London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · February 28th 11, 08:58 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 18:49:07
on Sun, 27 Feb 2011, remarked:

If you want a travelcard, can you not buy it from the machines in the
main line station?

Sadly, even the closest machines in the main station are a very
long walk (at the entrance to the Thameslink platforms, and also
round the corner in the Circle, or upstairs at the MML barriers).
So while you might be able to buy a Travelcard (I don't know, and
it's not obvious that you can) it's not somewhere a Eurostar
arrivee is going to know about or stumble over.

I thought child tickets were only available from ticket offices these days?

Very possibly (it was certainly the case last time I needed to buy one
for my child). I think that there's a bit of a disconnect between
reality and some people's expectations when it comes to child ticketing.
In other words, I'm not sure any automated child ticketing is possible
in the current anti-fraud atmosphere.

Which does leave us hanging out "tourists with children" to dry, when it
comes to new initiatives such as this (or indeed Oyster).

What does this mean, when it comes to decisions about whether to "queue
up or pay more", well that will depend on the urgency, and the cost
(loss of leisure opportunity) to a family of spending 20 minutes in a
queue.
--
Roland Perry