In message , at
15:56:45 on Sat, 13 Sep 2014, Stephen Furley
remarked:
Got bus to East Croydon, checked Oyster and only a couple of pounds on it so added another ten pounds. caught train to St. Pancras
International, it was diverted via Herne Hill and ran very slowly the whole way. Card wouldn't open either of two gates at St. Pancras.

That's interesting. Someone was reporting the other day in another
newsgroup that the Thameslink gateline at St Pancras wasn't accepting
his Travelcard-on-ITSO (a fairly new innovation issues by Southern, but
works elsewhere apparently). Maybe the whole gateline is FUBARed for
some reason. Ditto the staff training there (was FCC, now Govia).

Person at gateline eventually tried to read it with a handheld device and said it was a bus pass, I told him that I had just added ten pounds
to it at East Croydon, and showed him the receipt. He said I had to take it to Underground station to get it sorted out. Walked to Euston,
which took a long time with my legs in the state they're in now.

For future reference there are three Underground ticket offices at Kings
Cross/St Pancras and the one which can be reached via the escalators/
lifts adjacent to the "Kent Domestic" platforms at St Pancras generally
has a quiet ticket office (compared to the other two and Euston).

Although it's further (but accessible by bus along Euston Rd of course),
the ticket office at Euston Square almost never has a queue, and is the
one I tend to use if I have 'ticket office' business in the Euston area.
--
Roland Perry