On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:12:08 GMT, Phil Clark wrote:

Last week, travelling home from the Great British Beer Festival, I
caught a train from West Brompton to Clapham Junction.

My Fleet to London Terminals season ticket did not operate the
barriers, to be honest I'm not sure whether it's valid at West
Brompton or not.

It is. A Permitted Route from Fleet to London Terminals is via
Farnborough (Main), Farnborough North, Redhill, Clapham Junction,
Kensington Olympia, and Acton Main Line, to Paddington. Although it's
not possible to make this entire journey due to there being no trains
from Kensington Olympia to Acton Main Line, season tickets are also
valid for intermediate journeys, so West Brompton to Clapham Junction
is fine.

However, it's common for season tickets to not work in the gates at
every intermediate station.

Despite the gates being closed, there was no member of staff visible
who I could have asked for advice.

Closed gatelines must be monitored at all times (although this may be
done via CCTV). If there's no one around, the manual gate would
usually be left unlocked. Otherwise, you could call for assistance
using the button for this on the touch-screen ticket machine.

I could see no ticket machine selling National Rail tickets.

There were Underground ticket machines, but Clapham Junction was not
listed as a destination.

Underground touch-screen ticket machines sell tickets to all National
Rail stations in the zones (and the Network SouthEast area?).

Was the touch-screen ticket machine not working?

So at a loss I swiped my Oyster expecting to find an Oyster reader on
the platform at Clapham Junction.

However, I couldn't find one when I got there. So I have an
unresolved journey on my Oyster.

There are Oyster readers on the ticket gates at the exits, but these
wouldn't have helped you in any case as they would reject PAYG-only
Oyster cards (PAYG is not valid to Clapham Junction).

Finally - how can I get the journey resolved? Last time, when I
foolishly walked through an open barrier at Euston without swiping my
card, I got it sorted out at a Tube ticket office, however will this
still work as it was a National rail journey?

It won't still work as (AFAIK) Tube ticket offices are now under
orders not to resolve anyone's journeys. You must phone the Oyster
helpline instead, although even then I'm not sure what would happen.