Recent content by johnb

MrMatt: for Oyster, yes absolutely they can. For magstripe tickets, the barrier isn't clever. It opens if its coding shows that the ticket is valid, and shows an error otherwise; that's your lot. For magstripe tickets, LU gates also record data on number of entries, ticket types and ticket...

It's a very good example of why all grippers should be issued with proper stamps that mark the date and an identifiable code, rather than just being issued with biros (not the grippers' fault, but it's completely unacceptable on management's side).

A fairer comparison would be if you bought an Orange PAYG mobile top-up in a Tesco Express, the top-up failed to load on your phone, and Orange told you that they couldn't do anything about it and you had to take it back to Tesco. (the above is the opposite of what would happens in real life in...

I'd like to see the faces on St Pancras commuters if the 319s were replaced by a joint order of 116s and 150s :twisted: (yes, I know what you mean of course - just loving the image...)

RichmondConnu: Given that the vast majority of people don't live in the city centre, I really don't think the extra distance to Toton will make much odds. An extra 10 minutes of the wife's time or an extra few quid in the cab is pretty trivial compared to the journey being considered (and for...

Red, white and blue train with green seats; goes every 10 minutes.

If you wanted to build a new railway solely on land that you owned, that would be allowable subject to regular planning rules. This is (effectively) what the shuttles at Gatwick and Stansted are. An Act of Parliament would be required for anything that wasn't contained within a large commercial...

Island: I think you're overplaying the implications here, unless you're referring to a different case from the recent appeal court verdict. The current state of the law is that criminal records must be disclosed to everyone relevant, especially employers, when you first acquire them. After a...

In reply to AM1's earlier point about PFs: Penalty Fares can only be applied if you're in a designated Penalty Fares Area, which wasn't the case for your sister. That's because for most of the last 25 years or so, most rail companies were relaxed about you starting your journey without a...

The 700s and 345s will be in operation by then, so there'll be plenty of pre-loved 'leccy units to go round.

If you're managing a corporate Twitter account and have an iota of competence, then you'll autofollow-back everyone who follows you. It's not like a personal Twitter account where the list of people who follow dictates the stream of things that you see, and you base who you follow on whether...

SarahJ: It's a reasonable policy, but not quite what we're talking about here. An Anytime Single is not a penalty fare or a prosecution, and for a long time train crew have had the right to say "buy an Anytime or I'll write you up". It's interesting they're actually removing it from the Avantix...

No, Greater Anglia had tweets from people about him. If the poor bloke were getting these sent to his phone whilst he tried not to screw up the train in a tough situation, then obviously that would have been unacceptable. As it was, something happened along the lines of: @idiotcommuter sent...

Hahaha, ok, sorry, I get you - as in, if their hooky card were to fail on a naive guard, they'd say "it's your bleedin' machine mate, I'll pay at the office"...

While BB21's advice above is completely factually correct, it's worth pointing out that he takes the role in these threads of the prosecutor/judge - the worst take on your actions that you could be presented with in court. To put it on a more pragmatic level: there are two possible offences you...