On 26 Mar, 11:12, "Londoncityslicker"
wrote:

It may have changed now but wasn't Trainline originally a 50/50
venture between Virgin Trains and Stagecoach.

Which is why a large number of the stations where Fasttrack operates
are used by Virgin trains.

Not quite: TTL was a Virgin Group company, not a Virgin Rail Group
company - in other words, Stagecoach had neither a direct nor an
indirect stake. I think NEG held a small stake for a while after TTL
was merged with Qjump.

I assume that Stagecoach's holding in Trainline has diminished as
stations where they run trains through do not seem to feature. (ie
Waterloo)

I don't think this is the reason.

In general, ticket machines allow Trainline pick-up if they're at
stations run[*] by TOCs who make significant use of advance purchase
tickets: Virgin, MML, GNER and FGW-intercity stations allow pick-up,
while SWT, Southern and Southeastern stations do not.

This makes a degree of sense: there is no real advantage to you, and
there is a cost disadvantage to SWT (both directly in enabling the
machine and indirectly in losing commission), if you buy your SWT
ticket on the Trainline and pick it up from the machine, rather than
just buying it from the machine.

Of course, it's annoying if a suburban TOC's station is the first leg
of your mostly-intercity advance-ticketed journey, but them's the
breaks [**]

[*] meant in the sense that Piccadilly and Euston are run by Virgin,
not in the sense that they are run by Network Rail.

[**] Weirdly, although Finsbury Park doesn't appear in the Trainline's
listing, selecting "King's Cross" on the website and then typing your
confirmation code into the Fasticket machines at Finsbury Park
normally works. I assume this is a strange local oversight by FCC /
Shere / TTL, rather than a wider piece of undocumented functionality -
has anyone tried this at other stations which don't appear on the
list?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org