The real reason for the barriers emerges

National Express East Coast have consistently claimed that the justification for the barriers is to ensure revenue protection and cut down on fraudulent travel. However, on longer distance services such as those on the East Coast Main Line, there is often a considerable amount of time to check tickets between stations. An example is at King's Cross, where platforms 9-11, dealing mainly with suburban traffic, are already gated - the other platforms cater mainly for long distance services most of which don't stop before Peterborough, nearly an hour's running time away. Is it really impossible to on-train staff to do a thorough check in this time?

A recent article by Christian Wolmar in "Rail" magazine has highlighted National Express's submission to Newcastle City Council in support of the installation of barriers there: "Once commissioned, the ticket barriers become the single point of entry to the rail side of stations. Following the 7/7 attack, there is a requirement to have CCTV coverage of entry and exit points to stations in order to achieve identification and/or recognition standards."

So in other words there is now an intention to identify every individual entering or leaving a railway station - but at least we can sleep easy in or beds that the terrorist threat is being dealt with, and that a bomber will never be able to get on a train at York station. Except of course, for the fact that the 7/7 bombers did get on a train at a gated station (Luton), and alternatively, failing that, they could just use one of the hundreds of unstaffed stations on the network.