Hi,

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL? Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Mr Thant wrote:
What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL? Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?

Not good. Kentish Town is a particular nuisance as they can't dispense
return tickets for NR trains that actually stop there.

ESB

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, Mr Thant wrote:

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL?

Utter failure, i'm afraid. Highbury & Islington is my battleground here.

Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards at ordinary
LUL stations?

Yes, ISTR doing that.

tom

--
There's no future.

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:16:08 -0700, Mr Thant
wrote:

Hi,

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL?

Isn't this is a slightly unfair question given that LU offices, even
where there is a NR service at the location, have always had a
restricted ticket range and are not subject to the same obligations as
normal NR stations that have ticket offices? In such cases why would
one be able to buy a unusual (whatever one of those is) or long distance
ticket?

I rarely have to buy tickets but have managed to get NR tickets at
Blackhorse Road reasonably well - after the 10 minute queue for tickets
involving family groups (talk about 20 questions!) has got out of the
way.

I would also comment that I would not trust the "One" ticket office at
Walthamstow Central to sell me anything more complicated than a ticket
to Liverpool St. If I want something complex (i.e. any ticket I would
buy as I have privilege facilities and cannot book on line) I go to a
big station with a decent travel centre and try to book in advance as
the risk of a 30 minute queue when I have 10 minutes to catch a train is
far too great. Liverpool St struggled to sell me a one day PlusBus
ticket for Colchester earlier this year (on top of a normal return
ticket) - this despite the window in question having a dispenser of
PlusBus leaflets on it.

Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?

Not applicable in this case.

Why are you asking the questions?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On 26 Sep, 16:05, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:16:08 -0700, Mr Thant

wrote:
Hi,

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL?

Isn't this is a slightly unfair question given that LU offices, even
where there is a NR service at the location, have always had a
restricted ticket range and are not subject to the same obligations as
normal NR stations that have ticket offices? In such cases why would
one be able to buy a unusual (whatever one of those is) or long distance
ticket?

I rarely have to buy tickets but have managed to get NR tickets at
Blackhorse Road reasonably well - after the 10 minute queue for tickets
involving family groups (talk about 20 questions!) has got out of the
way.

I would also comment that I would not trust the "One" ticket office at
Walthamstow Central to sell me anything more complicated than a ticket
to Liverpool St. If I want something complex (i.e. any ticket I would
buy as I have privilege facilities and cannot book on line) I go to a
big station with a decent travel centre and try to book in advance as
the risk of a 30 minute queue when I have 10 minutes to catch a train is
far too great. Liverpool St struggled to sell me a one day PlusBus
ticket for Colchester earlier this year (on top of a normal return
ticket) - this despite the window in question having a dispenser of
PlusBus leaflets on it.

Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?

Not applicable in this case.

Why are you asking the questions?
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!


I would like to answer your question about buying railcard discounted
tickets at ordinary LUL stations. You wont be able to buy discounted
tickets unless the LUL station is a shared station. For example
Farringdon I have had no problems buying railcard discounted tickets
to the stations on the Bedford line.

Certain LUL stations refuse to even though they are shared. For
example Highbury and Islington wont sell you any railcard discounted
tickets.

It is very inconsistent in my experience and
it depends upon the genorisity of the shared LUL NR station.

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL? Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?


I would imagine anything to do with Day Travelcards is strictly off limits
to a LU station, as they have been binned in favour of Oyster Pre Pay daily
capping surely? So a railcard discount is academic...

Paul

On 26 Sep, 17:26, "Paul Scott" wrote:
What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL? Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?

I would imagine anything to do with Day Travelcards is strictly off limits
to a LU station, as they have been binned in favour of Oyster Pre Pay daily
capping surely? So a railcard discount is academic...

No, you can still absolutely buy Day Travelcards at LU stations.

Whether this will change when NR moves to PrePay within the zones is
another question, but it will certainly continue for as long as the
ticket exists....

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

"Paul Scott" wrote in message
...

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

What are people's experiences buying unusual or long distance or
Railcard-discounted tickets at NR stations where the ticket office is
run by LUL? Also, any luck getting Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards
at ordinary LUL stations?


I would imagine anything to do with Day Travelcards is strictly off limits
to a LU station, as they have been binned in favour of Oyster Pre Pay
daily capping surely? So a railcard discount is academic...

You can still buy paper One Day Travelcards from LUL stations and until
every NR station in London is equipped for Oyster they will have to continue
selling them.

Peter Smyth

On Sep 26, 4:05 pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
Isn't this is a slightly unfair question given that LU offices, even
where there is a NR service at the location, have always had a
restricted ticket range and are not subject to the same obligations as
normal NR stations that have ticket offices?

I don't mean where it's "at the same location", I mean where the LUL
ticket office and machines are the only way through the barrier onto
NR services. Are you meant to be able to buy the same tickets here as
at an NR ticket office? I'm never quite sure.

In such cases why would
one be able to buy a unusual (whatever one of those is) or long distance
ticket?

unusual = anything other than "full price single (or day return) from
this station to X", where X is a nearby station.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:03:10 -0700, Mr Thant
wrote:

On Sep 26, 4:05 pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
Isn't this is a slightly unfair question given that LU offices, even
where there is a NR service at the location, have always had a
restricted ticket range and are not subject to the same obligations as
normal NR stations that have ticket offices?

I don't mean where it's "at the same location", I mean where the LUL
ticket office and machines are the only way through the barrier onto
NR services. Are you meant to be able to buy the same tickets here as
at an NR ticket office? I'm never quite sure.

So to test an example - Highbury and Islington should be able to sell a
GNER "Loony Woony Toony" [1] ticket to Newcastle upon Tyne because you
can catch a FCC train at Highbury and then eventually change on a GNER
service at Stevenage or Peterborough?

Or Kentish Town should be able sell you a ticket to Kettering because
you can change from FCC to Midland Mainline at Luton?


As I have already said LU stations (used to be called Section "T"
stations when I was involved in all this years back) can only sell to a
limited range of destinations (certainly not the entire NR network), can
only sell a limited range of types, can only deal with a limited range
of discounts and certainly cannot do things like reservations. Part of
this is down to history and part of this is down to the fact that I
imagine someone wanting a £4 ticket to Brixton or Dagenham or to add £30
to their Oyster card is not remotely interested in being stuck behind
someone taking 20 minutes for a transaction. There is also the
technological and staff training overhead in dealing with a massively
complex NR ticket set up for very little benefit indeed.

It is going to be very interesting to see what happens under the
Overground set up - I imagine that current TOC locations will see no
change but what will happen at "transferred to LU control" stations like
Kew Gardens or Queens Park I do not know. I imagine London Travelwatch
are already on the warpath after their previous campaign about
Stratford.

checks

Surprisingly there is nothing in the news section.


[1] not a real ticket type obviously but it has a certain ring don't you
think?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!