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 list to cut out duplicates. There are, however, three fixes which do change the fares displayed. These are as follows:
Paddington (EL)
The TfL fare finder does not display any fares if one end is Paddington (EL) and the other is a GWR/EL station west of Paddington. Clearly if someone touches in at say Hanwell and touches out at Paddington (EL) they will be charged the correct fare (or we would have heard about it a long time ago). In my fare finder I substitute Paddington (NR) in place of Paddington (EL/LU) where the other end is one of the affected stations. This causes the correct fares to be displayed. This fix has existed since the Elizabeth line began operating through trains from the core to the west.
Walthamstow Central
More recently (February 2025) an issue has occured involving 26 stations beyond London, added as part of Project Oval. The full story is described in an earlier post, but the key fact is that for those 26 stations different fares are charged depending upon which set of gates are used at Walthamstow Central. This is obviously nonsense as it is just one station. To avoid having to list the station twice on my fare finder I have patched in an extra option to show the fares from the other gateline if one of the affected stations is queried. If you want to see what I mean then try asking for the fares from Bletchley to Walthamstow Central.
Paddington (NR) from Chiltern
Just over a week ago I discovered an unusual anomaly where two different sets of default fares (peak and off-peak) are shown on TfL’s single fare finder from the six Project Oval stations on Chiltern (Denham, Denham Golf Club, Gerrards Cross, Seer Green, Beaconsfield and High Wycombe) to Paddington (NR). It’s a slightly convoluted route via South/West Ruislip, Greenford and West Ealing, and it only goes wrong if the EL core is shut and the trains are diverted upstairs at Paddington. After checking which fares were actually charged I made sure that my fare finder was displaying the correct information.
An Apology
Sadly, while fixing the third error I managed to introduce a bug into the fix for the first one. This has caused the wrong fares to be displayed in a small number of cases where one of the stations was between Paddington and Reading or a branch off the mainline. I can only apologise for any inconvenience caused. It was fixed yesterday as soon as the matter was brought to my attention. It’s only been a problem since August 27th and has affected at most 1% of queries made on the fare finder.