My understanding is HEX are not paid when the Pic line goes down, just
as Pic aren't paid when HEX (occasionally) goes down and passengers
have to move on to the blue line.


Ross
--
The Smoke
http://www.the-smoke.com

Richard J. wrote:

In the full list of tickets accepted on HEx on Piccadilly closure
weekends at
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/travelinf...nd-closure.asp , it
specifically says *LU* Zone 1-6 Travelcards. I'm not sure if that means
that FGWL-issued Travelcards are not valid. I hope the people who took
your advice didn't get stung for a £14 fare on top of an FGWL
Travelcard.

It's badly worded. *All* 1-6 Day Travelcards are accepted (I have no
idea if seasons are or not).

Neil

On 17 Jan 2006 08:28:36 -0800, CJB wrote:

Last weekend, actually on Sunday, the Underground Piccadilly Line was
closed between London and Heathrow. However the Heathrow Express was
supposed to be an alternative. Indeed throughout the Underground system
it was widely advertised that Zone 1-6 Travelcards WERE valid on the
Heathrow Express to/from Paddington.

HOWEVER after a day in London, and arriving at Paddington to travel
back to Heathrow, we saw numerous displays clearly stating that
Travelcards were NOT valid on the Heathrow Express. The scam was

I was in London this weekend. I had come from Lancashire, where we eat
lots of lard, carry a pigeon in our trousers at all times, and find
sentences with two negatives in them impossible to understand.

Although I had no idea about the engineering works before I arrived in
London, I quickly found several informative leaflets and posters explaining
the situation quite clearly, and was able to work out a different route to
where I was going.
--
Cliff Laine, The Old Lard Factory, Lancaster http://www.loobynet.com
* remove any trace of rudeness before you reply *
------------------------------------------------------------------
The greatest achievement of the thinkers of the Sixties was
to convince their audience that incomprehensibility was the
sign of greatness.

Luc Ferry and Alain Renault

Chris Tolley wrote:
John Band wrote:

The original post was talking about tourists who arrived at Heathrow,
went to the HEX ticket office (ie who would have travelled on HEX
irrespective of the possible cheap fare) and were "conned into paying
for full fare tickets into London".

I would suggest these are not the people that TfL's programme was
designed to benefit, and that I don't see any reason why Londoners'
taxes should subsidise their journey into town...


I note the suggestion but disagree. If I were travelling abroad, and I
had just arrived at an airport, I doubt I would be minded to spend any
time looking for a second ticket office that might be selling more
appropriate tickets than the first one that I came to. I would expect
the first ticket office to be able to sell me what I needed without me
having to have any inside knowledge of the local situation, and I think
most real-world travellers would agree it's a reasonable expectation.

It isn't as if Londoners actually gain anything (other than a perverse
pleasure at the misfortune of others) if visitors pay more than they
need to in such circumstances as this.

Good will has to be worth something. I still remember the time I turned
up at the NIR station in Londonderry (it was on the east side of the
river, the signs on the west side all said Derry, I know I'm going to
offend someone no matter how I write the name), asked for a ticket to
Belfast, and the woman told me that a day return would be cheaper. This
was 1992.

I also recall the time (I don't remember the year) when I went to a
ticket window at Glasgow Central, asked about a train to Glasgow, and
was told the next one would leave in a couple of hours. So I waited. I
learned about the 15-minute walk to Glasgow Queen Street on a later trip.

If I'm sold a HEX ticket when a travelcard would have worked, I wouldn't
call it a ripoff (a ripoff is when a waiter in Paris tried to charge me
the menu price *plus* the prices of all the individual items); it's
more of a passive-aggressive display, somewhere between indifference and
contempt. Things can't be that bad, can they? Or was it a HEX
management decision not to tell anyone?

We don't get nearly as many tourists here in the backwaters of Colorado
as you do in the UK, but I try to be helpful when I can. When I struck
up a conversation with a New Zealander I met on the bus in Denver and
learned that he was on his way to the old location of the American Youth
Hostel, I informed him that the Hostel had moved, the original
building had been adopted by the Moonies, and perhaps he'd like
directions to the new location. It was the right thing to do.

Louis
Boulder, Colorado

Chris Tolley wrote:
John Band wrote:
The original post was talking about tourists who arrived at
Heathrow, went to the HEX ticket office (ie who would have
travelled on HEX irrespective of the possible cheap fare) and were
"conned into paying for full fare tickets into London".

I would suggest these are not the people that TfL's programme was
designed to benefit, and that I don't see any reason why Londoners'
taxes should subsidise their journey into town...

I note the suggestion but disagree. If I were travelling abroad,
and I had just arrived at an airport, I doubt I would be minded to
spend any time looking for a second ticket office that might be
selling more appropriate tickets than the first one that I came to.
I would expect the first ticket office to be able to sell me what I
needed without me having to have any inside knowledge of the local
situation, and I think most real-world travellers would agree it's
a reasonable expectation.

It is indeed, but I fail to see where this expectation differs from what
incoming travellers were faced with at Heathrow at the weekend. If they
arrived at the Underground station they would have been sold a
Travelcard, and if they arrived at HEx they would have bought a HEx
ticket at the price they expected for that service. Air travellers are
used to travelling in the same section of the plane with others who have
paid different fares to them because they happen to have booked through
a different agent or at a different time.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:56:57 -0700, Louis Krupp wrote:

I also recall the time (I don't remember the year) when I went to a
ticket window at Glasgow Central, asked about a train to Glasgow, and
was told the next one would leave in a couple of hours. So I waited. I
learned about the 15-minute walk to Glasgow Queen Street on a later trip.


Hello Louis

I used to work as a ticket collector on London Underground, and one thing I
noticed about visitors from north America is that they would often truncate
the station name they wanted directions for. So for example, they often
asked me for the way to "Liverpool".

After a while you realise they mean the tube station "Liverpool Street",
but "Liverpool" is a large city in northwest England, so the question is a
bit ambiguous. I mean, you're doing it yourself there, by saying you were
asking the way to "Glasgow", when what I presume you meant was "Glasgow
Queen Street" It would be good if visitors from the US and Canada could
be encouraged to use the full names of the stations they want to go to.

I'm surprised about your experience in Glasgow though. That must just have
been bad luck, because I go up there often and my experience is that people
in Glasgow are generally very helpful and honest.
--
Cliff Laine, The Old Lard Factory, Lancaster http://www.loobynet.com
* remove any trace of rudeness before you reply *
------------------------------------------------------------------
The greatest achievement of the thinkers of the Sixties was
to convince their audience that incomprehensibility was the
sign of greatness.

Luc Ferry and Alain Renault

Louis Krupp wrote:

Chris Tolley wrote:
John Band wrote:

We don't get nearly as many tourists here in the backwaters of Colorado
as you do in the UK, but I try to be helpful when I can. When I struck
up a conversation with a New Zealander I met on the bus in Denver and
learned that he was on his way to the old location of the American Youth
Hostel, I informed him that the Hostel had moved, the original
building had been adopted by the Moonies, and perhaps he'd like
directions to the new location. It was the right thing to do.

Louis
Boulder, Colorado

Louis, the hospitality you mention seems to be local trait. We spent 3
weeks in Colorado back in Summer 2005. One only had to glance at a
directional sign when walking around in Denver, Golden or Boulder to
have a local person stop and ask if one needed any help. Boulder in
particular has a very unique character. Found my favourite shop in your
"high street" called "Into The Wind", I've never seen so many kits and
frisbees in one place, very colourful! The bus interchange was another
example of local hospitality. I accidentally put a $20 bill into the
automated machine by the driver instead of a five. The driver spotted
the mistake but the machine is a sealed unit. Other locals behind me in
the queue boarded for free at the drivers bidding and gave me their
fares to make up the difference. We made several friends in the short
time we were there, can't wait to go back.

Its called good old fashioned courtesy... offer a helping hand and
assist the traveller by not taking more of his hard earned than you
have to - in the hope that when you are in the same situation you will
receive the same treatment. If that is what you are looking for then
don't go HEX obviously

Several posts above make me realise why I have such a jaundiced view of
business ethics today, and why running the privatised railway costs
five times the cost of running the unified one.

Incidentally Jon did you visit the Cumbres and Toltec. If you did -on
the way to the Lobato trestle is a field from which anice shot of the
viaductis possible. On the fence is a sign that says "posted"

I was told later in Chama that it means the land owner has the right to
shoot people who pass the sign!!

loobyloo wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:56:57 -0700, Louis Krupp wrote:


I also recall the time (I don't remember the year) when I went to a
ticket window at Glasgow Central, asked about a train to Glasgow, and
was told the next one would leave in a couple of hours. So I waited. I
learned about the 15-minute walk to Glasgow Queen Street on a later trip.



Hello Louis

I used to work as a ticket collector on London Underground, and one thing I
noticed about visitors from north America is that they would often truncate
the station name they wanted directions for. So for example, they often
asked me for the way to "Liverpool".

After a while you realise they mean the tube station "Liverpool Street",
but "Liverpool" is a large city in northwest England, so the question is a
bit ambiguous. I mean, you're doing it yourself there, by saying you were
asking the way to "Glasgow", when what I presume you meant was "Glasgow
Queen Street" It would be good if visitors from the US and Canada could
be encouraged to use the full names of the stations they want to go to.

I'm surprised about your experience in Glasgow though. That must just have
been bad luck, because I go up there often and my experience is that people
in Glasgow are generally very helpful and honest.

My mistake in my previous post -- I showed up at Glasgow Central wanting
to go to Edinburgh (not Glasgow, as I originally said). Sorry about
that. (Wait two hours was an honest answer, follow the signs to Queen
Street would have been more helpful. Still, I got where I was going.)

You're right about Glaswegians, though. One of them is (or at least
was) a police officer in Nederland, Colorado. Great guy.

Louis

On 17 Jan 2006 08:28:36 -0800, "CJB"
wrote:

Last weekend, actually on Sunday, the Underground Piccadilly Line was
closed between London and Heathrow. However the Heathrow Express was
supposed to be an alternative. Indeed throughout the Underground system
it was widely advertised that Zone 1-6 Travelcards WERE valid on the
Heathrow Express to/from Paddington.

HOWEVER after a day in London, and arriving at Paddington to travel
back to Heathrow, we saw numerous displays clearly stating that
Travelcards were NOT valid on the Heathrow Express. The scam was
extended in that the HEX ticket machines had no warning notices on them
for that day, and they were only dispensing full fare tickets at =A314.
I personally warned at least two intending passengers from using these
and sent them to get Travelcards from the FGWL ticket office, thus
saving each person more than =A37. Then I pretended I wanted to purchase
a ticket from the HEX ticket office and I was told it would cost =A314
the same as the machines. I then mentioned the misleading signs to
three blue-uniformed HEX staff, who responded by walking off laughing;
not their problem.

Then we saw a HEX train arriving at Paddington and it was
unsurprisingly full. We wondered how many tourists, visitors to rip-off
Britain, had also been conned into paying for full fare tickets into
London? Probably most of them.

So much for Travelcards being valid. So much for HEX / BAA customer
service. Rip-off Britain strikes again.=20

CJB

I (and several friends) travelled HEX on Saturday morning and saw the
"Travelcards Not Valid" sign.

A simple and polite enquiry to the barrier staff confirmed they were
valid and that the display was the "standard sign".

What surprised me much more was the total absence of signs at Heathrow
regarding Connect services. These trains seem to sneak in to the
platform at T123, with a verbal annoucement that "this train is not
for London Paddington". some people get on, but almost all then get
off again when they hear the anouncement. The first Connect train we
caught had "Not In Service" as its front Matrix display.

No wonder nobody uses them...

JohnK

p.s. On Saturday, it was true that the Connect services weren't for
London Paddington as the were all terminating at Ealing Broadway due
to engineering works on the Releifs at OOC.