On Jan 25, 1:53*pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 23, 4:49*pm, Mizter T wrote:

I wonder if at Waterloo it's as the gates being coded to reject all
'TOC-only' tickets apart from 'SWT-only' (of which I don't think any
actually exist, do they?)

Is that so? *It could partly explain why Advance Aldershot-Crewe
Virgin tickets have about a 50/50 chance of opening the barriers at
Aldershot, almost never accepted at Waterloo SWT barriers (but have
been at least once), always at Waterloo tube barriers and almost
always at Euston tube barriers!

It is not so, going by Paul Corfield's post upthread - the magnetic
encoding of NR tickets is pretty simple.

When I referred to "SWT-only" tickets, I literally meant that -
tickets only valid on SWT trains and marked as such. These exist
elsewhere, for example there are "FCC-only" tickets from London to
Brighton. However, apart from occasional promotions, there aren't any
"SWT-only" tickets issued.

Your Advance Aldershot-Crewe ticket is a combination of a specified
train ticket - the bit on Virgin - and in effect an 'any permitted'
ticket for the Aldershot to London bit (there's no compulsory
reservation for that bit). Why it only sometimes works the gates at
Waterloo, I can't say - do you buy them from different places? If so,
it may simply be that it's encoded correctly by one retailer, but not
by another.


Last time, the rejected ticket sparked a discussion off between the
SWT barrier staff at Waterloo about where Crewe was and if the ticket
was valid (which it most certainly is). *Annoying, particularly as
this type of discussion has the potential to escalate and cause a
missed train at Euston. *I wonder where the passenger would stand in
this situation - would Virgin staff accept it as a valid reason for
delay beyond the passengers control and allow them to travel on a
later train? *Fortunately didn't need to find out on this occasion.

Perhaps they'd consider it daft enough to be believable.