London Terminals confusion

[Matt Taylor]

In the fares manual section A or B (I don't recall which), under the heading of 'Group Stations'.



Matt

 

[glynn80]

In the fares manual section A or B (I don't recall which), under the heading of 'Group Stations'.



Matt

Fares manual does not exist in lettered sections anymore. It is now online as the Fares & Retail Publications Portal and password protected, this is not in the public domain.

 

[Bill Badger]

Fares manual does not exist in lettered sections anymore. It is now online as the Fares & Retail Publications Portal and password protected, this is not in the public domain.

This is what I thought, so how can a restriction that is not publically available actually be enforced?

My question stems from a chat with a friend recently who regularly uses a London Terminals ticket from from SWT area to St Pancras. I told him I didn't think it was valid and not unreasonably he asked where he could see the restriction written down as he considers it to be a perfectly reasonable journey to make. i.e. he is travelling on National Rail to a London Terminal!

 

[dan_atki]

This is what I thought, so how can a restriction that is not publically available actually be enforced?

My question stems from a chat with a friend recently who regularly uses a London Terminals ticket from from SWT area to St Pancras. I told him I didn't think it was valid and not unreasonably he asked where he could see the restriction written down as he considers it to be a perfectly reasonable journey to make. i.e. he is travelling on National Rail to a London Terminal!

Indeed, it isn't written down and I think the general rule by ATOC is something like 'as long as there isn't a cross-London journey involved (i.e. using the Tube or passing through Farringdon on FCC) then you can use any London Terminal'. Although, that's just my interpretation of things and I could be wrong.

Incidentally I brought up the issue with ATOC last year about the lack of zonal fares from Waterloo to St Pancras* as a reasonable route would be Waterloo-Waterloo East-London Bridge-St Pancras. It was agreed by them that the route is reasonable and 'the London pricing manager has been asked to consider creating a fare for this flow'. Of course, whether this is done or not is another matter.

* in line with many other fares between London Terminals for which a reasonable route exists by NR (e.g. Waterloo to Victoria, Victoria to London Bridge, etc.)

 

[OwlMan]

This is what I thought, so how can a restriction that is not publically available actually be enforced?

My question stems from a chat with a friend recently who regularly uses a London Terminals ticket from from SWT area to St Pancras. I told him I didn't think it was valid and not unreasonably he asked where he could see the restriction written down as he considers it to be a perfectly reasonable journey to make. i.e. he is travelling on National Rail to a London Terminal!

Surely the only London Terminii available are those shown in the National Routeing Guide as valid - e.g from Woking the maps available are WX & WV+WX
WX shows the direct route vai Wimbledon & Clapham Junction to Waterloo & Victoria
WV+WX allows alternative routes via Staines & Richmond or Staines & Brentford to Waterloo & Victoria
As no other London Terminii are shown on the maps I would assume it is not technically valid to London Bridge, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Blackfriars etc

Peter

 

[dan_atki]

Surely the only London Terminii available are those shown in the National Routeing Guide as valid - e.g from Woking the maps available are WX & WV+WX
WX shows the direct route vai Wimbledon & Clapham Junction to Waterloo & Victoria
WV+WX allows alternative routes via Staines & Richmond or Staines & Brentford to Waterloo & Victoria
As no other London Terminii are shown on the maps I would assume it is not technically valid to London Bridge, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Blackfriars etc

Peter

You raise an interesting point.

Say, for whatever reason, I need to travel from Woking to London Bridge. I specifically ask for a ticket to London Bridge but am given one to London Terminals - that's just the way the system is. It's not an unreasonable journey to expect to complete by NR, but here's where things turn interesting.

Putting the journey into NRE and thetrainline based planners will give you London Terminals fares, but putting it into NXEC/Southern WebTIS will also charge you for the journey between Waterloo East and London Bridge. Simple? Far from it.

Which is right? And why is there a difference?

The second question is probably easier to answer than the first. The Routeing Guide is overly complicated and as such there appears to be two distinctly different interpretations of this circumstance. There is absolutely nothing documented about what passengers wishing to travel between London Terminals on the same ticket should do, nor when such a ticket becomes invalid.

Now let's try the same journey in NXEC without specifying 'via Waterloo East' but instead 'via Crystal Palace'. In this instance no fares are found despite the direct train to London Bridge from Clapham Junction existing (and is probably used). OK fair enough, we're entering unnecessary zones, so let's now try 'via Peckham Rye'... hmmm, again, no fares. But magically putting in 'via Battersea Park' will (rather amazingly) bring up fares... and include travel options via Peckham Rye. Illogical, I think, is one way of describing this. But wait, this gets more interesting.

The same prices are used as those with 'via Waterloo East' specified. Two routes show up as acceptable:
1) Clapham - Battersea - Victoria - Charing Cross (via LU!) - London Bridge (via NR).
2) Clapham - Battersea - Peckham Rye - London Bridge.

The fares above for the journey via Waterloo East are the exact same ones given here, and apparently, are acceptable on the first route (with the LU leg!) and not the second. In fact despite the second route showing up in search results, there are actually no fares available for it! (Which I guess we already knew from the 'via Peckham Rye' case).

With the 'via' field left blank, it is worth noting that the option given is via Waterloo and Waterloo East. It is both the quickest and shortest route for the journey.

One thing I think I have established from this exercise is that WebTIS believes that London Terminals tickets become invalid when you reach the last London Terminal that the train reaches (or that is how I'm interpreting things - for now: read on!) - obviously this way around otherwise a Clapham Junction to London Terminals ticket would cease to be valid at Vauxhall (if the train stops there)! However, NRE and thetrainline think differently.

Let's also look at Clapham Junction. Clapham to London Terminals is the same fare, regardless which of the south London terminals you go into, whether it be London Bridge, Victoria, Waterloo, Charing Cross, and Cannon Street (if you specifically specify via London Bridge). WebTIS and thetrainline agree on this.

Now let's think about the routeing of Clapham to London Bridge for a moment. In my mind there are three routes I can take:
1) Clapham - Waterloo - Waterloo East - London Bridge
2) Clapham - Battersea Park - Peckham Rye - London Bridge
3) Clapham - Crystal Palace - Sydenham - London Bridge

Certainly 1 and 3 are valid by the shortest route and direct train rules. But these have the same price. Why is this? I thought NR fares were zonal now... you're certainly passing through many more zones with option 3 than option 1. Maybe a route Waterloo and route Crystal Palace should be introduced!
What is interesting though is that two Anytime Day Returns exist for the route via Waterloo - one at £4.30 and one at £7.20. It is not apparent what the difference is here. The £7.20 fare is not valid via Crystal Palace, but the £4.30 one is.

Obviously, one would expect in such circumstances that the £7.20 fare is never sold - but what is it?

So we have a weird case here with WebTIS. A Clapham Junction to London Terminals ticket is valid to London Bridge via Waterloo. This disproves my theory about it thinking the ticket ceases to be valid when at the last London Terminal of a train's journey. But on the other hand Woking to London Terminals is not valid to London Bridge (via Waterloo, or indeed any way), at least according to WebTIS (but not thetrainline nor NRE). So we have some sort of contradiction here.

This seems more of a bug to me than anything else. And one that needs to be rectified.

Now, enough of the experimenting with online systems and more real-life things. If I turn up at London Bridge ticket office and ask for a ticket to Southampton, say, then I am given a London Terminals to Southampton Central ticket at the same price as it would cost me to get the ticket from Waterloo. By the shortest distance rule, this has to be valid via Waterloo East and Waterloo. It is therefore reasonable to expect the opposite direction to be true as well (I could buy a return after all).

The only place where problems could occur is the barriers at Waterloo (or even a ticket check between Clapham and Waterloo in either direction). But here's the funny thing. As I mentioned above SWT have had the barriers at Waterloo programmed to return all London Terminals tickets* so that they can be used to travel to Charing Cross and London Bridge as necessary 'within that ticket's validity'. They evidently also agree that the shortest distance rule has to trump whatever the routeing guide says is a valid terminal.

*I have yet to put a London Terminals ticket into the barriers at Waterloo and see if it is returned or retained - can anyone confirm things either way?

Indeed this is true, you do not consult the routeing guide maps unless you are not travelling by shortest distance, nor by a direct service. It would seem in this case that WebTIS has missed this point slightly, but indeed Waterloo offers a very unique case because of Waterloo East, so it's only natural that there is confusion.

I think I have argued in a roundabout way that if I was to buy a ticket to say London Bridge at a SWML station and get one 'to London Terminals', then things are on my side as a passenger when I wish to travel between Waterloo and London Bridge.

One thing is certain though, the south London Terminals offer a very weird scenario because of Clapham Junction, Waterloo, Waterloo East, London Bridge, and Blackfriars*. I think it's time things were made clearer regarding validity of London Terminals tickets and a uniform approach to them made by the online systems.

* Although not mentioned here, a London Terminals ticket from say Lewisham or East Croydon is valid to City Thameslink despite passing through two terminals beforehand (London Bridge, and Blackfriars)...

Indeed, things are not as simple as they should be.

My apologies for the length of this post. I never intended it to be this long, but in researching the tickets and prices I found several interesting points that I thought were worth mentioning!

 

[OwlMan]

But from Woking the shortest route is to Victoria & there are no direct trains to elsewhere (That is why I picked it).

Also how about Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and other places with unconnected (not simply) stations in a group. How do they work?

For example if I put into NXEC a journey from Coventry - Birmingham Stations, New Street, Moor Street, or Snow Hill you get the same fare. But how do you travel from Coventry to Moor street?

Via Galton Bridge ???
The Fare to Galton Bridge is more.
So do you have to walk??

 

[dan_atki]

But from Woking the shortest route is to Victoria & there are no direct trains to elsewhere (That is why I picked it).

Also how about Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and other places with unconnected (not simply) stations in a group. How do they work?

For example if I put into NXEC a journey from Coventry - Birmingham Stations, New Street, Moor Street, or Snow Hill you get the same fare. But how do you travel from Coventry to Moor street?

Via Galton Bridge ???
The Fare to Galton Bridge is more.
So do you have to walk??

Woking has several services per hour direct to Waterloo! Some fast, some stopping at Clapham, some semi-fast, and some stoppers!

It is not unreasonable to expect to go to London Bridge and ask for a ticket to there, only to be given one to London Terminals which you'd use all the way to LBG. For clarification, with the shortest distance I was referring to the shortest distance to the intended destination not to a London Terminal.

Southern have started a trend with tickets being issued directly to Victoria rather than Terminals - maybe it is the start of the demise! There are many benefits to losing these fare groups, yes they cause restrictions for people who want to go to one terminal but travel back from another and vice versa, but in terms of ticketing we wouldn't get situations like this occurring.

I probably didn't make it clear above that I'm referring to journeys that are reasonably and solely completed by NR. Going from Waterloo to Marylebone say is utterly ridiculous. Going from Waterloo to London Bridge on the other hand...

With stations in Birmingham, it is often the case you walk between them for connections. Putting in Coventry to Moor Street will show that the journey is to Birmingham New Street and thence a walk to Moor Street. This is the shortest distance between Coventry and Moor Street (I assume walks are distanced based on the the same information in the NRT showing walking connections).

It would appear that Coventry to Moor Street is not directly possible - even going via Smethwick (which as you say has a more expensive fare). Here you'd be leaving Birmingham Stations and hence a problem*.

The point of my post was to demonstrate that fares to stations beyond Waterloo (with easy onward connections) were often coming up the same price so it is not unreasonable to assume validity as such.

* Would it be unreasonable to assume that a London Terminals ticket becomes invalid the moment you get to a station that is not a London Terminal? Hence this is why tickets to Waterloo are 'valid' through to London Bridge. Although strictly speaking Waterloo East is not a terminal, it is often classed as Waterloo in terms of ticketing (e.g. for Waterloo East to London Bridge the ticket says 'From London Waterloo' rather than 'From London Watrloo E'), so in my opinion can be regarded as a terminal.

E.G. I could travel to City Thameslink on a Clapham Junction to London Terminals ticket because after the first terminal (Vauxhall) ALL intermediate stations on the rest of the journey are also London Terminals.

As with London Thameslink tickets, this will have obvious implications if you wish to break your journey at an intermediate terminal before you get to the last one. Although technically valid to do so, barriers and their staff may disagree and deem the ticket invalid at that point.

 

[Edvid]

Regarding your last paragraph, that is the basis upon which I've travelled with FCC or EMT to London St Pancras on a ticket to London Thameslink and then asked to continue further south at both the FCC gateline and KXSP sub-surface gateline with varying degrees of success (regarding the latter I've always tried the automatic gates first).

Perhaps it helps to think about it in another way - imagine that TL North stations sold tickets to individual destinations in the London Thameslink group. In that case I can't (for example) buy a ticket to City Thameslink and use it to London Bridge regardless of BoJ, even though they're the same price, but I could break my journey at StP then continue as far as City Thameslink.

It appears that for travel to the London Thameslink group you can have individual destinations (within the London Thameslink group) with BoJ, or a single destination (London Thameslink) with BoJ until you reach one of the London Thameslink stations. Regardling the latter scenario, every London Thameslink station is in effect the same destination, and of course leaving the paid area at your destination is defined as ending your journey, not breaking it.

As far as travelling from Woking etc to London Bridge on a London Terminals ticket is concerned, it's impossible not to traverse the 'public' area within another London Terminal anyway.

Sorry if the late-notice edits catch anyone out if you're typing a response.

 

[Edvid]

I mentioned the above issue in the now concluded FCC webchat, and it seems that BoJ can be done in the London Thameslink area as well according to an FCC director!

[Q178]
On Mondays I use EMT to travel from Luton Airport Parkway into London St Pancras and then sometimes head to the FCC gates for an onward journey to Farringdon. I buy tickets to 'London Thameslink' on such days and I always show the tickets to the RPOs at the gateline, pointing out that I broke my journey - most of the time they let me through but those that haven't say that because 'London Thameslink' applies to several stations my journey is complete once I leave the 'paid area' at any of them.

Could you please clarify who is correct and then ensure that all revenue staff are reminded? If I was in the wrong on those occasions (as well as the RPOs who let me through the gateline) then so be it, as you can see FCC's stance on this issue is inconsistent.

[A178]
A ticket to London Thameslink is valid as far as London Bridge or Elephant & Castle, therefore a break of journey is allowed providing it is on the line of route between the tickets origin and destination.

Might as well print that out and take it with me - it'll show them who's boss! (Unless they let me through anyway)