On Wed, 6 Nov 2013 02:30:56 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 23:02:23 on
Tue, 5 Nov 2013, Richard remarked:

The last time I bought an Oyster card, I did it from a ticket machine.

Or was it a vending machine - there are few of those around at large
London Terminus stations, selling a "Tourist Oyster".

I've seen those, at Heathrow I think, but this one was a normal
machine, one of the smaller (narrower) ones as Walter notes in another
answer (thanks).

I don't think there's much more I could ask of TfL about this. The
cards are available at stations from people and machines and in
hundreds -- at least -- of shops, and for tourists also sold on some
airlines and Eurostar (it would make sense for hotels to sell them).
The arms' length that most TOCs keep is hardly TfL's fault.

On travels abroad, and especially at home in Oxford, getting a card
_can_ be a pain (Paris has newsagents, etc. but people in stations
generally don't sell anything any more; Brussels only has staff at a
tiny proportion of stations, etc., etc... But at least neither of
those cities eat credit and then cancel like Oxford).

Richard.