London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · January 13th 10, 08:02 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
() wrote:

I used to use the District line from St James's Park to East Putney
at £1.60 (now £1.80) using Oyster in preference to Vauxhall to
Putney at £1.70 cash but now my Senior Railcard is loaded onto my
oyster Card I can take SWT from Waterloo to Putney for just £1.15
(and just £0.85 from Vauxhall).

I did exactly that last week and it went very well, topping up at a ticket
stop near Putney station too.

Tonight the same journey was another matter. At neither Vauxhall nor
Putney was the only wide gate working. At Vauxhall it was open but
wouldn't accept any Oyster cards so I couldn't touch in. The staff member,
when he appeared, touched my card in at an adjacent narrow gate for me
while I walked through.

At Putney the gate was shut and wouldn't accept Oyster cards either. The
member of staff told me to go through the gate at the other end (next to
him) of the line which was pretty busy (snow disrupted timetable - I was
on the 18:49 Hounslow from Vauxhall which actually left there at 19:24). I
kept telling him, three or four times, that gate wasn't wide enough to
take my bike but he kept trying to insist. Eventually he went round on the
outside, told me to touch out on the adjacent gate and opened the wide
gate.

Not impressive. The wide gates are much newer than the rest too.

--
Colin Rosenstiel