London Banter - View Single Post

Paul Scott · December 8th 08, 10:29 AM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:
On 7 Dec, 19:27, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"Neil Williams" wrote in message

...

Do they really not? That's a bit poor, as the software can cope with
the sale of almost anything, as the Virgin and most[1] of the London
Midland ones offer.

The OP may be in that odd part of the SE where the only tickets
available to London are singles or day return tickets, but in
general SWT machines sell all the usual range, and after 1500
'tickets for tomorrow' become available.

Internet ticket collection isn't widespread yet though.

They only seem to sell singles, day returns and 7 day season tickets

What I was attempting to explain is that from Fleet to London (clearly
within the old NSE 50 mile limit) you would only expect Anytime Day and
Offpeak Day and SOP ( a day ticket). The longer period returns equivalent to
the old Opens and 'Savers', (and previously Network Away breaks) are
probably not available to London.

I assure you that returns valid for a month are available from machines
further from London where the fare exists, but you should be able to see
them by selecting a suitable long distance fare.

Another small point - are you looking at the first screen only, because it
only shows the most popular tickets from your station. Sometimes, if you
select your destination using the keyboard, other ticket types that aren't
often sold appear.

After 1500 you can buy tickets for tomorrow, but you can only get
Anytime tickets, and you can't buy discounted tickets. So not much
use at the weekend.

Try checking at a machine, you'll find on a Friday afternoon that all the
offpeak and SOP fares and railcard discounted tickets are available.
Presumably they don't want people buying and attempting to use invalid
tickets on early trains, same as if you use the machine at 0800 on a weekday
morning, Network Card doesn't appear until 1000 for instance.

Thanks for the info on ticket pricing. So it looks like, with the
introduction of SOP, I can no longer get the equivalent of the old
cheap day return to stations on other operators' networks.

Yes you can - 'Offpeak' is the equivalent of CDR as I explained before.

To confuse
matters further, the NRE website no longer seems to show OP and SOP
fares seperately, just OP with two different fares. But a check on a
Fleet-Rochester day return, for example, shows the price stays the
same after 11.00 am, a time when to London I can get an SOP.

That is because SOP is a sub type of Offpeak. Click on 'more fares' next to
the line heading 'Offpeak'. It breaks them into sub types if they are
there...

Paul S