On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:29:22 +0100, asdf
wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:12:08 GMT, Phil Clark wrote:

Last week, travelling home from the Great British Beer Festival, I
caught a train from West Brompton to Clapham Junction.

My Fleet to London Terminals season ticket did not operate the
barriers, to be honest I'm not sure whether it's valid at West
Brompton or not.

It is. A Permitted Route from Fleet to London Terminals is via
Farnborough (Main), Farnborough North, Redhill, Clapham Junction,
Kensington Olympia, and Acton Main Line, to Paddington.

I was not sure, although I do have a copy of the routing guidance
somewhere (I carry it with me when travelling on the Redhill line).

However, it's common for season tickets to not work in the gates at
every intermediate station.

In my case, any intermediate stations - it doesn't work at Woking, for
example, although indisputably valid there.

Despite the gates being closed, there was no member of staff visible
who I could have asked for advice.

Closed gatelines must be monitored at all times (although this may be
done via CCTV). If there's no one around, the manual gate would
usually be left unlocked.

I was a bit p*ssed, this didn't occur to me.

Otherwise, you could call for assistance
using the button for this on the touch-screen ticket machine.

Didn't notice that either.

I could see no ticket machine selling National Rail tickets.

There were Underground ticket machines, but Clapham Junction was not
listed as a destination.

Underground touch-screen ticket machines sell tickets to all National
Rail stations in the zones (and the Network SouthEast area?).

Didn't know that.

As it is also a National Rail station, would it not be a good idea to
have a sign up saying how to buy National Rail tickets? They really
should make it more obvious.

Was the touch-screen ticket machine not working?

It didn't look a likely way of buying an NR ticket.

Finally - how can I get the journey resolved? Last time, when I
foolishly walked through an open barrier at Euston without swiping my
card, I got it sorted out at a Tube ticket office, however will this
still work as it was a National rail journey?

It won't still work as (AFAIK) Tube ticket offices are now under
orders not to resolve anyone's journeys. You must phone the Oyster
helpline instead, although even then I'm not sure what would happen.

I will try, and say that I erroneously used it when my season ticket
was valid.

Thanks to everyone who posted,

Phil