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At the moment there is only one fare, so that’s what you’ll be charged whichever way you go. An OSI will join a journey every time, but only makes a route if one is defined for the journey being taken.
Hi Daniel,
That’s an error I’d say. It’s expecting you to travel via Upminster and Romford, which is fine if you don’t want to leave the station to walk, but there ought to be alternative fares for each of the two OSIs with the Elizabeth line, especially since it’s the same train from Barking Riverside. The one you took would be zone 4 only while the other one would be zones 3-4.
Hi James,
This is a somewhat complicated issue, but I’ll do my best to explain. First thing you need to be aware of is that there are no off-peak paper or e-tickets within zones 1-6, apart from the off-peak day travelcard. The travelcard says that it is not valid on trains timed to depart after 0430 and before 0930, which means that it is definitely valid on the 0930 service. The freedom pass website says that it is valid after 0930. As it doesn’t specify by how much I would say that 0930 and a fraction of a second is fine, so to all intents and purposes it is valid on a 0930 service. I’d be even more confident given that trains rarely leave London Bridge early, especially at the end of the morning peak. The freedom pass doesn’t mention trains timed to depart, so if a late running train leaves after 0930 then you are fine.
The fares quoted on the National Rail website are contactless fares which are decided by touch in time rather than the time of the train. There is a small grace period of 3 minutes at the end of the morning peak, so in theory you would be able to catch a train at 0930, but London Bridge is quite a large station so they are probably erring on the side of caution by saying you’ll be charged a peak fare. I notice that the next train is at 0931 and they claim that will be off-peak. My worry is that people will touch in in good time and end up getting charged the peak fare anyway, but that’s not relevant to your enquiry.
I hope this helps.
I’d forgotten about the Drain, but why Northern when you wanted Paddington? Just curious. And haven’t you got a 60+?
Hi Mark,
Yes, almost certainly. There are Out-of-station interchanges between each gateline at Waterloo LU, so if you came in on the Jubilee and left on the Bakerloo you will probably have triggered that.
I’m not having any problems with the app. It may be your old phone, although I’d have hoped the app wouldn’t actually work at all if the phone isn’t supported.
Hi Keith,
The default fare for Harrow and Wealdstone to Chessington North is zones 2-6, so no need to touch at Clapham Junction. If you check the fare finder on this site it tells you what zones each fare thinks you’ve used.
That’s a very odd one. I’ve not noticed it before, but I haven’t travelled completely after midnight for quite a while. I’ll give it a go in the near future.
Thanks Katherine, I’m guessing that in the grand scheme of things a days delay to applying for a card which you’ll almost certainly get early is seen as not a priority. Yes, they might get a few phone calls about it, but most people will try again a day or so later, or not even have been so quick off the mark in the first place.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the updates both here and on the news page. I’m hopeful that TfL will sort out some automatic refunds as they did so for the other major issue from the March fare revision involving c2c.
Not excusing anyone, but I feel it might help to explain the processes involved here. With Project Oval stations the responsibility to enter the correct fares rests with the train company who set them. The fares from February were supplied to TfL last summer in readiness for the original launch. Then came the cyber security incident and everything got put on hold. In the meantime the revised fares from March were supplied to TfL where I’m pretty sure only the actual fare would have been changed. TfL (or Cubic who actually do it) require between two and three months notice of fares changes so that testing can be carried out and an inplimentation plan agreed. When the old fares went live in February it was way too late to make any changes in time for March, which is why the corrections came into effect with the (normally) minor revision in June.
I’m less clear about what should happen with customer services, but hopefully the intervention of a local MP and the Department for Transport may elicit improvements going forward.
Incidentally, I don’t think they’ve fully fixed the issue. If I attempt to buy a single ticket from Sevenoaks to Oxford Circus on the Southeastern website leaving at 1700 on Monday it will sell me an off-peak single at £11.20. But if I ask the fare finder what the PAYG fare will be it says £18.20 as the peak fare is still showing as both morning and evening. What is your understanding where the journey ends in zone 1 but beyond a London Terminal?
Cheers Michael. Not sure how I missed the cap symbol over both lines of each day. That now makes perfect sense.
Hi,
OK, there are several factors at work here. The biggest is that new fares were uploaded to the system starting from Sunday 8th June. It looks like LNWR have increased some of the daily caps. This seems to be correcting some errors.
The next thing is that it looks like the daily cap was incorrectly set for Leighton Buzzard, so your return journeys were being capped when they probably shouldn’t have been. This explains the cheap afternoon fares which always resulted in a £17.20 daily charge. You have almost certainly gained from this error.
The third thing to note is that the evening peak charging period starts at 1600. As you discovered on Monday, this increases the charge for the trip home. There is a little leeway to allow for clocks being wrong which means that it actually changes over at 1605, but if you want the off-peak fare then you need to touch in at Bank before this time. By touching in in the morning before 0630 you are actually gaining from the pre-peak that TfL operates. You wouldn’t get that with a paper ticket, so you are still winning.
Overall it looks like you were being charged the wrong fares and the wrong caps before this weekend, but you were undoubtedly winning from this error. You still win if you touch in before 0630 in the morning.
I’m not aware of any new OSIs. They would need to be asked for by the RDG or DfT, and then fares set up to use them.
Looking at Slough to Staines, currently the via Windsor return fares are £14.70 and £9.20 so the half price singles should be £7.30 and £4.60. The actual single is £8.70 with no off-peak. Adding together the two PAYG single fares gives you £7.50 and £5.50. So not far out in the peak but a bit of a difference off-peak.
Other places which could make sense include Hertford and Dorking, but really anywhere with a walking interchange should be considered.
Hi Alan,
The last staion in zone 6 is Surbiton, but trains do not need to call there because the 60+ Oyster card is treated as an off-peak season ticket. You can either buy tickets from Surbiton, or Boundary Zone 6. I think they’re the same price on that line, so Surbiton would be easier to get online. Enjoy your day on the steam trains.
Hi again,
I think I now understand. The one time I went to Reading my recollection was that there were gates on the main overbridge, but you may well be right. It was a while ago now. Whilst Network Rail manage the station, GWR would be responsible for additional equipment, possibly in conjunction with the other operators using the station. It might get better when GBR has taken everyone over, but that’s not just yet.
Hi western,
You are right that the decision will be down to GWR at Reading, whereas at Ealing Broadway it is solely down to TfL. I’m a bit confused about why four trips on the escalators are necessary for one interchange, unless you’re adding together a return journey? Is there a quicker way to get between platform islands without going up to the ticket hall?
I guess the reason that GWR aren’t keen is that it might encourage ticketless travel from smaller country stations to Reading with just the bit between Reading and Paddington paid for.
You might get more luck raising the issue with your MP given that GWR will eventually be subsumed into Great British Railways under full control of the Department for Transport.
Hi Adam,
In that situation it’s probably better to not touch out. You’ll still have one incomplete journey which can be adjusted by the helpdesk. If you touched out at Moorgate you might get into difficulties if a revenue inspector checks you on the train to Hertford. They don’t always see the continuation exit marker.
Please complain to Great Northern about the gates. It’s not acceptable to prevent people from paying the correct fare.
Hi Joana,
They’re not silly questions, there was a lot to get in and I wasn’t sure if I’d made it clear enough.
To explain the Oyster a bit more. Yes, all Oyster journeys are single like you’ve been doing on the tube. You touch in at the start of the journey and out at the end. Oyster also has this clever feature where it will join together journey legs where you have to leave one station and walk to another nearby. So for Hendon to Southfields you touch in at Hendon, touch out at West Hampstead Thameslink, walk to West Hampstead Overground and touch in again, touch the pink reader within West Brompton to say you’ve avoided zone 1 and touch out at Southfields. Providing you don’t take longer than 20 minutes between touching out and back in again at West Hampstead it will join the two journeys together and charge the fares I said for the whole journey from Hendon to Southfields. There is a map here showing West Hampstead and how close all the stations are.
Now, normally you would find that buying two tickets is more expensive, as indeed you see with St Albans to Hendon and Hendon to West Hampstead versus St Albans to West Hampstead. The reason it works here is that on Oyster you only pay for the zones you travel through once, so Hendon to Southfields is zone 3-2-1-2-3 (or 3-2-3 if you avoid zone 1). This isn’t always true for paper tickets from outside the zones (eg St Albans). Also, as I said earlier, Hendon is on the boundary between zones 3 and 4, so your paper ticket ends in zone 4 and you start using Oyster in zone 3.
Where your first journey is in the morning peak I’ve quoted the undiscounted peak fare and assuming you start travelling back before 1600 you’ll get the off-peak discounted fare for the way home. So you don’t have to double anything unless I’ve done it by saying x2.
So your weekly total IF you always AVOID zone 1 should look like this:
Afternoon in Wembley Park: 2x £10.60 = £21.20
Morning in Southfields: 2x £18.30 = £36.60
All day in both places: 1x £19.55
Saturday in Southfields: 1x £9.80
TOTAL £77.35 (M-F) or £87.15 (inc Sat)Now, I do have to make a small confession. If you want to go via Blackfriars there is a different ticket you can buy which I’d forgotten about. It’s St Albans to “ZONE U123* LONDN” which costs £22.00 with your railcard. It allows you to travel fast into London and then make 1 return journey on the Underground in zones 1-3. It’s a bit cheaper because you don’t end up paying full single fares on Oyster in the morning. There is an avoiding zone 1 option to “ZONE U23* LONDN” but that costs £20.00 which you can beat with Oyster. There also isn’t a super off-peak version of this ticket, so Saturdays is better off with Oyster. For the long day the fact you’d still have to pay to get from Southfields to Wembley Park and the bus makes it more expensive than using Oyster.
I realise there is a hell of a lot to consider here, and maybe some of the Southfields days you’d prefer the fast train to London and only one ticket, even though it costs a bit more. Hopefully the Wembley Park days will be a big saving using the bus.
Hi Joana,
Thank you for those details. I think I can help quite a bit. I hope I’m right to assume that you have either a 16-25 railcard or a 26-30 railcard? If not please let me know because it may change some of this.
So, firstly for Wembley Park I recommend travelling from St Albans to Hendon on Thameslink, then get out and take bus 83 towards Wembley Park station. The bus takes around 20 minutes but easily beats the train doing Hendon – West Hampstead – Wembley Park which is a lengthy double back. It’s even worse if you go to St Pancras. A railcard discounted off-peak day return from St Albans to Hendon is £7.10, plus £1.75 x2 for the bus – total £10.60.
For Southfields there are some options depending on how long you want the journey to take. The fastest way is St Albans to Blackfriars on Thameslink and District to Southfields from there. That’s £18.10 for Thameslink plus £3.80 peak single and £2.05 discounted off-peak single for the District – total £23.95.
Splitting at Hendon requires taking the stopping trains and potentially waiting 15 minutes at Hendon for the next train after you’ve touched the Oyster card in (or out on the way back). You’d then need the Anytime day return from St Albans to Hendon which is £12.75, plus £6.60 peak single and £3.55 discounted off-peak single for Hendon to Southfields via Blackfriars – total £22.90.
For a bigger saving you’ll need to take 4 trains. St Albans to Hendon, Hendon to West Hampstead Thameslink, West Hampstead (Overground) to West Brompton and West Brompton to Southfields. That will be £12.75 as above, plus £3.60 peak single and £1.95 discounted off-peak single for the other three trains combined – total £18.30.
Now for the long day. Start with whatever is your preferred journey to Southfields. Once you finish there take the District to West Brompton, Overground to West Hampstead and Jubilee from West Hampstead (Underground) to Wembley Park. It’s not as bad as it sounds and costs just £1.45 discounted off-peak single. Then it’s the bus to Hendon and use whichever return ticket you bought in the morning to get back to St Albans. It doesn’t matter if the ticket was to Blackfriars, you can still use it only for the Hendon to St Albans part in the evening.
So £18.10 + £3.80 + £1.45 + £1.75 = £25.10 to go fast to Blackfriars,
or £12.75 + £6.60 + £1.45 + £1.75 = £22.55 to split at Hendon and via Blackfriars,
or £12.75 + £3.60 + £1.45 + £1.75 = £19.55 via Hendon, West Hampstead and West Brompton.Finally for Saturday it’s off-peak all day, plus you can buy cheaper super off-peak returns from St Albans which are only valid at weekends. St Albans to Hendon is £5.90 day return while to Blackfriars it’s £8.15.
So £8.15 + £2.05 x2 = £12.25 fast via Blackfriars,
or £5.90 + £3.55 x2 = £13.00 split at Hendon via Blackfriars (NOT WORTH IT),
or £5.90 + £1.95 x2 = £9.80 via Hendon, West Hampstead and West Brompton.Other things to note. The tickets from St Albans are all railcard discounted. Everything else is on Oyster and is disounted off-peak but not peak or for the bus. I assume you return from Southfields outside the evening peak 1600-1900. The three stations at West Hampstead are very close together taking no more than 5 minutes to walk between any two. If you change at West Brompton you MUST touch the pink reader in the passage way between the Overground platforms and the District line platforms.
I think I’ve covered everything, but do come back if you have any questions.
Hi Joana,
You don’t say where your final destinations are, so it’s difficult to give tailored advice. However, if you use an Oyster card to PAYG then definitely add your railcard to it. You will get cheaper off-peak fares, and even though you’ll pay full price in the evening peak on weekdays, the discounted off-peak cap will limit the effect of that. You can’t at the moment get railcard fares when using contactless on bank cards or mobiles.
Depending on where you need to go to, Hendon could be a very good place to switch as it’s on the boundary between zones 3 and 4. You will need to get off the train and use your ticket from St Albans to exit, then use your Oyster card to enter again. Let me know the places you end up in and I’ll see what specifically I can suggest to keep the costs down. If you can give rough times of journeys involved too (both to and from work) then it’s even better.
Hi Steve,
The daily caps within zones 1-9 are cheaper than the relevant day travelcards, but you need to be careful if you are spending a lot of time within the system without touching out. I’m not sure where the labyrinth plaques are within each station, but if they are within the paid area and you get off a train, take a picture (selfie?), and get back on the next train, you could quite easily exceed the time allowed for a journey to where you eventually touch out. If you feel that this isn’t a problem then you will save a little (off-peak zone 1-9 cap is £10.85 versus £11.80 for the off-peak zone 1-9 travelcard). However, you would need to step back a train at Hadley Wood to be able to touch in there (and out on the way home). If you pay for a ticket to Kings Cross then that will wipe out any saving using the cap.
Hi Steve,
Sorry for the delay, but I’m glad you asked. A different (new) topic would have been better, and I’ll split it if I can work out how, but don’t worry.
- Almost certainly not. The Oyster implimentation at Potters Bar was a bit of a bodge so the caps are higher than the equivalent one day travelcard prices. If you use contactless then appropriate caps are in place, but you can’t apply a railcard discount to contactless PAYG, so it’s of no use to you.
- Technically yes, but this sounds like the kind of activity where you’d be spending a lot of time in the system. If you aren’t touching out and in regularly you run the risk of getting incomplete journey charges which would not be restricted by the cap. My normal advice in this situation is to get a paper travelcard. However, travelcards from Potters Bar do not include zones 7-9 which are needed by the Metropolitain line stations beyond Moor Park, so you actually need two tickets. One is a travelcard from Amersham to zones 1-6 which is also vaild in zones 7-9, and the other a return from Potters Bar to Hadley Wood (or boundary of zone 6). Your train to/from Potters Bar does not need to call at Hadley Wood.
- If you were using PAYG, make sure you don’t exceed the maximum journey time by ensuring that you regularly touch out and back in again.
You can get both tickets at the ticket office at Potters Bar, but make sure they start the travelcard at Amersham as that is one of very few stations which will give you the zone 7-9 validity. The prices for Hadley Wood or Boundary of zone 6 appear to be the same, so either will do.
Have fun ticking of the labyrinths.
