London Banter - View Single Post - how to load National Railcard on Oyster card

[email protected] · October 17th 15, 12:26 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 17:57:58 +0100, Clive Page
wrote:

On 16/10/2015 14:47, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:36:52 on Fri, 16
Oct 2015, Clive Page remarked:
I have just renewed my Senior Railcard. I now have the problem of
loading the discount on to my Oyster card. The Senior Railcard
website says "take it to any London Underground ticket office"
ignoring the fact that these are closing down faster than one can
count.

Are there any left in central London, and if not how can one get this
done?

You are supposed to be able to get this done by approaching one of the
invisible helpers lurking around the ticket machines, who replace the
lurking invisible helpers who used to be behind a window.

It is definitely the case that a member of LU staff should sign on to
one of the passenger machines to set the discount for you.

Thanks for the tip. I'll look out for an invisible helper next time I
pass through a tube station. Though if they exist at King's Cross St.
Pancras my guess is that they get overwhelmed by the all-too-visible
tide of arrivals from Belgium/France/oop north who need help using
unfamiliar ticket machines.

I notice that the authorities have given up on making the Senior
Railcard machine-readable: my old one had a barcode on the back, though
just carrying a serial number I think. The new one has an empty space
were it was. There are no signs that it carries an RFID chip either.
So registering discounts still has to be done by a human for the
foreseeable future.

Last time I went through Kings Cross it was utter chaos at the main
Tube and Northern ticket halls. Huge queues of people, staff shouting
at passengers to come forward to a free machine and the crowds were
backed up to the gateline in the Northern ticket hall. I've never
seen such a mess at that ticket hall and I've seen it busy before.

Agree, Paul. King's Cross St Pancras is a total disaster area. I also saw no
staff to help at ticket machines in the main tube ticket hall (and just one
leaflets rack buried amongst the queues) and just one person in the midst of
a huge queue in the western ticket hall. I couldn't see anyone at all but
asked the considerable number of gateline staff who couldn't help but did
point the staffer out in the queue. I declined to join it.

I almost never use the northern ticket hall as it's almost always out of the
way for my routing.

My advice is to find a quieter station. The staff at Harrow-on-the-Hill were
most helpful in showing me that my railcard was correctly recorded with its
correct expiry date. They couldn't print anything out though.

Clive will need to get the railcard flag loaded before using the tube. Maybe
take a bus or walk to another station nearby? If you arrive in London at
Liverpool St the ticket office there was still open this week and they have
a tourist office which might also be able to do railcard registration.

I have to say the way TfL is treating railcard holders is shameful.

--
Colin Rosenstiel