to Barnsley by train.

We are all older ladies and our mobility is not great, so be warned if you travel you could be fined £20 if you do not have a ‘promise to pay ticket’.

The train to Barnsley comes in on platform 2, the ticket machine is on platform 1, but we did not know about the ticket after not being out for such a long time.

The steps up to the platforms are very steep and to walk round to the ticket machine would take 20 minutes and after doing that I would not have the energy to walk home, never mind get on a train.

So now our day is ruined because we are not fit enough to get up two lots of steps.

We tried to pay our fare on the train but were told by the conductor that no ‘promise to pay ticket means’ that he could issue a £20 fine and charge us £5 to travel.

We were all upset at being told this and the conductor could see that we were upset.

This would have been our penalty for not being fit enough to climb two lots of steps.

An easy fix surely would be to put a ticket machine on both platforms.

Jessie Patthegrove

Chapeltown