On 29 Jan, 00:06, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:
I'm going to Ashford (surrey) at the weekend, according to the map for
my VCTS card I travel for free as far as Feltham, with only one more
stop to get to Ashford.
Can I buy a ticket from a machine at either waterloo or richmond (not
decided on route next) to cover the Feltham to Ashford section? or do
I need to confuse a real person in order to do that?


You need to confuse a real person to do that. They will likely never
have seen a VCTS card before and might possibly be somewhat sceptical
about it all - I'd think the line to take is that it is basically a
Freedom Pass for injured ex-service personnel.

Self-service ticket machines basically only ever offer tickets for
travel from the station where they're located. Except when you order
ahead online and then pick up your pre-ordered tickets as a station
that offers Self Service Ticket Collection - and both Waterloo and
Richmond offer this, see the list of stations where this can be done
he
http://www.thetrainline.com/Buy_Tick...nformation.asp

Pre-ordered tickets can be picked up two hours after purchase online -
you need to take both the card you used for purchasing them and also
the reference code you'll be sent by email. All the online ticket
sales sites offer this service, and the participating stations are all
the same - the reason being is that it's actually a standardised
system across the rail industry (hurrah!) which has the somewhat
nonsense name of "Ticket On Departure" or TOD.

Therefore if you do buy tickets online don't buy them direct from
TheTrainline, as they charge silly things like booking fees and credit
card surcharges - instead, use one of the train company booking sites
- almost all of these are actually run by the Trainline for the train
company in question (aka 'Trainline-powered'), so the interface will
be the same but you won't get stung for stuff like booking fees.

This is a link straight in to the South West Trains booking site:
https://www.swt.trainsfares.co.uk/bu...quirements.asp

Alternatively use the National Express East Coast booking system -
it's quite different from the 'Trainline-powered' versions but people
on uk.railway really rate it:
http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/


I fully admit this does all seem rather excessive for a one stop
extension ticket from Feltham to Ashford, so you should probably just
go and try and buy it at the Waterloo ticket office - it's a big
station after all so perhaps they wouldn't be phased by a VCYS card,
and indeed maybe they're already quite familiar with them. Just be
prepared for them not to be! Also, the above information about buying
online might be useful in the future.