CALL me paranoid, but I can’t help wonder if the endemic ‘ticket machine failure’ announced so frequently by Northern Rail conductors isn’t deeper-rooted.

At least five times in the past three weeks and already twice this week, I’ve witnessed no tickets being sold on board during my commute to Blackburn.

What concerns me is not the fact that I’ve pre-bought my ticket while dozens around me get a free ride – that’s just a niggle – but whether conductors are under orders from ‘on high’ not to sell tickets (under the pretence of a failed machine) in order to keep official passenger numbers down.

And why should Northern Rail wish to do this? Because it would be harder to justify doubling the track and investing in new stock if passenger numbers were only a paltry handful for each journey.

In fact, a quick head-count this morning suggested around 35 passengers alighted at Blackburn, and I would guess the majority (certainly the 20 or so who boarded at Darwen) did not have tickets and would be unlikely to have them on their return.

Apart from losing so much revenue, surely the company cannot be happy with this situation unless, as I infer, something more sinister is going on.

Ticket machine failure has been happening on and off for several years now, and I cannot believe the problem has been unsolvable all that time.

Could it be that the bosses simply want the demand for developing the line to go away, and ‘cooking the books’ on passenger numbers is the easiest way?

Perhaps Community Rail Lancashire, local councillors and MP Jake Berry, who has pushed for improvements to the line, could do some ‘digging’ to find out just what is going on.

And maybe Northern Rail might care to respond with their own version of events – just to ease my paranoia!

Traveller, East Lancs.