In message , at 23:10:50 on Fri,
17 Oct 2014, Theo Markettos
remarked:
Portsmouth Harbour (*) has had smartcard readers installed for at least
three years, and they are 'switched on'. Seems a bit odd that the cards
themselves are only 'valid' as far south as Havant, when the hardware is
in place five stations down the line.

That map is almost 'any station that doesn't have other TOC trains calling',
but not quite.

How well does it correlate with "Stations operated by SWT"?

Salisbury to Southampton is allowed, even though it's
probably on FGW. Or Wokingham is allowed (also served by FGW) but Winnersh
isn't. Not quite sure why outer-suburban is barred too: some of that is
occasional-Southern territory, but not all.

The same aura is true of the EMT initial rollout (which hasn't changed
since the original July 2011 leaflet).

http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/..._route_map.pdf

Their website currently is silent on whether the card is interoperable
on, eg XC trains from Derby to Nottingham or Sheffield [and Northern
from Sheffield to Nottingham]. The original idea was that XC grippers
would be issued with readers but that didn't happen right away and I
don't know if it has now. I do recall seeing a note at one point that
the cards were only valid on EMT services, but I can't find it today.

They are also a bit coy on their website about walk-up tickets, and only
talk about seasons (although walk-up tickets were available from the
start when I tried, with the one hiccup that they only offered child
fares!) The latter was apparently because they programmed the DOB field
wrongly, and I have since been sent a replacement card, but haven't
recently had an opportunity to see whether it'll allow purchases of
walk-up tickets from a machine.

Followers of my "Tales of Vapourware" will no doubt be unsurprised to
hear that the July 2011 leaflet also says:

"From late 2012/early 2013, East Midlands Trains Smartcards can
be used on the London Underground."

Which I'm not aware is yet available from EMT (Southern have pioneered
it starting last month and C2C will follow quite soon).
--
Roland Perry