After a four-and-a-bit month delay caused by the cyber security incident, phase 1b of project oval has gone live today. This extends contactless PAYG (but not Oyster) to Bletchley, St Albans Abbey, Shoeburyness, Sevenoaks, Shepperton, Virginia Water and Windsor & Eton Riverside. The new stations are all included in the fare finder, but the time … Read more

It’s not often that something to do with Oyster stops me in my tracks, but this week it has happened. Thanks to my friend Geoff who spotted this sign at East Croydon.  I went down to have a look and asked some questions. From what I can gather it is linked to a fire alarm … Read more

TfL have announced that Kentish Town, on the Northern line, will re-open to passengers on Monday 23rd December. The work on the escalators is complete, along with a comprehensive deep clean and a new floor and ceiling in the ticket hall. They have also increased the number of gates to 7. There is still some … Read more

The Rail Delivery Group made a change to the way discounted fares are calculated earlier this year. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw8j4d1v2do for more details. As a result of this some railcard single fares on Oyster now cost slightly more (5p, or possibly 10p) than they did at the last fares change in March. The somewhat disturbing side … Read more

After what seems like a lifetime, but in reality is just over 3 months, all public facing systems are now back online after the cyber security incident. There are likely to be some delays while the backlog of refund requests is worked through. Oyster journey history has been kept live to enable refunds to be … Read more

Thanks to forum user Feathers we’ve spotted that another rounding amonaly has crept in for late adopting National Rail services in zones 2-6. These are Southeastern, Southern, Southwestern Railway, and Thameslink (outside the middle).  If you commute at peak times on a two zone journey outside zone 1 (so 2-3, 3-4, 4-5 or 5-6) then … Read more

Following a tip off from a forum user I’ve discovered a number of anomalies where the fare from Epsom to stations in zones 4-6 is cheaper that the fare from Ewell (East or West as appropriate) to the same station. In part this comes down to different people setting the fares; South Western Railway/Southern are … Read more

Considering that we are in the middle of a general election campaign and that this project (Oval) is being sponsored by the Department for Transport, I was quite surprised to see that six new stations joined the contactless PAYG system yesterday. The six stations are: Beaconsfield, Denham, Denham Golf Club, Gerrards Cross, High Wycombe and … Read more

I’d like to apologise to subscribers who will have receieved several notifications of new posts in recent weeks which were not genuine posts. The unusual method of signing up, requiring a response to an email, has been enough to keep the forum pretty much spam free for several years. However, it is clear that some … Read more

Also known as the maximum journey time, this is an area where TfL have been reluctant to publish details in the recent past. However, after a referral and discussion with the Information Commissioner, TfL have now supplied a spreadsheet containing all the information.  This is a significant step towards a more transparent attitude to PAYG … Read more