London terminals

[worried456]

Hi, i was hoping to a ask about a situation i came across when trying to travel (at short notice and after a very stressful day) from London paddington to Cambridge.

I should explain that i very rarely travel in London, except for a journey i have frequently made over the last 8 years from Cambridge to chippenham, and in reverse. On this occasion, very unusually, i had been in London and was starting the journey at paddington (and hadn't come from chippenham at all).

When i buy a ticket for the chippenham to cambridge journey i get one ticket, which allows you to travel between paddington and kings cross on the underground. Therefore i am under the impression that train tickets can be used on the underground.

I also know that at my local station (chippenham) the ticket machine will only let you buy tickets from that station to your destination. You don't enter a starting point, you just say where you're going and it issues a ticket from where you are to your destination.

So, under the impression that underground journeys can be incorporated into train tickets, and also that ticket machines will issue you a ticket valid from where you use the machine, i ask a ticket machine at paddington for a ticket to cambridge. The machine issues me a ticket which says london terminals to cambridge. This seems fine to me, after all paddington is a London terminal.

However, my ticket doesn't work, and the man on the barrier explains that it is not valid for the underground portion of my journey. I buy a separate underground ticket and all goes well.

Does anyone else think this is confusing? Had the man on the barrier not looked closely at my ticket and waved me through (as quite often happens in my experience), i could have got in trouble at the exit barrier. A bit of research suggests i could even end up with a criminal record for this situation, a thought which is majorly freaking me out.

Just wondered what people think - I honestly wasnt trying to avoid a fare, but was i being really dumb, or should the ticket system be made clearer? Was my logic not reasonable for someone who doesn't know the system in London?

Thanks in advance and interested to hear opinions on this

 

[roversfan2001]

I agree it can be confusing to someone not used to the way the system works. For future reference, the only train tickets valid on the Underground are London Travelcards and tickets containing a + or a Maltese Cross in the 'Route' section, or ones with the origin/destination of 'London Underground Zones [x]'.

 

[sjoh]

Had your ticket been from "London Paddington" to Cambridge, I believe it would indeed have been valid, but the "London Termini" group (for all practical reasons actually treated as a separate station, because there are a multitude of routes for which you may validly arrive at a variety of terminals) does not allow travel *between* London termini.
Conversely a ticket from Chippenham to Cambridge includes the LU transfer because there are no other valid routes.
You're right that it could be clearer, but I don't particularly think it's massively beyond reason.

 

[robbeech]

It’s unfortunatrly not quite as simple as that. There are tickets without that symbol that are valid, but for the most part it’s a good way to check.
London terminals is a confusing concept to those that do know let alone those that don’t, as a general rule a ticket to or from London terminals is valid to the nearest and most sensible London terminal Station or Stations. To take the example of Cambridge the obvious ones are Liverpool Street and King’s Cross. I think I’m right in saying it’s valid to Old Street and Moorgate too.

 

[methethpropbut]

I believe an even bigger problem than the London Terminals farce is the fact that you can buy a ticket from a station with the expectation that it’s valid from there... when it isn’t.

It probably should have defaulted to a U12-Cambridge ticket in this case but alas I guess the machines aren’t programmed that well yet!

 

[jopsuk]

I think it's a fair point- if you buy a ticket at a "London Terminal" to a station for which the only sensible routes involve an underground transfer first of all, the default ticket sold should be one that's valid

 

[Wombat]

I don't particularly think it's massively beyond reason.

I do, if reasonable actions by the passenger expose him to the possibility of a fine or even a criminal record.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I do, if reasonable actions by the passenger expose him to the possibility of a fine or even a criminal record.

But as every Zone 1 Tube station has barriers they won't will they?

 

[meolebrace]

Use contactless bank card on tube. Quicker and cheaper than faffing about for an LU ticket.

 

[worried456]

Thanks for the replies, at least I understand now how to avoid this situation in the future, and I feel better that others also find this confusing and that I wasn't being a complete idiot!

But as every Zone 1 Tube station has barriers they won't will they?

But what if the barriers happened to be (maybe they never are in zone one, I'm not sure), or what if a ticket inspector just glances at your ticket and lets you in without looking at it properly (this definitely does happen sometimes in my experience)?

I do, if reasonable actions by the passenger expose him to the possibility of a fine or even a criminal record.

This is kind of what's still bugging me about it - if i had somehow entered the underground and been 'caught' on my way out, would i really be likely to get a criminal record? I know that's a bit of a redundant question when it didn't happen, and probably impossible to answer with certainty, but I have read some horror stories online and it's freaking me out that i came close to it, a criminal record would be a disaster for my career. I never knew travelling on trains was such a risky buisiness...

 

[keyser666]

Thanks for the replies, at least I understand now how to avoid this situation in the future, and I feel better that others also find this confusing and that I wasn't being a complete idiot!



But what if the barriers happened to be (maybe they never are in zone one, I'm not sure), or what if a ticket inspector just glances at your ticket and lets you in without looking at it properly (this definitely does happen sometimes in my experience)?



This is kind of what's still bugging me about it - if i had somehow entered the underground and been 'caught' on my way out, would i really be likely to get a criminal record? I know that's a bit of a redundant question when it didn't happen, and probably impossible to answer with certainty, but I have read some horror stories online and it's freaking me out that i came close to it, a criminal record would be a disaster for my career. I never knew travelling on trains was such a risky buisiness...

You would have got out at Kings Cross no problem.

 

[whhistle]

This is kind of what's still bugging me about it - if i had somehow entered the underground and been 'caught' on my way out, would i really be likely to get a criminal record?

1) IF you had entered the Underground... but you didn't, and couldn't. It's highly unusual for anyone to be able to enter the Underground without a ticket, unless doing it on purpose.

2) Criminal record? No. If you intended to travel without a valid ticket, AND continued to use whatever story of your chioce as an excuse, AND didn't pay the fine, then maybe, but unlikely.

 

[AlterEgo]

But as every Zone 1 Tube station has barriers they won't will they?

Except Euston Square which does have a barrier-less entrance using the lift. (Pedant hat off!)

 

[yorkie]

This is kind of what's still bugging me about it - if i had somehow entered the underground and been 'caught' on my way out, would i really be likely to get a criminal record?

No. A mistake of this nature would at worst get you a Penalty Fare:

A Penalty Fare Notice is issued when a passenger travelling on a TfL service fails to produce on demand a valid authority to travel when required to do so by an authorised person

Although you'd technically be committing a Byelaw offence, clearly you were not deliberately avoiding the fare; Penalty Fares are not for deliberately avoiding paying the fare, but are more for a mistake of the sort that you would have made. Where an individual is suspected of deliberate prosecution, TfL are likely to prosecute...

Penalty Fare Notices are issued in lieu of taking criminal prosecution following fare evasion in circumstances where the offender is considered not to have deliberately set out to avoid the fare due.

An individual suspected of deliberate fare evasion risks prosecution which may result in
criminal conviction...

But gateline staff cannot issue Penalty Fares nor report people for prosecution, and you'd have to be unlucky to come across an RPI.

 

[yorkie]

Except Euston Square which does have a barrier-less entrance using the lift. (Pedant hat off!)

True. And Waterloo (W&C Line), there are probably others too ( @Mojo or @bluegoblin7 could confirm!)

Also a lot of London Terminals tickets would open the gates at King's Cross, Moorgate (LU & GTR services share the same gateline) etc....

 

[keyser666]

Moorgate has no gateline for the Elizabeth Extension going up to street level at present but is a London Terminal in intself

 

[sjoh]

I never knew travelling on trains was such a risky business...

You're being rather over dramatic here. Millions of people manage it quite effortlessly every day.
Yes, there are horror stories, but there are horror stories in quite literally any topic of contemplation.

 

[Nicholas43]

I agree with the OP that "London terminals" is baffling to the general public. It even appears on Advance tickets when in fact you can only use one terminal. I don't know how it could be made better. For example, I can't think of a comprehensible short name for (for example) "terminals you can easily get to from Cambridge" (King's Cross, Liverpool Street, Moorgate via Essex Road but not via Farringdon, and probably others I've forgotten). Still less "terminals you can get to from Oxford, in some cases if you are very patient and determined" (Paddington, Marylebone, Waterloo, Vauxhall, Victoria, London Bridge via Waterloo East, hence Cannon Street, Blackfriars, Ludgate Hill oops City Thameslink whatever that may be, but not Farringdon. And how are visitors from Berlin supposed to understand that Farringdon, which is about to become the nearest thing London has to a Hauptbahnhof, is not a London Terminal?

 

[Chris M]

But as every Zone 1 Tube station has barriers they won't will they?

As other have noted there are Zone 1 tube stations without barriers, and in addition the barriers are sometimes left open.

1) IF you had entered the Underground... but you didn't, and couldn't. It's highly unusual for anyone to be able to enter the Underground without a ticket, unless doing it on purpose.

Not true at all as there are plenty of access points where you do not pass a barrier line - for example stations like Harrow and Wealdstone, Stratford, Farringdon, etc. where you can arrive on NR (with or without a ticket for that journey) and board the Underground by just changing platforms.

 

[xotGD]

You are at station A. You want to go to station B. You buy a ticket to station B. Your ticket isn't valid between station A and station B. Marvellous!

 

[Chris M]

I've just remembered that a few months back when I bought a ticket to Oxford at Waterloo, the machine told me that the ticket wasn't valid for travel on the Underground. I don't remember the exact wording used (but it wasn't as blindingly obvious as "not valid on London Underground"). Making this alert more prominent and more clearly worded with a one-button press to select a ticket that does have LU validity would be easier (and probably cheaper) than renaming London Terminals. Maybe even better would be not to default either including or excluding cross-London travel but ask the purchaser to make a choice.

The problem with this though is that a single through ticket is often more expensive than using Oyster or Contactless to cross London.

 

[D365]

Being able to work out the difference between "London Terminals" or Zone 1, 1-2, 1-6 tickets seems like an art in itself...

 

[jopsuk]

but at Waterloo there's a reasonably sensible "not underground" route to Oxford- direct train to Reading, change there for Oxford. At Paddington the only sensible routes to Cambridge are to take the tube to Kings Cross, Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale (yes, Finsbury Park too I guess and more, but I said sensible) and get the direct trains there.

 

[Chris M]

but at Waterloo there's a reasonably sensible "not underground" route to Oxford- direct train to Reading, change there for Oxford.

That is indeed the journey I was making (I usually go from Paddington or Marylebone but wanted to get a train from the ex-international platforms at Waterloo).

At Paddington the only sensible routes to Cambridge are to take the tube to Kings Cross, Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale (yes, Finsbury Park too I guess and more, but I said sensible) and get the direct trains there.

That is also true, but I don't know what either has to do with my suggestion about making the validity more prominent and giving the purchaser an easy choice of which validity they want?

 

[yorkie]

I agree with the OP that "London terminals" is baffling to the general public. It even appears on Advance tickets when in fact you can only use one terminal....

If GWR Advance fares had been made only from Paddington, what would have happened during Marylebone/Waterloo diversions?

Careful what you wish for.

The current system is passenger-friendly in terms of what it allows. Sadly RDG are using evidence such as this to attempt to justify proposals to reduce our rights.

If anyone can find a viable solution that does not ever infringe our rights (either during normal service or disruption/engineering works), please do suggest it!

 

[maniacmartin]

The simplest solution is for the TVM to recommend a ticket from London U1 or similar when a destination requiring the tube is entered. Sadly they do not do this.

 

[whhistle]

Perhaps we're being too friendly?

There aren't many stations where you'd go to a different station than the one you're sort of guided to anyway, surely?
So why not just print the name of the actual station that you're most likely to go to - IE, those that worry about "London Terminals", seasoned travellers, it would help them.

 

[cuccir]

It took me a while when I was younger to really understand London terminals.

Advances should be to the appropriate named station; in the event of disruption Advance fares are often accepted on varied routes or TOCs anyway.

Flexible fares from outside the Network Railcard area I'd replace them with 'London U1' as a destination an include a single tube journey in the ticket. Potentially, I'd retain it from within the Network Railcard area - as many of these will be shorter journeys where adding in the a tube journey to the cost would be quite notciable. However, from these stations travellers are more likely to be generally familiar with travel to London anyway.

 

[yorkie]

Perhaps we're being too friendly?

I'm guessing you work for a TOC?

There aren't many stations where you'd go to a different station than the one you're sort of guided to anyway, surely?

Apart from anyone south of the Thames, the West Midlands, much of Scotland, the former "WAGN" routes....

So why not just print the name of the actual station that you're most likely to go to - IE, those that worry about "London Terminals", seasoned travellers, it would help them.

How does restricting validity help people?

 

[yorkie]

The simplest solution is for the TVM to recommend a ticket form London U1 or similar when a destination requiring the tube is entered. Sadly they do not do this.

This idea is sensible and does not cause hardship for passengers or reduce our flexibility or rights, it is therefore rejected by RDG.