On 12 Oct, 12:41, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"Neil Williams" wrote

there are
plenty of stations (Milton Keynes Central is one, Euston another)
where PFs apply to one TOC but not another. *To determine what should
be charged, "sneaky" questions are usually asked.

If you're travelling between Victoria and Gatwick Airport, Southern trains
are subject to a penalty fare regime, but you can buy tickets onboard
Gatwick Express trains. Gatwick Express is now part of Southern.

Peter

Euston is a bit of a red herring given the split of platforms between
gated 8-11 and the other ungated platforms. Milton Keynes can
presumably be checked by the arrival time of trains (given that the
steps from each platform are visible from the gate line).

Similarly, between Gatwick and Redhill, penalty fares aren't going to
be charged on-train on a FGW turbo as the service is not in the scheme
- which means that a RPI isn't going to be on the train [1]. I would
hope that anyone going to the barriers at Redhill without a ticket
having travelled from Gatwick is charged a Penalty Fare regardless of
which train they took.

The whole justification behind penalty fares is the admission that on
most commuter routes not all tickets are going to be checked. On
Gatwick Express you are almost certain to have your ticket checked and
can travel without buying one. On Southern, it is quite possible that
the ticket won't be checked (although actually, Southern guards are
quite good at checking on longer distance services since they aren't
tied to a particular door release point - driver opens doors on a 377
and there is a point for the guard to close the doors in each
carriage) so you have to buy it before travelling.

Jonathan

[1] On a number of occasions, I have seen a whole group of FGW RPIs
carrying out a "ticketless travel survey" on these services but this
doesn't involve Penalty Fares.