On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 21:51:29 -0000, "Colin"
wrote:

HEX is *owned* by BAA PLC (it is NOT a franchise).

If I remember rightly, don't BAA have a stake in Eurotunnel, or
something bizarre like that? And NatEx have a stake in Eurostar...

Cya,

Barry

--
Barry Salter, barry at southie dot me dot uk
Read uk.* newsgroups? Read uk.net.news.announce!

DISCLAIMER: The above comments do not necessarily represent the
views of my employers.

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:18:23 GMT, Rupert Goodwins
wrote:

Late on Saturday night, I had to get back from Gatwick Airport to
London. I bought my ticket from the machine in the station concourse
by credit card: it gave me the option of various travelcard discounts
(but not LT Gold Card, the one I have), so I chose Network Card as the
nearest equivalent and carried on.

The ticket issued showed Network Card and Gatwick Express.

On the train, the inspector took the ticket and said "You can't use
Network Card on this service, sir", showing me the Network Card bit on
the ticket but covering up the Gatwick Express bit with his thumb. I
pointed out that if he moved his thumb, it clearly said I could. (He
didn't seem to care that I was showing him the Gold Card at the time,
so I guess that bit was all right).

AFAIK, he's right. The Network Railcard area map at
http://www.railcard.co.uk/network/network_map1.pdf clearly shows that
the Gatwick Express is not included in the discount.

Also at http://www.gatwickexpress.co.uk/ it says: "Railcards
Discounts are also available with Senior railcards, Young Persons
railcard, Family railcards and Disabled Persons railcards." Note the
lack of a mention about Network Railcards.

"The machine shouldn't have issued that" he said, very grumpily and
scribbling all over the thing with his biro. "Can I keep this to show
my manager?"

Other Gatwick services are Network Railcard discounted, just not the
Gatwick Express. Looks like the machine was doing odd things.

So, what's going on there? If he hadn't tried to cover up the Gatwick
Express bit with his thumb, I'dve believed that he was surprised by
the thing, but clearly he's seen this plenty of times before and is
used to bluffing it out.

Maybe he's tired of the ticket machine errors, which means passengers
get an erroneous ticket that contradicts his correct information?

I don't think the pre May 2003 (or whenever it was) old condition
Network Railcards allowed discounts on the Gatwick Express, but *if*
they did, the problem might have been the OLD cards included the
discount, but current ones don't?


Cheers,

Jason.

In message , Barry Salter
writes
If I remember rightly, don't BAA have a stake in Eurotunnel, or
something bizarre like that? And NatEx have a stake in Eurostar...

To add to the speculation: I thought BA and Virgin owned EuroStar, and
that Eurotunnel was a plc with a diverse shareholding.
--
Roland Perry

On an unrealated matter. Im not sure if its still the case. But the
ticket machines at Gatwick Airport never use to give the option of a
"Young Persons Railcard" for any service. I travelled with someone who
didn't want to join the 20 people queue for a ticket office. Couldn't
find a YP ticket option so choose Network Railcard and got the ticket
for the same price as YP. Then argued with the Connex guard that if
the ticket machine didn't have YP option how could they get one. And
the ticket price was the same anyway. It was only point blank refusal
to buy another ticket and us quite happily offering to discuss the
matter with British Transport Police that he told us not to do it
again and went off.

In message , Rupert Goodwins
writes
Late on Saturday night, I had to get back from Gatwick Airport to
London. I bought my ticket from the machine in the station concourse
by credit card: it gave me the option of various travelcard discounts
(but not LT Gold Card, the one I have), so I chose Network Card as the
nearest equivalent and carried on.


Used Gatwick Express last week at 4am, and was pleasantly surprised to
find that it's fine to purchase your tickets onboard. (Of course, if I'd
known that before-hand, I wouldn't have anxiously queued at the Victoria
ticket-office behind five others and with only a few minutes before the
train's departure.)

--
Martin @ Strawberry Hill