On 26 Aug 2005 06:01:28 -0700, wrote:

[replied via google so apologies if it looks weird]
OK - I went there this morning.

ALL of the NR ticket windows on BOTH sides of the station say "Oyster
not available at this window. Please go to LUL office downstairs."

This happened when One upgraded from APTIS (which had a plug in unit) to
new machines which are not compatible. A nonsense but then the attitude
of the TOCs and Rail Settlement Plan to Prestige always was nonsensical
when I was trying to negotiate with them and convince them that the
scheme was going to happen. Now it has I suspect the attitude has not
changed very much if a recent article in Modern Railways is anything to
go by.

Of course, none of the NR machines can do Oyster either and there are
no LUL machines.

I don't think there is any form of NR automatic ticket machine that is
compatible with Oyster. Space for machines, rooms to put them and for
passengers queuing to use them is the real problem at Walthamstow. The
station can get so busy that it would not be acceptable to eat up
circulation space with queues. It is bad enough when the queue for the
LU ticket office stretches up the staircase.

There is ONE single LUL ticket window (badly-positioned next to the
luggage gate and in my 3 years of living there, I would say it's closed
A LOT (I can't quantify that - sorry!) of the time.

You can blame me for the luggage gate issue as we had to compromise on
the design when we did the project to put the gates in. The line
management wanted a huge ticket office but there was no cash to buy it
and whoever represented the main line railway then (!) would object to
such a proposal as they would lose too much money.

The newsagent next to the station (corner of Selbourne Road and Hoe
Street) is a Ticket Stop though.

Yes and there is another ticket stop along Hoe Street near the top of
the High Street.

Maybe when they finish the subway to the bus station (was meant to be
open a few months ago, but has now been put back another 18 months to 2
years - ha!), they will provide some better facilities.

Out of curiosity where did you hear that timescale from? I have been
told recently that the alternative company to Metronet that will do the
fit out and knock through are all ready to go. I have to say I am
deeply unimpressed with the lack of progress but I don't know the
reasons for the appalling delay.

I hope LUL do anyway - WAGN/"one" sure as hell won't.

Unless there is more space than I can foresee in the subway link then I
doubt there will be any real expansion of the LU ticketing facility. I
won't mind being proved wrong though.

What is more bizarre is that One have posters up on the Chingford
platform indicating that the ticket office is to be rebuilt and new
roofs provided for the ramped walkways [1] and various other "facelift"
type things done. They have secured funds from all over the place to
do this work.

[1] to replace the "temporary" 1968 structures that were removed earlier
this year.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

This happened when One upgraded from APTIS (which had a plug in
unit) to new machines which are not compatible. A nonsense but then
the attitude of the TOCs and Rail Settlement Plan to Prestige always
was nonsensical when I was trying to negotiate with them and
convince them that the scheme was going to happen. Now it has I
suspect the attitude has not changed very much if a recent article
in Modern Railways is anything to go by.

That's not all. I discovered recently the new tribute kit can't do two
singles for a return journey, the TOCs' coming way of doing cheap
fares. So I had to do two completely separate transactions, including
the credit card payments.

What MR article, BTW?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:04 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

This happened when One upgraded from APTIS (which had a plug in
unit) to new machines which are not compatible. A nonsense but then
the attitude of the TOCs and Rail Settlement Plan to Prestige always
was nonsensical when I was trying to negotiate with them and
convince them that the scheme was going to happen. Now it has I
suspect the attitude has not changed very much if a recent article
in Modern Railways is anything to go by.

That's not all. I discovered recently the new tribute kit can't do two
singles for a return journey, the TOCs' coming way of doing cheap
fares. So I had to do two completely separate transactions, including
the credit card payments.

Hmm - bit odd that. Having read Barry's reply as well I think it is down
to staff training. I recently booked a series of fairly complex tickets
at Kings Cross GNER office (none on GNER trains either!) and that was
all one transaction and very efficiently done by the chap behind the
counter. I asked him if he liked Tribute compared to APTIS and he said
it was OK. He knew I was LU staff so wasn't completely taken aback by
that question.

What MR article, BTW?

IIRC Roger Ford did an Informed Sources article on Oyster, the ITSO
standard smartcard and how the TOCs were struggling to integrate either
card into their retail systems. It was published within the last 2-3
months. It felt as if time had stood still for 5 years - i.e. no
progress since I was dealing with the TOCs on this subject.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:04 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

This happened when One upgraded from APTIS (which had a plug in
unit) to new machines which are not compatible. A nonsense but
then the attitude of the TOCs and Rail Settlement Plan to
Prestige always was nonsensical when I was trying to negotiate
with them and convince them that the scheme was going to
happen. Now it has I suspect the attitude has not changed very
much if a recent article in Modern Railways is anything to go by.

That's not all. I discovered recently the new tribute kit can't
do two singles for a return journey, the TOCs' coming way of
doing cheap fares. So I had to do two completely separate
transactions, including the credit card payments.

Hmm - bit odd that. Having read Barry's reply as well I think it
is down to staff training. I recently booked a series of fairly
complex tickets at Kings Cross GNER office (none on GNER trains
either!) and that was all one transaction and very efficiently
done by the chap behind the counter. I asked him if he liked
Tribute compared to APTIS and he said it was OK. He knew I was LU
staff so wasn't completely taken aback by that question.

Kings Cross GNER seemed better equipped than Cambridge last time I made
a ticket purchase. The guy did try to do it in one transaction, stopped
at one point, muttered and started again as two separate single
transactions.

What MR article, BTW?

IIRC Roger Ford did an Informed Sources article on Oyster, the ITSO
standard smartcard and how the TOCs were struggling to integrate
either card into their retail systems. It was published within the
last 2-3 months. It felt as if time had stood still for 5 years -
i.e. no progress since I was dealing with the TOCs on this subject.

Oh that one. Yes, not very impressive. I blame the shambles that is
privatisation and short franchises.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Paul Corfield wrote:
On 26 Aug 2005 06:01:28 -0700, wrote:

ALL of the NR ticket windows on BOTH sides of the station say "Oyster
not available at this window. Please go to LUL office downstairs."


This happened when One upgraded from APTIS (which had a plug in unit) to
new machines which are not compatible. A nonsense but then the attitude
of the TOCs and Rail Settlement Plan to Prestige always was nonsensical
when I was trying to negotiate with them and convince them that the
scheme was going to happen. Now it has I suspect the attitude has not
changed very much if a recent article in Modern Railways is anything to
go by.

That explains why I thought I was going mad, and had a feeling that the
windows there DID offer Oyster for a short period of time.

There is ONE single LUL ticket window (badly-positioned next to the
luggage gate and in my 3 years of living there, I would say it's closed
A LOT (I can't quantify that - sorry!) of the time.


You can blame me for the luggage gate issue as we had to compromise on
the design when we did the project to put the gates in.

Presumably, it's not your fault it's always closed though? :-)

Maybe when they finish the subway to the bus station (was meant to be
open a few months ago, but has now been put back another 18 months to 2
years - ha!), they will provide some better facilities.


Out of curiosity where did you hear that timescale from?

http://www.walthamforestguardian.co....php?utag=10366

Unless there is more space than I can foresee in the subway link then I
doubt there will be any real expansion of the LU ticketing facility. I
won't mind being proved wrong though.

Those small Oyster Quick Tickets machines are pretty small though -
would be very handy.

[1] to replace the "temporary" 1968 structures that were removed earlier
this year.

....which now looks much better - let's hope it's not something equally
ugly that goes up!

Thanks for the info.