RAIL commuters are celebrating the end of having to “play bingo” to speak to rail ticketing staff after an unpopular queuing system was shelved.

Passengers using Brighton Station are waving goodbye to a “deli counter” system which required them to get a ticket before entering the station’s ticket office – for the time being at least.

Commuters told The Argus they had to wait up to 55 minutes under the system before speaking with ticket office staff, missing their intended trains in the process.

Southern has said the system has been “temporarily suspended” while a review into its opertion is carried out.

Passengers said they were “bemused” when the system was introduced in December and are not shedding any tears following its removal four months on.

The system was designed to solve queuing problems at the station’s new ticket office, which opened following a revamp in 2014, giving commuters the choice of four different options to press a ticket for and then wait for their number to be called out.

Initially Southern said the new system was working “very well” but it has now been removed, with the firm admitting queuing times were getting “longer than acceptable”.

Circus performer Helen Day, 38, said she had been using Brighton Station for up to 20 years and was very happy to see the system removed.

She said: “Before queues would sometimes be a little long but never more than five to ten minutes but with this machine queues were up to 45 minutes and staff were telling me at its worst 55 minutes.

“This week with it gone, I was in and out really easy and staff said they were relieved it was gone.

“We know how to queue, it works, and we don’t need to feel like we are in a deli counter.

“If they bring it back I will be hopping mad.”

Fellow commuter Jeff Scott described the system as “where bingo meets A&E triage and gets crossed with a random deli counter numbering system”.

A Southern spokesman said: “The ticketing system has been temporarily suspended as the reliability was giving us cause for concern and queuing times were getting longer than was acceptable.

“We are reviewing the system with a view to establishing a way forward.”