Off-peak PAYG fares/caps from Reading

This also probably applies to the other stations between Reading and Iver, plus the branches for Henley, Marlow and Windsor as well. First the bad news.  The off-peak cap from Reading when using PAYG appears to have risen by £1 to £35.40 from September 7th.  We know that GWR increased the prices of off-peak day … Read more

Fare Finder Differences

If you’ve read the text underneath the fare finder results then you’ll know that I put quite a lot of effort into improving the useability of the tool compared to the single fare finder on the TfL website. Most of the improvements involve additional data (zonal coverage and time allowed) or tweaks to the station … Read more

Stansted Airport Contactless PAYG Confusion

UPDATE 4th September: The issue is now fixed and NRE no longer suggests contactless fares are available. The National Rail Enquiries journey planner has started suggesting that contactless PAYG will be available for travel to Stansted Airport from this Sunday (September 7th). The fares appear for stations on the line between Liverpool Street and Stansted … Read more

C2C Record over 1 million taps in 6 months

In February this year c2c became the first National Rail operator (not including TfL) to accept contactless payments throughout it’s entire network. Shortly after being taken back into public ownership the company announced that there had been over 1 million taps (touches in or out) at their new stations in just under 6 months of … Read more

Walthamstow Central – Update on Overcharging

This is a followup article to https://oysterfares.com/walthamstow-central-overcharging-from-some-stations/.  It turns out that asking questions about complicated issues in August is a bad idea, as key people go on holiday at different times. I did eventually get a response from the Rail Delivery Group: “In the TfL PAYG system, all flows need a “no intermediate clicks” route … Read more

Cuffley and Epsom – Zone 9 or Not?

I’ve recently come across a video on Youtube by creator Nick Badley where he attempted to visit every station in zones 7-9 on the rail and tube map, plus a couple of other weird ones.  The weird ones are, of course, Cuffley and Epsom, and Nick correctly explains that the reason they’re not shown officially … Read more

Oyster and Photocard Price Increases

TfL have just announced that the price of Oyster photocards is rising from this Tuesday, July 22nd. This is the first increase in price for ten years, and in most cases it’s just £1. Zip card for 5-10 year olds: was £10, will now be £11. Zip card for 11-15 year olds: was £15, will … Read more

Major c2c Fares Issue

C2c have admitted that a data error is causing customers using contactless PAYG to travel from any station east of Upminster or Grays (ie anywhere that doesn’t accept Oyster) to either Fenchurch Street or Liverpool Street to be overcharged by up to £3.00. The issue is actually bigger than that, but first, here is what … Read more

Fare Finder Upgrade

After waiting over 3 months for updated zonal data, TfL have finally supplied the latest file. Sadly there is no movement on providing the correct data for journeys involving the Project Oval contactless extensions, but I have now corrected the display such that these journeys will be described as covering zones 0-16. The bigger news … Read more