On 12 Apr, 07:25, Aosmosis wrote:

On my first trip using oyster prepay from west hampstead to london
bridge the whole incident was a farce. At london bridge I tried
exiting via the barriers only to be told by a goon that west hampstead
is not a valid PAYG. I was then told by a revenue protection officer
that I had to touch the prepay reader by the pillars on platform 6.
Thus backtracking... Eventually I found the inconspicious prepay
validator in an atrium.


London Bridge is an odd situation where the gates are not programmed
to accept Oyster PAYG, so you need to touch-in or out at the
standalone Oyster readers on the main platforms where the FCC
Thameslink trains arrive or depart then once you get to the gates you
then need to ask the staff to be let out (or in) - when you do this
you'll need to say that you were travelling (or if arriving you intend
on travelling) on First Capital Connect / Thameslink, otherwise
they'll just presume you are one of the many people who erroneously
try and use Oyster PAYG on mainline trains in south London on which it
is not valid.

I'm sure the reason for this set-up is to stop people from mistakenly
using/abusing Oyster PAYG just so as to get past the gates at London
Bridge - FCC Thameslink is the *only* mainline rail services at London
Bridge that accepts Oyster PAYG, and given that you can easily reach
all the destinations by Underground (except City Thameslink) from
London Bridge the presumption must be that most people who are outside
London Bridge (as opposed to those who are interchanging from one
mainline train to FCC Thameslink or vice versa) would instead travel
by Tube.

Annoying, but there you go - when Oyster PAYG eventually gets accepted
on all mainline rail services in London this problem will vanish.


At farringdon I could not find the prepay validators, so I had to exit
the station using my FCC ticket and re enter using my oyster card.
That was a complete mess, considering the FCC and tube platforms are
next to each other. The only thing that I could find was a carnet
validator.



There are standalone Oyster readers at Farringdon - downthread Roland
Perry has stated where some are, but I'm quite sure there are others
(in particular next to the stairs that link the southbound FCC
Thameslink platform to the westbound Circle line platform).