Last weekend when walking past Dorking Deepdene station, I noticed that a ticket machine has been installed, not on the platform, but on the pavement of the A24. As there are 2 entrances to the station, and one might not walk past the machine to reach eastbound trains, you may not be aware of its presence. Indeed, being not on railway property, one wonders how long it will be there before somebody vandalises it. It`s a bit of a nuisance that it has been installed, as you can happily travel from Dorking to Reigate free of charge owing to the disinterest of the conductors in asking for fares on that stretch of track.

The penalty fare scheme comes into operation on 01/03/07, though there will be a 4 week period to"educate" passengers. The penalty for boarding without a valid ticket from a station where there is a ticket buying facility is £20, OR twice the cost of a standard day single to THE NEXT STOP, plus the cost of a standard day single to your destination, whichever is greater. You are right that this can only be implemented by Penaty Fare Inspectors, and train managers and conductors(when they can get through the train) cannot do so.

I somehow doubt that will happen, no sign of a new machine at Trowbridge yet!

They should put a Permit To Travel machine (PERTIS) on the platform as well as a ticket machine - as ticket machines can't sell every type of ticket avaliable & some people can't use them. The idea of these is to prove intention for payment - you put any amount of money from 5p upwards and they print a ticket, when you pay for your ticket, you hand this permit over and the money you paid on the PERTIS is taken off the price of the ticket.

I believe the Penalty Fares scheme is a scam, designed to pull in unwilling "customers" - if they wanted to penalise those who don't pay - they'd refer them to the courts, but to prosecute someone, you must prove they have intention

Salisbury (SW Trains stration) has a ticket office with good open-hours, plus option of using the travel centre.  However, on many an occasion the queues are very long (especially if only one booth is actually serving) and you can turn up even up to 15-20 minutes before departure and still not be served.  Since about November 2006 a ticket machine which takes credit cards and cash has been installed.  I'm not averse to such things and was very pleased to see it.  However, using it for the first few times was painstaking.  It wasn't clear when to indicate you had a railcard, nor, when offered, which 'route' to choose (e.g. going to Exeter from Salisbury, you can take SW Train on Gillingham line or FGW via Westbury).  It was also frustrating that if you wanted to take a train that's just at the start of off-peak hours (say, 10am) you can't buy a railcard ticket in advance. 

The complicated rail-fare structure puts so many people off, I cannot understand why there hasn't been an imposition of fares per kilometer/mile travelled regardless of destination (unlike the current 'market forces' indicators operators use).  The machine has, I have observed, put many people off so the queues remain and the machine is unused.  The staff are not much wiser though SW Trains do on occasion have people around to help. 

I can't imagine FGW will bother helping anyone. 

These machines are clearly expensive (fare rises) and unless operators do something concrete to educate passengers on their use - and offer multi-lingual facilities for visitors, they will be unused and then you're liable for a penalty for the pleasure.