Purchase West Yorkshire Metro Weekly Pass in South Yorkshire

[davart]

I wish to travel from Barnsley to Pontefract Tanshelf next week via train.

I have expenses to allow me to purchase a SY Connect+ (Travelmaster Gold), which will cover me for the bus to the station and Barnsley to Darton.

I need a Metro Weekly Pass Zone 2 to 5 for the West Yorkshire leg (Darton to Pontefract).

I today travelled to Wakefield Kirkgate to find that the rail station machines don't dispense the pink Metro card it only tops them up.

I then walked to Wakefield bus station. Unfortunately the travel office was closed. The ticket machine there dispenses Metro cards but only with bus tickets. I paid £5.50 to get the cheapest day ticket so I could get the metro card to take to the train station to get it loaded with the weekly pass.

On arriving at Wakefield Kirkgate again, I found that the machine would not work. I took a photo of the error.

So, I still need to buy the Metro pass. I'm travelling on the first train on Monday. Can this pink Metro card be topped up by a train conductor?

Furthermore, could I also puchase the metro pass on the South Yorkshire Travelmaster ITSO card I already have? Is a separate branded card required? I tried it on the ticket machine and it wouldn't recognise it.

I rang the Metro card helpline and they suggested buying a day ticket for the first day. I only have the exact amount for the correct pass for the week.

Any ideas? It's a silly system. You ought to be able to purchase these outside the West Yorkshire area for travel to West Yorkshire.

 

[Adam0984]

Conductor can’t top up any smart cards.
What you can do though is if you have an android smartphone you can get the Mcard app and top it up yourself. Or payzone in shops can also do it, not sure if only ones in West Yorks can or whether south Yorks ones can too

 

[Bantamzen]

Unfortunately MCards are a West Yorkshire PTE product, hence them only being available inside the county. As @Adam0984 says you can top them up using a smartphone app if it is NFC enabled. Failing that you will only be able to top it up inside West Yorkshire at a ticket office or machine I'm afraid, although I don't know if its possible using a Payzone point in South Yorkshire.

 

[davart]

According to the helpline, it depends on what the PayZone terninals have loaded in their software. Then there is the issue of needing a counterpart for the train.

My phone isn't NFC enabled unfortunately.

I may just buy a rail season ticket for the first week. It's about the same price but I wanted flexibility to use a bus also.

Thanks again. Just wanted to check that I wasn't missing something obvious!

 

[davart]

Bought a Darton to Pontefract season for next week in the end, although I think that will limit the trains available to me.

The lady in the ticket office seemed to think you could top up an Metro card at Darton station, but it's more expense to travel there to find out it doesn't have a machine capable of doing that.

Can anyone confirm this? I'll probably get off there at some point next week to check.

 

[marcouk2]

Google maps has a picture of a ticket machine at Darton from Feb 2018 with a ITSO reader but iirc SYPTE are responsible for Darton so even though M-Cards are valid there I dont think it will do M-Cards unfortunately.

Edit: Darton's not listed here on the Where to buy page on the M-Card website.

 

[davart]

Thanks for the reply.

I've just been to Wakefield Kirkgate this afternoon again after buying a season ticket.

One of the machines now appears to work so hopefully be able to use that going forward.

Tried the Travelmaster ITSO card just to see and it's not accepted. The pink Metro card is ok. Hopefully the machine will print a counterpart for use on the train.