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Hi,
Buses contribute to any rail cap regardless of where you board the bus (even at Bluewater). If you board the morning bus before 0930 then theoretically it should not count towards the off-peak cap, but there’s a long standing bug which means it probably will. If you try the journey, please do let me know how it goes.
That’s good actually. They state that it is valid at 0930 which is what you need to know. They are probably mainly there to deal with admin issues like renewals, lost passes, etc. Don’t worry any more, you’re fine.
The problem is that the whole journey is from Finsbury Park to East Croydon. The 0930 from London Bridge has come from Finsbury Park at 0907 and the disabled Freedom Pass is valid on that service from Finsbury Park. The next train from Finsbury Park through the core isn’t until 0922.
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.
