On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:45:33 -0700, W14_Fishbourne wrote:

As things stand at present, your money won't be debited by anyone. No-
one has yet discussed having a Pay As You Go facility on National Rail
AFAIK and that's certainly not included in the recent franchise
commitments. How many people do you think will keep their cards topped
up with a couple of hundred quid on the off-chance that they're going
to have to buy an SOR from London to Leeds? The intention is that you
will buy your ticket in advance either through the internet or by
phone, quoting your smartcard number. When you get to the station
you'll simply tap your card on a reader to upload the ticket.

But that's not very different from the present situation where you buy
in advance via phone or web, then pick up from a FastTicket machine by
inserting your card.

If desired, a FastTicket-type machine that just dispenses pre-bought
tickets could be installed at each station (so those just collecting
tickets don't have to queue behind those buying them).

It would still be a *little* slower than collecting just by passing
through the ticket barriers with your smartcard, but is it really
worth developing and installing a smartcard system when there's an
existing technology that's already implemented and almost as good?