London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · January 30th 10, 01:51 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

"John Swallow" wrote in message

Unless you have a very tight connection, why not just wait for a
minute on the Marylebone concourse before passing through the
Chiltern gateline (in any case, you're supposed to do that unless
your train is departing quite soon)?

Why should he, just to serve the random whims of a computer system?
The fault should be reported, and the clocks corrected.

I thought the clocks were all supposed to be synchronised? But
even if they're not quite accurate, I'd rather wait for a minute on
the concourse than go through all the hassle (and much longer time)
of dealing with the Oyster helpline.

But I've also noticed it can be a bit generous -- sometimes, I've
been charged the off-peak PAYG fare when my (precisely accurate)
watch showed I'd touched in just inside peak time. There was also
an occasion when I reckoned I'd exceeded the allowed two-hour time
(because I changed my mind about going to an event as my journey
had been so slow that I'd be late), and wasn't penalised.

What's annoying is that barriers don't show what they think the time is.
When I had to wait for 19:00 to pass a barrier at Vauxhall, I ended up
waiting till a few minutes past by my (accurate by Greenwich) watch so as
to be sure not to be caught.

--
Colin Rosenstiel