Cross-London connections onto intercity train with Advance ticket - PRO

[Haywain]

It's plenty of time if trains are punctual. And as I understand it, minimum connection times are supposed to be based on the longest time it might reasonably take a passenger to make the change, not to allow the rail industry to shift the cost of delays to passengers.

Ultimately, it's up to you. If you want to get to your event on time I suppose it depends on your appetite for creating hassle that could be easily avoided. Personally, I prefer a relaxed approach with some confidence. And minimum (note that specific word) connections times are intended to be the shortest time for a connection, not the longest otherwise they would be called maximum connection times.

 

[redreni]

Ultimately, it's up to you. If you want to get to your event on time I suppose it depends on your appetite for creating hassle that could be easily avoided. Personally, I prefer a relaxed approach with some confidence. And minimum (note that specific word) connections times are intended to be the shortest time for a connection, not the longest otherwise they would be called maximum connection times.

Yeah it's a case of which itinerary I print. I will almost certainly take an earlier train, I simply want to establish what my final deadline is to be at Slade Green station and on the London-bound platform, after which any failure to make my connection at Kings Cross would be my fault rather than the rail industry's. Turns out it is 10.22 and that's the itinerary I will print.

If I'm ahead of it, which I will be, the service patterns are such that there will always be a valid itinerary that arrives at St Pancras at or before 11.05. Trains aren't overtaking each other at any point along my planned route.

In general I do, like anyone, try to balance allowing plenty of time and reducing stress on long journeys against having a reasonable journey time. By allowing less slack than some people, I have benefited from faster journeys and saved a lot of travel time in door-to-door terms over the years, compared to them. The trade-off is I may occasionally miss a connection that they would have made. As a result of frequenting this forum in recent years I have, at least, learned the importance of making sure I'm always travelling on a valid itinerary.

I do think having really high minimum connection times like 31 minutes for arriving at St Pancras and leaving Kings Cross (or vice versa, which is even crazier) has an adverse effect on end-to-end journey times generated by those journey planners that do this, which risks encouraging people who may be thinking of taking the train, when they see how long the train journey will take, to opt to drive. Furthermore it's hard to see the justification for saying a transfer from Thameslink to EMR at St Pancras requires 15 minutes, but if the train leaves from across the road then you need 31 minutes. There's no logic to that.

 

[Hadders]

Minimum interchange time between St Pancras and Kings Cross is 31 minutes:

15 minutes St Pancras
1 minute walking connection
15 minutes Kings Cross

There were reports of some websites (Trainline...) offering shorter connection time (iirc around 20 minutes) and we never did esstablish how or why. I don't know if they still do this.

In reality the connection can be done in much less time if you are an experienced traveller and know where you're going (I think 3 minutes is my record from the low level platforms at STP to Platform 1 at KGX) but for someone changing between Kings Cross and St Pancras the time has to allow for someone alighting with luggage from a busy train at the very far end of platform 0, walking at a slower than average pace, through the station, crossing the road, finding their way to the appropriate departure platform at STP, in the potentially traversing two escalators in the process (for the low level platforms) or a double back (for the escalators to the high level EMR platforms).

Many would say longer should be allowed (although I disagree).

 

[Bletchleyite]

In any practical sense they may as well be the same station. Some interchanges are less of a walk than the main trainshed to 13/14 at Manchester Pic.

It's stations where it's 5 minutes that are way too short on time (unless it's cross platform), just because UK operations aren't punctual enough not to just lose half of that from sloppy late running.

 

[Somewhere]

The (internal) Advance Fares FAQ hasn't been updated since a copy was included in the Forum's Fares & Ticketing Guide.

So it'd need to be a ticket from Slade Green to Zone U1256 (as Slade Green's in Zone 6) to definitely be covered, given station staff can't verify a Contactless payment card - though could possibly verify an Oyster card.

But Slade Green isn't on the Underground - Zone U**** is a fare for the Underground/DLR/Elizabeth Line

 

[CyrusWuff]

But Slade Green isn't on the Underground - Zone U**** is a fare for the Underground/DLR/Elizabeth Line

Whilst Slade Green isn't on the Underground, King's Cross St. Pancras is, and for an in-boundary journey a Train+Tube ticket should be issued for all of the zones you travel through.

As the OP holds a ticket from Kings Cross, having just a Slade Green to London Terminals ticket would leave a gap between the two tickets. That could potentially cause issues should delays cause them to miss the train from Kings Cross.

 

[Somewhere]

Whilst Slade Green isn't on the Underground, King's Cross St. Pancras is, and for an in-boundary journey a Train+Tube ticket should be issued for all of the zones you travel through.

As the OP holds a ticket from Kings Cross, having just a Slade Green to London Terminals ticket would leave a gap between the two tickets. That could potentially cause issues should delays cause them to miss the train from Kings Cross.

That's nonsense. The Zone U*** ticket only needs to be issued for the zones you're travelling on LU/DLR/Elizabeth Line Core for. Maybe you're confusing it with R***** Zones (i.e. Travelcards)?
If they're joining the Underground in Zone 1, they only need Slade Green to Zone U1.
If they're joining the Elizabeth Line at Abbey Wood, a single from Slade Green to Abbey Wood then contactless. I don't know if there's any tickets for through journeys joining the EL at Abbey Wood

 

[CyrusWuff]

That's nonsense. The Zone U*** ticket only needs to be issued for the zones you're travelling on LU/DLR/Elizabeth Line Core for. Maybe you're confusing it with R***** Zones (i.e. Travelcards)?

Knowledgebase says otherwise. The rules changed when NR services wholly within Zones 1 to 6 moved to zonal pricing.

Train Tube Zonal Fares
For a point-to-point journey:

• through tickets between a National Rail station and any London Underground zone destination or to HEATHROW UNDERGD. ‘Train Tube’ tickets for these journeys are issued to show all the Fare Zones travelled in or through from the station of origin. For example, a ticket for a journey between Selhurst (Zone 4) to Holborn (Zone 1) is issued SELHURST to London Underground Zones 1-4 and is valid for transfer to LU services at any interchange station on the line of route, i.e. at Balham, London Victoria, or, via Clapham Junction, at Vauxhall or London Waterloo. Tickets can be reverse issued, i.e. from London Underground Zones 1-4.

 

[MrJeeves]

As the OP holds a ticket from Kings Cross, having just a Slade Green to London Terminals ticket would leave a gap between the two tickets.

How come? Slade Green to KGX is valid on a London Terminals ticket.

Slade Green - Woolwich Arsenal - Stratford - Highbury & Islington - Kings Cross St Pancras tube

 

[Haywain]

How come? Slade Green to KGX is valid on a London Terminals ticket.

Slade Green - Woolwich Arsenal - Stratford - Highbury & Islington - Kings Cross St Pancras tube

View attachment 151404

That's not the route the OP is planning to take.

 

[MrJeeves]

But the OP could

 

[Haywain]

But the OP could

Maybe but it doesn't really fit with their declared intention to keep the overall journey time down.

 

[redreni]

Knowledgebase says otherwise. The rules changed when NR services wholly within Zones 1 to 6 moved to zonal pricing.

It's not something it's worth my while to pursue, but it would be very interesting if a commuter (e.g. lives in Greenhithe, works in the City near Liverpool Street/Moorgate) didn't know that they only needed a London Terminals ticket. They might, for instance, work two or three days a week and they may have been buying day returns Greenhithe to Abbey Wood then using contactless from there, which would set them back about £18 a day when the correct London Terminals fare is £13.10. Their (in my view entirely justified) claim for reimbursement of overcharging could run to a not inconsiderable sum. The correct fare is, essentially, a secret. EDIT - sorry I was looking at the wrong fare.

The double-charging on single and return tickets from NR stations in Z1-6 to a LU zone is another matter again. I'm sure the argument would be "use contactless, then" (either for the whole journey or, if coming from outside the contactless area, in conjunction with a ticket to the NR/LU interchange point). For the journeys I make at the weekend, such as the one to York on Saturday, the two disadvantages of that are:

1. I can't get a Network Railcard discount on contactless or oyster PAYG, and
2. If I use PAYG in conjunction with an Advance ticket for a through journey to somewhere like York, it muddies the waters. What if the disruption that prevents me reaching Kings Cross in time is known before I tap in? Where's the travel contract under PRO if I haven't yet paid for that leg of the journey? (a bigger problem with contactless, arguably, as oyster is a prepayment system which means I would in fact have paid in advance). It's pretty clear that under the NRCoT I have the right to use the next train in any case, but in practice it's much easier to establish that if I have a paper ticket (and next to impossible if you rely on contactless).

The overcharging for journeys from Kent to points in zone 1 beyond Liverpool Street via Abbey Wood is yet a third issue and, again, a very clear case of overcharging as far as I can see.

This is, I suspect, very much the way DfT wants public transport to work: journey planners should offer fares the same way Amazon offers goods for sale - hiding the cheaper prices from people who they reckon are rich and daft enough to pay more.

 

[swt_passenger]

That's not the route the OP is planning to take.

I thought there was still a list of valid London Terminals that journey planners were supposed to use and from any origin in the south Kings Cross wasn’t on it?

 

[Starmill]

I thought there was still a list of valid London Terminals that journey planners were supposed to use and from any origin in the south Kings Cross wasn’t on it?

There's a list, but it doesn't do anything. It just comes up as a human-readable list.

That's nonsense. The Zone U*** ticket only needs to be issued for the zones you're travelling on LU/DLR/Elizabeth Line Core for. Maybe you're confusing it with R***** Zones (i.e. Travelcards)?
If they're joining the Underground in Zone 1, they only need Slade Green to Zone U1.
If they're joining the Elizabeth Line at Abbey Wood, a single from Slade Green to Abbey Wood then contactless. I don't know if there's any tickets for through journeys joining the EL at Abbey Wood

CyrusWuff isn't confusing anything, and it isn't nonsense.

If you say the Zone U ticket from Slade Green only needs to be to Zone U1 why don't you show me that fare?

 

[MrJeeves]

If you say the Zone U ticket from Slade Green only needs to be to Zone U1 why don't you show me that fare?

I'm not sure I understand...

Surely, it'd be a keyed fare made up of a Slade Green to London Bridge single/return, plus the add-on U1 fare of £3 per direction (or less for railcard discounts).

In this case, it'd be more expensive to sell this fare as the London Bridge return on its own is £16.90, plus £6 each way for tube which is £22.90 compared to the U1256 fare in the data of £21.40.

 

[Starmill]

I'm not sure I understand...

Surely, it'd be a keyed fare made up of a Slade Green to London Bridge single/return, plus the add-on U1 fare of £3 per direction (or less for railcard discounts).

In this case, it'd be more expensive to sell this fare as the London Bridge return on its own is £16.90, plus £6 each way for tube which is £22.90 compared to the U1256 fare in the data of £21.40.

The entire point we're making is that it's not permitted to key that fare in a TIS! If you look online you'll note it doesn't exist.

 

[MrJeeves]

The entire point we're making is that it's not permitted to key that fare in a TIS! If you look online you'll note it doesn't exist.

Oh bugger, yes it's in Zone 6! That was what I was missing

If it were me, I might buy a ticket from Dartford instead.

Dartford - U1234 return (via Abbey Wood and Elizabeth Line to Liverpool St) is £17.50 Anytime or £14 off-peak.

If you want to do London Bridge, then the U1256 from Slade Green makes more sense during peak, else Dartford - Z1-6 Travelcard off-peak is £16.20 (anytime is £26.40).

 

[Starmill]

Oh bugger, yes it's in Zone 6! That was what I was missing

If it were me, I might buy a ticket from Dartford instead.

Dartford - U1234 return (via Abbey Wood and Elizabeth Line to Liverpool St) is £17.50 Anytime or £14 off-peak.

If you want to do London Bridge, then the U1256 from Slade Green makes more sense during peak, else Dartford - Z1-6 Travelcard off-peak is £16.20 (anytime is £26.40).

If the paper single from Dartford with the Network Railcard is the cheaper option, then I suspect there's no problem with that, yes.

 

[redreni]

I'm not sure I understand...

Surely, it'd be a keyed fare made up of a Slade Green to London Bridge single/return, plus the add-on U1 fare of £3 per direction (or less for railcard discounts).

In this case, it'd be more expensive to sell this fare as the London Bridge return on its own is £16.90, plus £6 each way for tube which is £22.90 compared to the U1256 fare in the data of £21.40.

I'm not returning until the next day (out Saturday, back Sunday).

To put this in perspective the PAYG single fare Slade Green to St Pancras (Thameslink) is £7.70 peak or £4.80 off-peak irrespective of whether you travel on the Elizabeth Line. In a perfect world the paper ticket equivalent would be maybe a few pence more (£8 peak or £5 off-peak) and discounted by a third if you've got a Network Railcard. (Although in this perfect world, the PAYG fare would also be discountable with a Network Railcard).

So there are a number of factors playing into the ludicrous cost of paper tickets which make the Network Railcard-discounted paper off-peak single fares far more expensive than the non-discounted PAYG off-peak fares for this journey, including the "route City Thameslink" routing restriction on the paper but not the PAYG fare. The charging peak fares for off-peak journeys and the charging for 5 additional LU zones not travelled through on LU, in addition to the NR fare already paid, for no adequately explained reason, merely adds to the ridiculousness.

I'm still not sure I understand fully why there's no fare from Dartford to LU Zone 1? Is it simply because Southeastern have chosen not to price that fare, and if it were "keyed in" it would be more than the Zones 1-4 fare that they have priced?

 

[Starmill]

I'm still not sure I understand fully why there's no fare from Dartford to LU Zone 1? Is it simply because Southeastern have chosen not to price that fare, and if it were "keyed in" it would be more than the Zones 1-4 fare that they have priced?

Sadly, this behaviour is endemic. For example from Bishops Stortford Zone U1 and Zone U12 are unavailable, you must use at least Zone U123. Presumably that's got something to do with the Victoria line from Tottenham Hale.

But then, this whole area is pretty lawless. Why is there a ticket from Chingford to Richmond routed +.? Where can that be used on the Underground? Why is Stevenage to Tottenham Hale routed +Victoria Line North? Between which stations is that valid on London Underground? And can you travel via Ware? And why can a ticket from Slade Green to Heathrow Underground or Zone U1256 be used on Elizabeth Line services from Abbey Wood to London Paddington but then not between Hayes & Harlington and Heathrow Airport? Also, is it valid between London Paddington and Hayes & Harlington?

Nobody can answer the above questions without cakeism or evasion. They don't have answers. And if you met a member of revenue staff you'd get the standard common fallback of "it's valid how I say, purely because I say so".

 

[Bletchleyite]

Chingford to Richmond? Er, isn't that obvious? LO to Liverpool St, tube to Waterloo, Waterloo to Richmond?

I can't think of any other way I would go off hand, the North London Line is a possibility I suppose but it's excruciatingly slow.

 

[Starmill]

Chingford to Richmond? Er, isn't that obvious? LO to Liverpool St, tube to Waterloo, Waterloo to Richmond?

I can't think of any other way I would go off hand, the North London Line is a possibility I suppose but it's excruciatingly slow.

Victoria line from Walthamstow Central to Vauxhall...

 

[Somewhere]

Victoria line from Walthamstow Central to Vauxhall...

Or Victoria then District Line

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

There were reports of some websites (Trainline...) offering shorter connection time (iirc around 20 minutes) and we never did esstablish how or why. I don't know if they still do this.

It's because nationalrail.co.uk offers 21 minutes, I think it is, and nobody ever got fired for having the same results as NRE

 

[redreni]

It's because nationalrail.co.uk offers 21 minutes, I think it is, and nobody ever got fired for having the same results as NRE

I suppose there's bound to be an element of arbitrariness in MCTs, but when I play around with itineraries for Slade Green to York there seems to be excessive arbitrariness.

It is not rational for the MCT to be 16 minutes longer for a connection between St Pancras and Kings Cross than for a connection within Kings Cross. It's still only one connection, not two, so the double-counting makes no sense. The time allowed for the fixed walking link should account for the additional distance between platforms (and I would have no problem if that were increased to, say, 4 minutes if it were specified that the MCTs for the two stations run concurrently rather than being added together).

The LU connection times also lead journey planners to generate quite stupid itineraries, since the MCTs indicate (quite ridiculously) that it is faster to get off the Elizabeth Line at Liverpool Street and then take the Circle, H&C or Met line from there than it is to stay on the Elizabeth Line to Farringdon and then pick up the Circle, H&C or Met line there. People may follow these itineraries and, if there are delays, might miss their train as a result.

There should be a closer relationship - with reasonable padding but not wildly inconsistent and arbitrary amounts of padding - between MCTs and how long these transfers actually take.

 

[Haywain]

St Pancreas

St Pancras - no letter 'e', it's not named after a body part. Sorry, but that's a real bugbear of mine.

It is not rational for the MCT to be 16 minutes longer for a connection between St Pancreas and Kings Cross than for a connection within Kings Cross.

I'm afraid you are arguing this from the perspective of someone who knows their way around, whereas the times are designed to cater for people who don't know their way around and are less able to rush. And the problem with St Pancras, in particular, is that there are 3 different sets of (domestic) platforms and they really require different amounts of time.

 

[redreni]

St Pancras - no letter 'e', it's not named after a body part. Sorry, but that's a real bugbear of mine.

I'm afraid you are arguing this from the perspective of someone who knows their way around, whereas the times are designed to cater for people who don't know their way around and are less able to rush. And the problem with St Pancras, in particular, is that there are 3 different sets of (domestic) platforms and they really require different amounts of time.

That's an argument for having longer MCTs. I don't think it can justify the double-counting of the MCTs when changing between adjacent stations, when the walking time between the two is already accounted for separately.

I would also point out that good journey planners, such as on the forum's ticketing site, let people specify if they want extra time. There's even a tick-box on most platforms to allow extra time for transfers in London. I don't think people who struggle with wayfinding and/or walk much more slowly than average are unaware of the fact. We are talking about the minimum.

 

[Haywain]

I would also point out that good journey planners, such as on the forum's ticketing site, let people specify if they want extra time. There's even a tick-box on most platforms to allow extra time for transfers in London. I don't think people who struggle with wayfinding and/or walk much more slowly than average are unaware of the fact. We are talking about the minimum.

There is also an argument that those who don't realise that they need more time also won't realise that there are ways of trying to add it in to their itinerary. What it comes down to is that if you want shorter overall journey times than journey planners will offer, then you will have to accept the risks that go with taking shorter connections.

 

[redreni]

Yeah I'm prepared to accept the MCTs being longer than I might like. I reserve the right to grumble about absurdities, though, such as treating a walk between adjacent stations as if it were a train I need to catch and assuming that the tube journey from Liverpool Street to Kings Cross St Pancras takes the same amount of time as the tube journey from Farringdon to Kings Cross St Pancras.

Those issues could be fixed and they really ought to be. The more accurately the actual likely connection times are worked out, the easier it is to add a standard padding factor to these and thereby produce MCTs that strike more of a reasonable balance between the different factors we've been discussing. Telling me to change at Liverpool Street, which takes ages, would (were I to follow that advice) eat up a lot of the extra contingency time I'm forced to allow.