No staff at the railway station?

A very long time ago, when I was a mere kitten, going anywhere on the train was exciting.  

We would hold an adult's paw and go to the railway station. There, in a little "box" there would be someone, usually a man, selling tickets. Tickets would be bought with actual money. Change would be given. We would wait, usually in a "waiting room".

The train would come. The guard would look out. The "station master" would come out. Parcels might be exchanged. Greetings would be exchanged. Other things we didn't understand would happen but then the guard would blow a whistle and we would be off. At each stop along the line something similar would happen. The conductor would come and clip the tickets. The tickets were proper tickets too, pieces of cardboard. On a really good train day he might even show us how the "clipper" worked. 

Near us the train crossed a road without a level crossing. The guard would lean out of the train ringing a bell as the train went very slowly across the road. It then went down to "the terminus" where it turned around on a great circular platform ready to come back. Sometimes we were allowed to stay on all the way down and come back "just for fun". If I was travelling on my own, at around the age of six or seven I was always allowed to do this. I would then walk home alone, a distance of around two hundred metres.

Going to my grandparents alone was even more exciting. The guard would help me off at the right station on the way back and pass me over to the station master. When the "up" train had gone the station master would leave the ticket office and take me safely across the road and I would then go to my grandparents' house. 

Imagine doing that now? It wouldn't even be possible. The spur line to our home has long since gone. There are no guards on trains any more. The driver has to watch and wait. 

And there are no station masters at suburban stations. All those people who watched out for us, who sold tickets, who gave advice, who helped the elderly and the young and watched the predatory adults and the overactive teenagers have gone. There are no tickets. You have to swipe a card which you refill electronically. 

Oh yes, at weekends and (sometimes) late at night there are "security staff". They see the dozens of (mostly) boys get their bikes onto the train to go up into the hills in order to make the crazy, hair raising, dangerous pedal journey downhill. If there is a massive event on somewhere they might put more staff on to see that nothing untoward happens. 

That is all. Most of the time, outside "peak hours", the trains run at a loss. People don't use them. They are no longer considered "safe" by many people. It is considered "safer and easier" to use a car. 

I don't have a choice and I have had a love affair with trains since early childhood. It was with alarm that I read the once great United Kingdom rail service is also removing ticket offices across the country. This is not the answer. They should be staffing them. Passenger numbers will drop still further, just as they have here. You say, "It doesn't matter. I'll use the car." I say, "It does matter. Some of us cannot drive. We don't own cars. There are also people who should not be permitted to drive, who are no longer able to drive safely. Trains can carry our trikes, bikes, gophers, the prams and much more. They may not go everywhere a bus can go but they are still potentially far faster and far more efficient."

And I think of all those people who were employed to see us safely from one point to another. It just doesn't seem as exciting any more.