On 20 September 2019, I advised Southeastern that there were two lights on the footbridge at Bat & Ball station that were not working. On Friday 8 November 2019, they were still not working, and I contacted Southeastern again. I received a telephone call from Southeastern Customer Services in which they suggested that I should contact Network Rail and advise them of the problem with the footbridge lights at Bat & Ball station. I thought that Southeastern were responsible for Bat & Ball station.
However, I did contact Network Rail and as I expected they confirmed that it was Southeastern who should deal with this problem. I will monitor for progress; as at 29 November 2019 they were still not working.
NB: Although no Southeastern trains now stop at Bat & Ball, Southeastern are still responsible for the maintenance of the station – and of all the other stations on the Darenth Valley line.
The Bat & Ball ticket machine is too frequently out of order. The company says that it is always being vandalized but SRTA says it is not vandalized that much. We now have the company saying that it is the wrong type of machine for this type of station (whatever that is supposed to mean).
On Saturday there was a star fracture on the glass so I wonder how long it will take before a new glass is fitted.
Apart from that incident, I find the vandalism theory hard to believe because normally when it is out of order it is still able to display electronically a notice to say that it is out of order.
I understood that a second machine was going to be provided for the new entrance to the other platform but this has not happened. If we had two machines, we could presumably expect one to be working when the other is out of order.
It is about time somebody sorted this issue out properly.