THE opening hours of the ticket office at York Station are to be reduced along with 11 other East Coast mainline stations, it has been claimed.

Passengers will be “short-changed” by the move, according to the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA). A TSSA spokesman claims National Express intends to cut the office’s opening times by six hours each week and a total of 103 hours will be lost from all stations on the line. The union said the reductions at the 12 stations were the latest cost-cutting moves by the company.

But a National Express spokesperson said: “We are proposing to make some minor changes to ticket office opening hours. In some places such as York and Peterborough, the ticket office will actually open 15 minutes earlier in response to commuters’ needs. The union has made some claims that are factually incorrect, including late-night revellers being unable to buy tickets at Kings Cross. The station is actually closed from 1am to 5am. The last train departs at 11.30pm and the proposed changes will see the ticket office closing at 11.30pm. The first train departs Kings Cross at 6am, and the ticket office will open at 5am.

“We are not ‘rationing water and biscuits’ as the union says. This is completely untrue, and tickets from ticket machines are not ‘more expensive’ than buying from the ticket offices. Any job losses which may result from these changes are already included in the previously announced 750 redundancies”.

But TSSA leader Gerry Doherty said: “This is death by a thousand cuts. First they cut jobs, then they close most of their restaurant cars and then they start rationing biscuits and water to their first class passengers. Now they are cutting back on ticket offices and forcing passengers to buy more expensive tickets from ticket machines. All these cuts are being made so National Express can pay Government a £1.4 billion premium for this franchise. If they cannot afford to provide a decent long distance service, they should simply hand the keys back and let ministers run it as a public service that puts passengers first.”

The stations hit by the cuts also include Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Edinburgh, Newark, Grantham, Peterborough and Berwick.