On 2 Apr, 11:28, Sarah Brown
wrote:

In article ,
Mizter T wrote:

The first gateline would have already 'ended your journey' - however
going through the second gateline should not have been a problem at
all. Stratford is unique in having this double-gateline arrangement

I guess that's why I never encountered it before. Wonder how often
they get bemused passengers standing there in puzzlement?


Fairly often I reckon!


You certainly shouldn't get charged for an unresolved journey at all.

Incidentally you bought a zones 1-6 Day Travelcard just for a rail
journey to Enfield Lock (and back?) - no need! You could have just
bought a single or return rail ticket, or indeed a zones 2-6 Day
Travelcard (at £4.80) as appropriate.

No, I bought a CDR - that was 6 quid (or 10 with a network railcard)!


I know what went wrong here. You bought a Stratford to Enfield Lock
"via London" CDR - i.e. for a journey that would have routed you via
Liverpool Street. What you really wanted was a Stratford to Enfield
Lock "not London" ticket for a direct journey, which costs the
slightly more reasonable sum of £4.10.

I'm guessing you purchased from a ticket machine, based on your
comments about the Network Railcard price of £10, which is something
would only ever be presented as an option to a passenger by a machine
rather than a human (i.e. a ticket clerk, though perhaps some are on
the edge of being robots)!

I've no idea if the ticket machines at Stratford can be coaxed into
selling a Stratford to Enfield Lock "not London" ticket, though it's
would appear to be a shame that the machine seemingly didn't
explicitly flag up the two options ("via London" and "not London"), or
if it did, it didn't do so in an obvious enough manner.

That said if it was an LU ticket machine then I can quite imagine it
not being programmed to present or sell the two different fares
whatsoever (though the whole Network Railcard £10 fare business does
make it sound like one of NXEA's Scheidt & Bachmann machines, because
that's what they do).

As Mr Thant points out elsewhere, as well as the LU ticket office
there is also actually a "National Express East Anglia" (NXEA i.e.
TOC) ticket office at Stratford which should certainly have been able
to sort you out with the right ticket (though to the confusion of many
a tourist it won't sell NX coach tickets to Stratford!). The issue is
finding it - one must actually leave the main station building and
then turn left and left again, and it's in a quasi-shed tagged on to
the side of the main building.

The LU ticket office may well have been able to sell you the right
ticket too, though the LU windows at Stratford are always very busy
and they aren't ever going to be as au fait with mainland rail
ticketing as the NXEA ticket office next door. Indeed I'd recommend
most people to use the NXEA office as there's likely to be less of a
queue, they can now do Oyster top-ups, I guess they can sell LU single
tickets and they can certainly sell Day Travelcards. The only problem
might be getting stuck behind someone trying to buy tickets for some
incredibly complex pan-Britain rail journey!