"Marc Brett" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 22:37:49 +0100, Spyke wrote:

There's also lots of silly differences, for example, I can buy an
all-zones travelcard with my Disabled railcard at a NationalRail station
and get one for a travelling companion at the same discounted price, yet
buying the same travelcard from a LUL station with the same railcard, I
can't get a discounted ticket for my companion.

What we need is for all LUL ticket offices to be brought up to the
standard of those on National Rail, able to sell any ticket that an NR
ticket office can sell with the same conditions and discounts.
Meanwhile, NR ticket offices should be able to sell through tickets to
any zone on LU.

When I asked TfL about this, they replied:

I can appreciate the points you raise. Indeed, I can confirm that Richmond
station, including the ticket office, is 'owned' by South West Trains so
only their ticketing range is available from this station. The situation
is
the same at Gunnersbury and Kew Gardens stations. There are also other
similar situations elsewhere on the tube network. This can cause a problem
for bus ticket sales - either Bus Savers or Bus Passes - as National Rail
stations do not sell these tickets. All tube stations (owned by LU) do
sell
the full range of bus tickets as do all high street Ticket Stops (eg:
newsagents). The latter are especially important in locations such as
Richmond, or any other National Rail-managed stations.

That sounds crazy to me - the only way in which Bus Savers and Bus Passes
can be sold at NR stations is for TfL to take them over? Do they think we
are really that naive? I suspect they are quite happy for the current
situation to prevail if it helps them make a case for taking over parts of
the NR network. Of course they could come to an arrangement with rail
operators to sell these tickets; they are clearly not trying very hard.

This is basically historical and down to the fact that we cannot provide a
fully integrated approach to transport in London as we are not responsible
for the National Rail network. The Mayor, and TfL, are keen to take more
control of the National Rail network in London to help improve these
services. The rationalisation of the fares systems of both networks would
be
a major advantage should we be given these powers. I am sure part of this
work would involve the roll-out of the sales of bus tickets at these
locations to provide some uniformity across London.

"The rationalisation of the fares systems of both networks would be
a major advantage" ...to TfL I assume. I am sure this will mean all sorts
of Cheap Day Deturn tickets and rail-only season tickets etc. disappear and
be replaced with higher 'zonal' fares or Travelcards.

I travel from a Zone 6 station to London by SET and pay for a rail-only
season ticket which is all I need, saving £50 per month on the cost of the
Z1-6 Travelcard.

I do not believe that the current fares system is that bad; the Travelcard
is the result of an integrated fares policy for the Greater London area.
Now they want yet more "simplification" of other fares, and that will simply
be to raise more revenue.

The plans to hand control of London's rail services to TfL forms part of
the
government's recent white paper on the future of the UK's rail network. We
hope to be handed more control in due course.

I bet they do.