BELEAGUERED commuters have hit out at South Western Railway’s “army” of ticket inspectors after the Herald counted no fewer than ten platform staff checking tickets at Farnham Station as a delayed train arrived from London on one November evening.

A common sight in recent months on Farnham’s two platforms has been groups of ticket inspectors guarding the station’s entrances and exits, checking tickets as passengers arrive and leave the station.

But on one occasion during the evening rush-hour on November 9, South Western Railway (SWR) deployed a total of ten inspectors at the station as frustrated commuters arrived home on a delayed train from London.

The Herald reported as much on Twitter, and within minutes received several angry responses.

“It’s completely ridiculous,” one Twitter user wrote. “You get in from a delayed train (daily occurrence) and then delayed further by the ticket check.” Another replied: “Madness, automate and trust. Put in barriers.”

Another disgruntled commuter Peter Goodman wrote a similar post on the Farnham Rants Facebook page after suffering a 15 minute delay to his Farnham-bound train.

He said: “Yesterday SWR checked my tickets three times during the trip into Waterloo and again, in the evening, an army of staff checking that we’d paid. For what? The trains are 10 to 15 minutes late both ways, every day. If only they allocated more staff to properly maintain the stock and tracks not on collecting money.”

This again attracted a flurry of negative comments directed towards SWR which, despite its apparent concern over fare dodgers, has confirmed that Farnham Station is not currently on the list to receive ticket barriers.

An SWR spokesman said: “We routinely deploy teams of ticket inspectors across our network. We did consider installing a ticket barrier at Farnham station, however, physical constraints of the site mean that it isn’t practical for us to do so at this time.”

Frustration among commuters on the Alton line has built since SWR took over the franchise in August 2017 amid ongoing industrial action resulting from the operator’s dispute with the RMT rail union over the role of guards - with the latest strike scheduled for this Saturday - as well as poor punctuality and over-running engineering works by Network Rail.

The latest example of the latter saw passengers advised not to travel during the Monday morning rush-hour this week, due to over-running works in the Hampton Court area, between Surbiton and Waterloo.

Responding to Monday’s disruption, Farnham Residents councillor Stephen Spence this week wrote to South West Surrey MP, Jeremy Hunt calling for his intervention.

“I really do resist complaining as I prefer to get on and fix things, but on this occasion I think I should bring this matter to your attention,” Mr Spence said in his letter to Mr Hunt.

“I’ll spare you the details of the daily joy residents of Farnham North have if they wish to try to get to London by train; points failure, broken rails, leaves on the line, trespassers; all legitimate reasons I am sure, but today takes the biscuit.

“All peak hour commuter trains were cancelled as the line is blocked between Surbiton and Waterloo because engineering works weren’t finished. This time it’s not even worth trying to get to Guildford or Farnborough as it’s the same story.

“Now I’m sure South Western Railway will say the blame lies with Network Rail, but there were such high hopes when SWR took over from Stagecoach. It was all going to be better. Well it seems to me things are getting worse and the effect on the economy must be awful.

“Apologies, refunds and excuses aren’t what commuters want, just an efficient and effective service worthy of the prices paid for tickets.

“The third largest town in Surrey can’t be left without any Monday morning peak hour trains because engineering work wasn’t finished on time. That is simply poor management.”