I got back late from a trip to London on Tuesday, and fell to talking to the guard about the recent vandalism at Winchfield station.

My observations:

• the ticket machine got vandalised a few weeks ago, and is gone, vanished
• the car-park ticket machine is *dead* – and was bloody awful anyway, not taking money, not taking the right money…
• it appears that there is free parking for the moment; but check for yourself before deciding

The guard’s observations on winchfield station

• it’s the 4th time the winchfield machine has been raided
• any machine with that much money in it, in so isolated an area, is going to get ripped off
• he’d expect Micheldever station would be vandalised more since there are a bunch of travellers nearby, but not so
• the machine away being repaired and hardened against further attack
• precisely how that will happen, we cannot imagine
• unless maybe it goes cashless, is my thought?

On the new touch-card boxes sprouting up on the Winchfield line

• a new touch-card system under test, like oyster, but not oyster
• has been under test on the Ascot line, too
• the cards will be tied to credit cards a-la oyster, revocable if stolen, etc; no pre-pay
• many rail staff have cards, they trying to break the system through misbehaviour
• the system locks out cards that display erroneous behaviour
• the cards will be used to implement season tickets, week, month, annual
• (i am sure something fairer could be created, but that would not be in SWT’s interest)

The big news

• you will soon be able to pay for parking via phone
• the parking payment machine *may* vanish (!)
• not sure if done by SMS, or voice a-la congestion charge payments
• (will play merry hell with my expenses)

The latter convinces me: it is time to make sure all my bikes are in working order, especially since SWT are now charging for saturday parking at Winchfield; that said, if I need to be away of a weekend then at least I could pay for parking on an as-needed basis.