On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:18:23 GMT, Rupert Goodwins
wrote:

Late on Saturday night, I had to get back from Gatwick Airport to
London. I bought my ticket from the machine in the station concourse
by credit card: it gave me the option of various travelcard discounts
(but not LT Gold Card, the one I have), so I chose Network Card as the
nearest equivalent and carried on.

The ticket issued showed Network Card and Gatwick Express.

rest snipped

So, what's going on there? If he hadn't tried to cover up the Gatwick
Express bit with his thumb, I'dve believed that he was surprised by
the thing, but clearly he's seen this plenty of times before and is
used to bluffing it out.

From railcard.co.uk (and also mentioned in the Network Railcard
leaflet):

Your Network Railcard cannot be used for travel in First Class, on
Railair Links, on Gatwick Express, Anglia Railways mainline trains
starting and terminating in London Liverpool Street station, Eurostar,
Heathrow Express, special excursions or charters, to buy season tickets
or period Travelcards or in conjunction with some Train Company special
offers

And from the TfL Fares and Tickets leaflet:

The train companies* participating in the annual Travelcard (Gold
Card)/Network Railcard scheme a c2c Rail, Chiltern Railways, First
Great Eastern, Great North Eastern Railway, First Great Western Trains,
Island Line, Midland Mainline, Silverlink Trains, South Central, South
Eastern Trains, South West Trains, Thameslink, Thames Trains, Virgin
Trains, Wales and Borders Trains, Wessex Trains, West Anglia Great
Northern Railway.

So in this case, the Ticket Inspector was correct and the machine has
been programmed incorrectly I'm afraid. Not that it really matters,
however, as South Central have a half hourly service calling at East
Croydon and Clapham Junction, which is timetabled to take 35 minutes
against 30 minutes, and at a lower fare than Gatwick Express.

HTH,

Barry

--
Barry Salter, barry at southie dot me dot uk
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