In February, as part of a series of changes to extend the gateline at Liverpool Street station, the ticket office was moved. It had been located between platforms 10 and 11, a bright area with plenty of space and five ticket windows. It wasn't particularly appealing but it still felt important.
The new ticket office is round the back of the old one, up a passage beside platform 10. It's on the way to Left Luggage so a bit of a backwater. That's it on the right, the small door beside the Customer Lounge.
And this is the new ticket office, a stunted narrow space with ticket windows on two sides. It feels more like walking into a hospital corridor and has all the allure of queueing for a basement appointment.
According to Network Rail the change is to improve the customer experience.
In Network Rail's eyes new shops are more important to the customer experience than the ability to buy a ticket. The new gateline swept away several small retail units so the need to replace them has clearly taken precedence. Indeed you may remember Liverpool Street once had a much larger ticket office, roughly opposite, but that was closed in 2016 and now houses Oliver Bonas, Greggs and the inevitable Gail's.
That said there's no longer need for the sheer volume of ticket windows we used to have, times have moved on. There were 12 at Liverpool Street before 2016, cut to 10 when the replacement ticket office opened. After the pandemic the number of windows was halved to five, all down the far end. It's still five in 2025 but now crammed into a much smaller space as if ticket purchasers are an afterthought. Admittedly most passengers are tapping in on the Elizabeth line, not buying a return to Norwich, but it feels like a downgrade.
So I wondered how many ticket windows the other London rail termini have... and this turned into a major orienteering exercise yesterday, which means I can now present this comprehensive summary.
Liverpool Street: 5 ticket windows (three open, all being used)
See above. Opens ridiculously early and has the longest opening hours of any terminus ticket office.
Fenchurch Street: 2 ticket windows (both open, no customers)
The two ticket sellers here looked very bored, but I guess nobody wants to travel from the City to Southend on a Monday morning.
Cannon Street: 4 ticket windows (none open, no customers)
Staff at Cannon Street were somewhat preoccupied yesterday because they were celebrating the station's 159th birthday. Several were dressed in Victorian clothing, all the better to sing Happy Birthday to the Lord Mayor when he arrived. Elsewhere I spotted a tombola, a cake stall, a plaque waiting to be unveiled and, inside the very very quiet ticket office, three helium balloons shaped 1, 5, and 9.
London Bridge: 8 ticket windows (2 open, both being used)
When the new revamped London Bridge station opened in 2018, eight ticket windows seemed a perfectly practical number. These days the central ticket office rarely has a long queue and had they rebuilt it today I'm sure it would have been smaller.
Blackfriars: 3 ticket windows (none open, six people waiting)
This was a miserable experience for the family and the elderly gentlemen who turned up wanting to buy tickets, none of whom spotted the lunchbreak sign in the window saying 'back at 2pm'. Opposite are three ticket machines, one of which is currently broken. Based on experience I would never risk trying to buy a ticket at Blackfriars before an important journey, it's the flakiest terminus of all.
King's Cross: 7 ticket windows (6 open, all being used)
This capacious ticket hall dates back to the big revamp in 2012. Perversely the windows are numbered 2-8 because number 1 has been subsumed into some kind of kiosk.
St Pancras: 4 ticket windows (2 open, queue of 13 waiting)
Until recently there were two adjacent ticket offices, one notionally Thameslink and the other for Midlands-bound trains. One of those is now a Gail's because travellers want pastries more than they want tickets, but the remaining ticket office seemed overstretched because it had by far the longest queue of any terminus I visited.
Euston: 11 ticket windows (6 open, only 4 being used)
What a busy space this used to be in Virgin days but it has a tumbleweed feel these days, including seven additional windows no longer numbered or used. Even the rank of ticket machines outside is pretty paltry, I guess because nobody buys an extortionate walk-up Avanti ticket unless they really have to.
Marylebone: 4 ticket windows (2 open, one being used)
Used to be five windows but one is now for 'Information' only. Cute but quiet. I think I missed the morning Bicester Village rush.
Paddington: 9 ticket windows (5 lit, 3 open, all being used)
A usefully-flexible space, perhaps understaffed. Quite a few ticket machines have disappeared out front on the concourse so maybe even they're no longer so necessary. Ticket purchasing options have plainly changed over the last few years.
Victoria: 8 ticket windows (3 open, 2 being used)
Still the same long row of windows but rarely busy any more. Alongside are five Gatwick Express windows to tempt airportgoers to part with their money (only one of which was open). All are now overshadowed by a massive arc of 21 ticket machines, yesterday overseen by a single member of staff hence hugely cheaper to operate.
Charing Cross: 4 ticket windows (2 open, both being used)
A low key facility beneath the clock, just behind some seating. While I was watching one of the staff brought down the 'Position Closed' screen and slunk away.
Waterloo: 14 ticket windows (4 open, two being used)
11 numbered windows for travelling today, plus three for advance travel (and they were busier). I once queued behind Su Pollard to buy a ticket here, and I doubt that would happen again now.
I can summarise all of that with the following ranking, which also includes the number of ticket machines I spotted at each station.
Waterloo, Euston and Paddington continue to top the ticket office table, although all have a surfeit of windows only some of which are generally lit up. Elsewhere rather fewer windows suffice, with Liverpool Street now firmly mid-table and the other City termini propping up the list.
Loads of rail passengers buy advance tickets online or on their phone these days, without ever needing to go near a ticket office, and it shows. But there'll always be people who want or need to buy a ticket in person, not least because a trained member of staff is more likely to sell you the optimum ticket than a menu-driven machine.
In the meantime the inexorable shrinkage of ticket office totals shows that reduced walk-up facilities are very much the direction of travel. If even the busiest station in the country is deemed worthy of only five ticket windows, what hope ultimately for everywhere else?
