On Wed, 24 May 2006 18:51:03 +0100, Arthur Figgis wrote:
On Tue, 23 May 2006 08:54:16 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:
In message , at 00:01:40 on Tue,
23 May 2006, Peter Smyth remarked:
I hadn't noticed that. Will give it a try next time I'm in London.

I think I once tried buying a ticket in Croydon auf Deutsch once, just
to see what happened. I can't remember the outcome, but as I'm not
still on the station I suppose I must have managed it.

:-)
I also regularly do that. Or try the Dutch (ticket machine or cash
dispenser) when it's offered where you'd least expect it. Or try the
local language and see how far you get :-)

One snag with multi-lingual machines is that they will say "welcome to
our lovely railway" in half a dozen languages, but the ticket types
will only be given in the local language, so you still need to know
the words for things like adult, child, single, return, railcard
discount, HappyWeekendApexValue(TM) ticket.

NS does have them translated, but the fundamental flaw is, especially
for international tickets, that you have to choose your ticket type
first instead of last. So if you're not a tariff expert, you sometimes
have to test various combinations to see what comes out cheapest.

I was seriously impressed with some Swiss tram ticket machines which
would take both CHFs and EURs. I was also vaguely pleased to find a
broken machine on a Swiss narrow gauge line in Biel/Bienne - proving
not everything there is perfect.

After buying a tram ticket in English, the machines in Grenoble say
"Croydon Tramlink wishes you a good journey".

I'll have to test that when I'm there :-)

Regards,

Rian

--
Rian van der Borgt, Leuven, Belgium.
e-mail: www: http://www.evonet.be/~rvdborgt/