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London Terminals Question

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Weary Walker

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I understand that tickets from Three Bridges to London Terminals are not valid as far as St Pancras.

But is the reverse true - is a ticket from London Terminals to Three Bridges valid from St Pancras?

I would have thought no but...last weekend I bought a ticket to Three Bridges from a ticket machine at St Pancras, and when printed it is from London Terminals. (It worked the barrier at St Pancras.)
 
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Weary Walker

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So why does St Pancras print tickets purchased from the machines there to Three Bridges (FCC only) as from London Terminals?
 
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hairyhandedfool

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I imagine it's partly because they are the same price as from St Pancras and partly because that is how the systems are set up, but the rules have been in place for more than a decade.
 
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Weary Walker

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So are you saying that a ticket purchased from a ticket machine at St Pancras (with no requested change to station of origin) is not valid from St Pancras?
 
bb21

bb21

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Weary Walker said:
So are you saying that a ticket purchased from a ticket machine at St Pancras (with no requested change to station of origin) is not valid from St Pancras?
Click to expand...

The ticket machines don't always sell the correct ticket imo. For example if you ask for a ticket to Limehouse at Paddington, the TVMs will issue a ticket from London Terminals.

I agree though that the passenger should not be penalised if sold such a ticket from a TVM.
 
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barrykas

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Most (if not all) TVMs at stations in the "London Terminals" group will print London Terminals as the origin. The exception would likely be ex-Southern Region stations for tickets to Gatwick Airport and the like.
 
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CatfordCat

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pardon me while I feel confused!

Surely TVM's should be set up so the default assumption is that the passenger wants to travel from wherever the heck that machine is.

If I buy a ticket at my local station, it just asks where I want to travel to. I would be more than a little miffed if I then found it had sold me a ticket from a station 3 miles down the line...
 
maniacmartin

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There is also no warning of the ticket actually being sold on some TVMs.

Some websites also make this mistake. Try searching for e.g. Slough to London Victoria on mytrainticket.co.UK - it'll sell a ticket to London Terminals whereas WebTIS will sell the correct ticket to U1
 
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barrykas

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CatfordCat said:
pardon me while I feel confused!

Surely TVM's should be set up so the default assumption is that the passenger wants to travel from wherever the heck that machine is.
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London's a bit of a "special case" in that respect, though the behaviour of the TVMs is consistent with the previous generation of "QuickFare" machines (though generally those would only have had directly served stations on them) and the old Ticket Office APTIS machines.

Another example would be buying a ticket to Stockport from a TVM at Manchester Victoria. Such a ticket wouldn't be valid on Metrolink between Victoria and Piccadilly.
 
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sheff1

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The TVMs at St Pancras are a nightmare for the uninitiated. Depending on the destination and the ticket type selected you can get a ticket from 'London St Pancras' or 'London Terminals'. It is not immediately obvious which might appear in the ticket tray for any given journey.

You would think that if the ticket was not valid for rail travel from the station at which you are purchasing it then this would be displayed prominently, but it is not. In the absence of such a warning, you would also reasonably expect that the ticket you get is valid for a journey from St Pancras to your destination (doubly so if the ticket works the entrance barriers) but, again, it might not be !
 
tsr

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Surely the sensible thing for any RPI to do would be to explain the problem and excess the ticket (even a free "zero excess", or whatever it's called these days, if need be), if they felt it prudent to do so?

The customer is quite clearly mislead into thinking they had paid for a ticket from the "London Terminal" of origin. Unless you are completely au fait with London and the UK's paper ticketing system, you may well be wholly unaware that a specific London Terminal does not in fact count as one of the "London Terminals" for ticketing purposes.

I feel it would probably be extremely hard to prosecute someone for fare evasion if they genuinely were unsure or unaware of this conundrum and tried to use a London Terminals - Three Bridges ticket (for example) from St Pancras, and that it would be ludicrous in the eyes of any court. Knowing FCC, though... ;)
 
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It's an irritating element of the TVMs! I worked in a ticket office at London Terminal and probably 90% of my non-issues were from disgruntled customers who had purchased such a ticket from the TVM and subsequently been refused entry to the Underground!

However, it is more cost effective to leave the machines how they are than to do anything about it. It's not even as simple as switching the origin in the TVMs to Zone U1 for those tickets as there is the small matter of the inconsistent U Zone fare policies which would make it a nightmare for the TVM programmers to set up. That said, London Underground's POMs can offer those fares but I'm not convinced that the cheapest U Zone fare is always offered from them.

There is the option of adding a Maltese Cross to every London Terminals ticket, but LU/FCC would want paying for that and I doubt the greater majority of customers would appreciate having to pay when they have no intention of crossing London.
 
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34D

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Has anyone bought a ticket from St Pancras ticket office counter recently, headed for a place it is obvious that one needs maltese cross validity (so not destinations for which HS1 is a permitted route))? If so, can they advise how such a ticket was printed?
 
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barrykas

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34D said:
Has anyone bought a ticket from St Pancras ticket office counter recently, headed for a place it is obvious that one needs maltese cross validity (so not destinations for which HS1 is a permitted route))? If so, can they advise how such a ticket was printed?
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The Maltese Cross symbol only applies for cross-London journeys like Wembley Stadium to Brighton. It wouldn't apply where you need to start (or end) the journey with a trip on the Underound, such as Zone U1 to Gerrards Cross or Gerrards Cross to Zone U1.

How such a ticket prints on the TIS at St Pancras, on the other hand, I can't say.

Cheers,

Barry
 
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johnnycache

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i work for Southern

i will ask contacts in FCC about this.

clearly it is unacceptable for a ticket southbound from St Pancras to be issued from London Terminals (and hence not valid from St Pancras itself) but given the situation where St Pancras is a member of London Terminals for some journeys but not for others it is easy to see how such an error might arise.
 
RJ

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If the TVMs are anything like those where I worked, the management will be well aware of the problem already as it's a source of countless non issues!
 
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Tomonthetrain

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Couldn't they just have it so London Terminals would mean any NR (only) terminal in Zone 1 automatically qualifies. Then we can scrap London Thameslink? (only thing with it is you'd have to be on a permitted route from origin and tube is disallowed)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Therefore meaning you could go Gatwick to St Pancras via Thameslink as an example
 
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johnnycache

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I work for Southern

We have always been willing to include Farringdon and St Pancras (previously Kings Cross Thameslink) within the definition of London Terminals from the south

Two issues have cropped up

One is that if Farringdon was a London Terminal and tickets to London Terminals were programmed to open the automatic ticket gates that would create a fraud risk to London Underground - for example Colchester to London Terminals tickets would open the gates at Farringdon so a passenger changing onto the Underground at Stratford might avoid their tube fare

Secondly FCC have advocated the London Thameslink solution but we have always resisted that on the grounds that things are plenty complicated enough for passengers without inventing new virtual destinations for them to get their heads round
 
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sheff1

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Trainbasher said:
Couldn't they just have it so London Terminals would mean any NR (only) terminal in Zone 1 automatically qualifies. Then we can scrap London Thameslink?
Click to expand...

Of course if, the will was there, London Thameslink could be scrapped as a destination and Farringdon's unique (non) designation removed so that tickets from the north via St Pancras would be valid to the 'Southern' terminals, with tickets from the souith valid to St Pancras via Farringdon.

For whatever reason, it would appear that the will is not there.

Edit: Just seen the above post which shows some, at least, do have the will .... so , maybe, one day ?
 
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Clip

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RJ said:
!

It's not even as simple as switching the origin in the TVMs to Zone U1 for those tickets as there is the small matter of the inconsistent U Zone fare policies which would make it a nightmare for the TVM programmers to set up.
.
Click to expand...


Actually it is pretty simple for them to programme. All it needs to know(using Pancakes as the start destination here and going south) is that should the destination be Three Bridges then it needs to revert the start origin to 'London St Pancras' rather than 'London Terminals'.

In fact programming like that has been around for years and its even as simple as having the line in the coding saying

GOTO 20(Pancakes)

Instead of

GOTO 10(Terminals)









*for any of the old BBC Acorn fans out there ;)


EDIT: Its even more simple then that, just have your TVMs set to the station they are in rather than the generic 'London Terminals' ;)
 
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Haywain

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Clip said:
EDIT: Its even more simple then that, just have your TVMs set to the station they are in rather than the generic 'London Terminals' ;)
Click to expand...
If it was that easy, it would have been done, but there are not fares in the fares database for all journeys that involve crossing London. Hence the problem of using TVMs to offer a full range of fares against the difficulty of offering a significant number of fares that are of no use. The only true answer is to have TVMs not offering a full range of fares.
 
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sheff1

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Haywain said:
If it was that easy, it would have been done, but there are not fares in the fares database for all journeys that involve crossing London. Hence the problem of using TVMs to offer a full range of fares against the difficulty of offering a significant number of fares that are of no use. The only true answer is to have TVMs not offering a full range of fares.
Click to expand...

But the full range of fares available from St Pancras would be offered.

If there is no through fare in the database from St Pancras to station x then that should be made clear when someone attempts to purchase one. At present you are issued with a ticket which is not valid for travel from St Pancras (but which will open the entrance barriers) with no warning that you need to purchase a separate ticket for the Undergound (or Thameslink) portion of the journey. Unsuspecting passengers are then in danger of being PF'd.
 
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Clip

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Haywain said:
If it was that easy, it would have been done, but there are not fares in the fares database for all journeys that involve crossing London. Hence the problem of using TVMs to offer a full range of fares against the difficulty of offering a significant number of fares that are of no use. The only true answer is to have TVMs not offering a full range of fares.
Click to expand...

We are talking here about a station that has a direct link through London to the south not offering fares that are available. Its a simple solution and in the case of Pancakes is fully possible.
 
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