On Nov 15, 7:13 pm, Mizter T wrote:


Sounds distinctly like a ticket selling problem at Watford Junction.
It really sounds as though London Midland need to pull their finder
out and provide better facilities here, like more staff and more
ticket machines.


To be fair to London Midland, I've never bought a ticket at WJ since
they took over and with both LU and LM now operating from WJ there may
be more staff available. I've typically had the worst problems on a
Sunday when the travel centre is closed and there is often just one
open window. At least now when I'm travelling with people who have a
mainline connection to make at KX provided we leave enough time to
catch the DC line we'll have an option (although, of course, the
decision will have to be made based on the queue length. I've had some
anxious times when I've been the next person in the queue and it's
taken the person infront of me 15 minutes to organize their tickets.)

The ticket machines are extremely unreliable as well and won't sell
tickets for travelling with a gold card holder. (One of the two
machines at Euston near the 8-11 platform barrier will do this, the
other won't so it's clearly possible "under the rules". IIRC the one
that will do this won't accept cash.

There's no chance of it happening either - TfL are very
keen to push Oyster PAYG (and hence daily price capping) on to the
railways, and your proposal would counteract that effort.


I'm resigned to the fact that you're probably correct. After all, if
it was going to happen it would already have happened. However, I'm a
bit resentful of the fact that I'm being used as a pawn in the
political battles between LU and the TOCs.

OTOH, at least for myself, I'm hopeful I'll be able to have my gold
card on oyster soon (obviously this wasn't possible prior to WJ
accepting oyster at all). 99% of the time I'm travelling with a
bicycle so I have to go through the manual barrier but occasionally I
don't have the bike with me and I'm always frustrated how difficult it
can be to get the ticket out of the wallet in order to put it through
the barrier - especially if you've arrived at the station with a train
in a couple of minutes and you've got gloves on.

I've wondered whether it would be possible[1] to have a ticket that
keeps the automatic barriers open for longer - the staff have a ticket
that opens the barrier and it doesn't close again, occasionally I'm
let through the barrier like that and generally it's slower going
through the manual gate because there are also all the people with
invalid tickets trying to get through but a ticket that would hold
open the barrier for 10 or 15 seconds after it would normally close
would probably be sufficient.
It's also frustrating that the manual gate at Euston is on the wrong
side so (although you can't enter the underground here at the moment)
you get the cyclists trying to get out of the station crossing paths
with the passengers going through the barriers trying to get to the
underground. I suppose it's to keep the manual gate by the ticket
office.

[1] Technically possible - I'm absolutely certain that nobody would be
prepared to issue tickets that actually did this.

Tim.

Seriously, how would the vast majority of Day Travelcard users benefit
from such a move, apart from having a ticket that goes "beep" when
they use it?

Sorry, I didn't answer that. Well, one obvious situation which is
quite common is that it's very easy to be in the habit of touching
your Oyster card, even if you've got a paper travelcard on a
particular day (to cover NR) which would have covered your LU or bus
journey.

When you do that you may get charged PAYG for a journey that you were
already covered for with your travelcard. In fact, if you didn't
duplicate the mistake on the way out, you'd be charged £4. If the
Oyster carried the travelcard, no PAYG would be deducted.

What might be useful, and not too unmanageable, would be for the
machines to have a function "top up today's used credit to a one-day
travelcard" when one realises that one needs to use NR that day after
all. It wouldn't have to be combined in a capping sense.

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...


I can see the problem for a Watfordite who might wish to travel out
from Watford Jn and return to Watford Met or indeed another Met line
station. As of January all the stations on the stopping line up to
Watford High Street will join the Met line extremities will in being
part of the zonal system (I'll post a new thread about this shortly) -

Is this new thread imminent - I'm waiting with interest!

Paul S

uk.railway removed because my local newsserver won't let me post to
groups I don't host.


On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:52:42 -0800 (PST),
wrote:
On Nov 15, 7:13 pm, Mizter T wrote:


Sounds distinctly like a ticket selling problem at Watford Junction.
It really sounds as though London Midland need to pull their finder
out and provide better facilities here, like more staff and more
ticket machines.


To be fair to London Midland,

And to be even more fair, I've just seen a notice at Watford Junction:

Oyster PAYG will be accepted from Euston to WJ from Sunday 18th
November on all trains. :-)


(It didn't actually say from WJ to Euston but I'm assuming that is also
the case)

Tim.


--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

Hi All,

And to be even more fair, I've just seen a notice at Watford Junction:

Oyster PAYG will be accepted from Euston to WJ from Sunday 18th
November on all trains. :-)

I can't work out if that is useful or not! Does WJ stand for Watford
Junction (the uncertain bit) or Willesden Junction (The bit we already know
about) ??

Best Wishes,
LEWIS

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:47:44 -0000,
Lew 1 wrote:

Hi All,

And to be even more fair, I've just seen a notice at Watford Junction:

Oyster PAYG will be accepted from Euston to WJ from Sunday 18th
November on all trains. :-)

I can't work out if that is useful or not! Does WJ stand for Watford
Junction (the uncertain bit) or Willesden Junction (The bit we already know
about) ??

Sorry, WJ is Watford Junction.

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

"Nick Pedley" wrote in message
.. .

I think the TfL Journey Planner needs an overhaul to suggest more sensible
routes and not base it entirely on departure times.

I suspect that if any journey takes more than 2 hours you get charged with
the maximum fare.

Definitely - this has been discussed often and confirmed. You actually get
charged twice the maximum cash fare if a journey exceeds the 2 hour limit,
because you end up with both an unresolved entry = £4.00, and an unresolved
exit = £4.00.

Paul S

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:24:31 -0000, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Definitely - this has been discussed often and confirmed. You actually get
charged twice the maximum cash fare if a journey exceeds the 2 hour limit,
because you end up with both an unresolved entry = £4.00, and an unresolved
exit = £4.00.

Which is a nonsense, as there are journeys that can take that long. 3
or 4 hours would be more sensible.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

In article ,
(Nick Pedley) wrote:

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:19:58 -0800, Mizter T
wrote:

Of course there would still be the tricky issue of which route the
Oyster system presumed you had taken, regardless of what actual route
you did in fact take.

Richmond-Stratford, anyone?

The system works on idea that the passenger takes the quickest and
most direct route, so for Oyster usage R-S should be done via
District Line and Central Line, changing at Mile End and taking 43
minutes (max 57) according to Planner times.

The TfL Journey Planner tells you to take SWT to Waterloo, W&C to
Bank and then Central Line in 57 minutes.
Doing it by the Overground, which is the simplest route, takes
1hr3min.

I think the TfL Journey Planner needs an overhaul to suggest more
sensible routes and not base it entirely on departure times.

I suspect that if any journey takes more than 2 hours you get
charged with the maximum fare. I went Richmond to North Woolwich
(and then back to Epping)when that stretch closed down, spent 20
minutes at NW taking pictures and got stuck with the max possible
fare because the Oyster system timed me out. It might have been an
invalid route at the time but I did touch in and out at the correct
places.
It also does this when the Tube breaks down for long periods, as
happened to me earlier this year, but thankfully that one got
capped at the Daily Travelcard rate because the breakdown was after
9.30am.

You don't mention the SWT to Waterloo and Jubilee combination, though the
TfL journey planner does. It's also under 57 minutes there for some
journeys with a generous 12 minutes allowed for the interchange at
Waterloo. The running times total 42 minutes. 19 minutes to Waterloo is
hard to beat by Underground.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(MIG) wrote:

Personally, I have no desire for all my journeys to be tracked,

Don't register your Oyster card then.

--
Colin Rosenstiel