Right after noon on Tuesday (Aug. 7) we tried to buy a ticket on the northbound SunRail platform at Church Street. We got the weirdest message on the vending machine screen.
It said the machine had run out of tickets and then it printed the receipt shown in the accompanying photo.
Based on what we read on the receipt, it appeared SunRail charged our credit card, but we weren’t sure. In four years of riding SunRail we had never encountered a vending machine that had run out of tickets.
There was no SunRail Ambassador on the Church Street platform when we had this problem, though we know there were Ambassadors on duty at other stations. We used the call box on the platform to call customer service. After waiting a few minutes, an agent finally picked up.
The agent wasn’t sure if we were charged or not. She checked with her supervisor and then said we had not been charged. The agent went on to say we should check our bank account in a few days to make sure we had not been charged. Huh?
By the time we got done with her, we had to run to catch our train. We told the conductor what happened and showed him the receipt. Thankfully he allowed us to ride. He explained that since the Southern Expansion there had been a problem with machines running out of tickets.
Guess that’s a good problem, considering SunRail’s lackluster ridership before service began on the Southern Expansion.
But guys, you gotta do better!
Vending machines cannot run out of tickets by noon. If they do, then they need to be serviced more frequently. Better yet, we hope SunRail can step up the development of its app so that one day soon we can buy our ticket with our smartphone and not have to deal with the vending machines or ticket validators that have been a continuing problem.
Like they said in that old TV advertisement, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
See you on The Rail!
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