On 17/10/2015 10:03, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 09:51:17 +0100, Clive Page
wrote:

On 16/10/2015 21:02, Paul Corfield wrote:

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.

Ah, so I have to queue up to get the attention of the appropriate member
of staff, and then we *both* join the queue to access a wall-mounted
ticket machine, is that it?

Yep - that's the brave new concept of customer service. I suspect you
queue in a single queue and then hope to attract the sole member of
staff's attention and then you both go to a free machine and he signs
on and does the necessary. I don't know what happens if the member of
staff says "sorry I have to manage the queue"!!

I think, but can't be certain, that the "Visitor Centre" at the
western end of the Circle / Met ticket hall (near the doors into St
Pancras) can also process railcard discount setting.

That was exactly what I was going to say - yes they can do it.

Ticket offices at London Overground and TfL Rail (Shenfield line route)
stations can also do it, a (very) few NR ticket offices can do it, and
at least theoretically Oyster Ticket Stops (aka newsagents/convenience
stores) are supposed to be able to do it...


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.

I pass through KX-St.Pan quite frequently at various times of day and it
is never less than full of people queueing for ticket machines. Until
quite late at night the term "utter chaos" is pretty accurate, in my
experience.

I've only seen it "calm" once in recent treks through the place. It
was always busy, that's inevitable, but now it's just appalling in
terms of how people are handled. It was so bad that even the National
Rail ticket machines and ticket office at St Pancras all had queues at
them too. Usually people don't twig that NR machines can do some
Oyster based transactions.


That's long been my advice to anyone arriving at KX or St P (or
elsewhere) - head for the NR ticket machines, either for an Oyster topup
or a Day Travelcard. Of course nowadays, buying a Day Travelcard - with
the minimum validity of z1-6 - means one is likely rather paying over
the odds. The withdrawal of a straightforward central London day ticket
(z1&2 TC) does seem kinda user unfriendly.