"Dr J R Stockton" wrote in message
nvalid...
In uk.transport.london message , Sat,
16 Feb 2013 12:05:34, tim..... posted:

Note that this is a multi-lingual site, so you might be able to use
this in
your native language if you prefer (just change the "en" at the end).

and just what do you change it to to get it to talk to you in squiggle
squiggle language

Presumably the two-letter code for the squiggle squiggle language, which
a squiggle squiggle reader should know. The site goes blank for unknown
codes, which is bad implementation.

Not really as you're not supposed to do it that way, you're supposed to
select from the drop down list.

I just commented because I found the PP's post a rather strange piece of
advice to give

tim

antoine wrote:
Dear readers,
in some months I will come to London again, after 45 years!
The airplane will be landing in Gatwick; which is the best (and cheapest)
means to go to London? If it is a railway, in which station shall I get
off the train to be as near as possible to Chelsea?

This thread is diverting off into so many tangents it's getting painful.
In case you're confused, here's a summary:

There are two lines to London: Victoria is the terminus of one, the
other line goes through the middle of London but London Bridge or
Blackfriars are relevant stations.

Trains to London Bridge/Blackfriars are run by FCC. Trains to Victoria are
run by Gatwick Express and Southern.

You need to buy a ticket for a specific company. Usually Southern tickets
are cheapest, followed by FCC, with the most expensive being Gatwick
Express.

Gatwick Express trains are more frequent, less busy than Southern, with a
bit more luggage space. They're usually a bit faster than Southern, but
often only by about 15 mins. The interior of the trains isn't anything
upgraded compared to the normal Southern trains on the same route.

The best thing to do is to go to a ticket window and ask for a ticket to
your destination. You can buy from the machines, but you need to know
specifically which ticket you're looking for. Apart from Advance tickets
(see below) and not having to queue there isn't much advantage to booking
online.

A 'Travelcard' is a ticket that also allows you to use London tubes, trains
and buses on the day it's valid for. You can get a ticket to London which
incorporates one of these - it may be easier and cheaper than buying an
Oyster card in London for your onward journey (but you'll probably want an
Oyster if staying in London more than a day).

Return tickets are valid for either one day or one month. Sometimes a day
return works out cheaper than a single ticket, and sometimes two single
tickets work out cheaper than a month return. If it doesn't say 'Day' in
the name, a return ticket is valid for one month.

London has 'peak' times, where travel is more expensive. It varies between
train companies, but roughly this means travelling before 0930
Monday-Friday or between 1600 and 1900 (I don't know the specific times for
Victoria or London Bridge). There are no peaks on Saturdays,
Sundays or bank holidays. If you don't care about the details, an 'Anytime'
ticket is valid at all times.

'Advance' tickets are those where you have to travel on a specific train and
you can't (easily) change them afterwards. There may be a few on the
Gatwick route for £5, but they only make sense if you're prepared to book
one a long time after your flight arrives and hang around the airport.

If you can be more specific as to where in 'Chelsea' you mean, we could
provide some suggestions. But essentially you can take an FCC train to
Blackfriars and change to the Circle/District to Sloane Square, or a train
to Victoria and a bus. You can also take the Circle/District from Victoria,
but the tube station is less convenient to manage with luggage.


My personal suggestion (without looking at the fares in detail) would be:
Travelcard on Southern to Victoria, put up with a few stairs, tube or bus
onwards
or
Travelcard on FCC to Blackfriars, tube onwards from there.

Use your Travelcard that day to get about London as necessary, then buy an
Oyster card and start using it the next day.


Hope this is less confusing!
Theo

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 07:34:33PM +0000, antoine wrote:

in some months I will come to London again, after 45 years!
The airplane will be landing in Gatwick; which is the best (and cheapest)
means to go to London? If it is a railway, in which station shall I get
off the train to be as near as possible to Chelsea?

The cheapest way is to walk.

The best way is to get a Southern train to Victoria. Make sure that you
get on a Southern train - and ask for a Southern ticket - lest you pay
thruppence ha'penny more on the Gatwick Express.

There may be cheaper ways that don't involve walking, such as coaches,
but those will be full of loud drunk people who have used Ryanair and
the like, and so should be avoided.

--
David Cantrell | top google result for "internet beard fetish club"

NANOG makes me want to unplug everything and hide under the bed
-- brian d foy

On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 01:02:15PM +0000, Recliner wrote:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is luggage. The OP says he will
have checked luggage, so he may want a stairs-free route from train to
District Line Underground train, which might favour the FCC
Blackfriars option, rather than Victoria, or bus rather than LU.

As of some time last week, you still had to use stairs from the FCC
platforms to ground level at Blackfriars.

--
David Cantrell | semi-evolved ape-thing

I'm in retox

David Cantrell wrote:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 01:02:15PM +0000, Recliner wrote:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is luggage. The OP says he will
have checked luggage, so he may want a stairs-free route from train to
District Line Underground train, which might favour the FCC
Blackfriars option, rather than Victoria, or bus rather than LU.

As of some time last week, you still had to use stairs from the FCC
platforms to ground level at Blackfriars.

I thought it had escalators.

In article ,
(Theo Markettos) wrote:

Gatwick Express trains are more frequent, less busy than Southern, with a
bit more luggage space. They're usually a bit faster than Southern, but
often only by about 15 mins. The interior of the trains isn't anything
upgraded compared to the normal Southern trains on the same route.

The Southern frequency is probably higher but trains vary in speed quite a
bit. The time difference between South and Gatwick Express can be as small
as one minute however.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 10:26:05
on Mon, 18 Feb 2013, remarked:
Gatwick Express trains are more frequent, less busy than Southern, with a
bit more luggage space. They're usually a bit faster than Southern, but
often only by about 15 mins. The interior of the trains isn't anything
upgraded compared to the normal Southern trains on the same route.

The Southern frequency is probably higher but trains vary in speed quite a
bit. The time difference between South and Gatwick Express can be as small
as one minute however.

And the cheapest walk-up tickets are the "FCC only" ones, not the
"Southern only".
--
Roland Perry

Thank you Theo, for your summary!

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 07:30:26AM +0000, Walter Briscoe wrote:
In message id of Sun,
17 Feb 2013 15:23:50 in uk.transport.london, Dr J R Stockton reply1300@
merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid writes
Presumably the two-letter code for the squiggle squiggle language, which
a squiggle squiggle reader should know. The site goes blank for unknown
codes, which is bad implementation.
I don't believe that this site is designed to facilitate calling it as a
URL in languages other than German - the default language.

What are you smoking?

You seriously think that TfL's website's default language is GERMAN?

It requires effort to learn how to drive that interface.

No, it requires the ability to read. Do you see the drop-down thingy
near the top of the page that says "English" (or, perhaps, on your
planet, "Deutsch")? Click on it.

It seems to require source access to find those codes.

No it doesn't.

In Internet Explorer, that is easy - View/Source. In Firefox, the option
is more obscure and I can't be bothered finding it.

Right-click on the page, View Page Source.

The source which does the selection is
label class="structural-label" for="languages"Change
language/labelselect name="language" id="languages"option
value="en" selected="selected"English/optionoption value="de"Deutsc
h/option...

The language selectors are en, de, fr, etc.
e.g. to call it in Türkçe(I assume that is Turkish), the URL is
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=tr

Those are the ISO-something-or-other language codes.

--
David Cantrell | Bourgeois reactionary pig

For every vengeance, there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
-- Cartoon Law X

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 08:56:05AM -0600, Recliner wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
As of some time last week, you still had to use stairs from the FCC
platforms to ground level at Blackfriars.
I thought it had escalators.

Hmm, maybe I walked down the escalator, I'm not sure. But I definitely
had to walk down. If it was down the escalator, then it hadn't yet been
turned on. Or had already broken. I distinctly remember walking down,
because I've knackered my ankle and stairs HURT.

--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

I'm in retox