On Jan 28, 5:18*pm, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

On 28 Jan, 16:19, Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 28, 2:51*pm, martin wrote:

on BBC London News this lunchtime:
"Transport for London (TfL) has been called "stingy" and "Scrooge-
like" for imposing a £1 charge on rail passengers using a short-cut
through a station."

Full story at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/8484960.stm

What's the real deal here? Is this just a charge to enter one station
and exit another, or if I got the Jubilee to Southwark and exited
through an exit at Waterloo East, would I be charged an extra quid?
(I've never used Waterloo East, and think I've only been to Southwark
once, so I'm not clear on the layout of the station or this
'expensive' corridor.)

To be clear, the story appears to specifically relate to a £1 *paper*
"platform ticket" which is required if one wants to use Southwark tube
station as a shortcut between Waterloo East and the main entrance of
Southwark tube station on the corner of The Cut and Blackfriars Road -
what's more, the story says that "Oyster and travelcard users are not
charged" - whether that definitely includes Oyster PAYG users is not
100% clear.

To understand this, you need to have some knowledge of the geography
here. The Waterloo East platforms are accessed via a high walkway from
Waterloo mainline station (with an additional entrance to this walkway
up several sets of stairs from Sandell Street). This leads one to an
overbridge on the western side of the platforms. The station is not
gated (at least it wasn't v recently).

However, there is also an entrance to Southwark tube station on the
eastern ends of the platform. This leads down to the undercroft of the
viaduct, which leads on to a hallway where there is a set of gates
that gains one access to the tube station, which one gets to by then
descending some escalators. This hallway is actually at street level,
but there's *no* exit to the street at all - it sits beside and a bit
under the southside of the viaduct, between Greet Street and Hatfields
(another street). The reason for this is that it was a condition of
the planning permission of Southwark tube station that there wasn't a
public entrance/exit here - it's a quasi-residential area, so the
thinking presumably was to keep it quieter.

There are actually now two sets of gates facing each other
(Southeastern and TfL) with a small no-mans-land area in between where
there are Southeastern and Tfl ticket machines

Thanks Matthew - I'm obviously out of date! That is at least a
straightforward, albeit slightly clunky, way of dealing with it.

I was imagining there either being standalone Oyster readers for
Waterloo East, or otherwise some complex arrangement whereby the LU
gates were programmed to take account of the possibility that the
journey might continue onwards on NR or LU depending on which side the
passenger arrived at. I think the chosen solution is probably for the
best (though it's also rather odd sounding!).

It's worth noting that if either set of gates is locked open for
whatever reason, e.g. no staff to attend to it (more likely to be the
Southeastern gates!) then pax using Oyster PAYG would still need to
negotiate both set of gates, i.e. touch-out on one set, then touch-in
again.

I remember finding some very bored Southeastern RPIs in the no-mans
land of the hall once - was a bit strange to have them request sight
of my ticket - which was actually an Oyster plus season Travelcard,
which one of them scanned with a handheld reader - then almost
immediately having to touch my Oyster on the LU gate.

I'm left wondering whether a PAYG user arriving on Southeastern who
then uses the shortcut through Southwark tube station (i.e. to get
straight out the other side) might well end up getting charged the
through NR+LU fare, rather than the NR fare. That's a simple enough
experiment to do... though I'm never quite sure when the Waterloo East
entrance to Southwark tube station is open, as it's closed later in
the evening and also maybe for some of the weekend.l

Any idea if Waterloo East now has gates on the main way via the high
level walkway nowadays?