Mizter T wrote:

You're confusing two things here Joyce!

Not necessarily!

A standalone reader - one not attached to a gate - has a dot-matrix LCD
screen that displays some simple text. In standby mode it says
something like "READY" - once you do touch in it has a two line display
saying "DEDUCTED £1.00 / BALANCE £5.50" for example. There is also a
separate light that is normally yellow which will turn to green if you
successfully touch-in/out.

This is the bit that I don't get. My impression, from occasional very
hurried forays into the Metropolis, is that /some/ and by no means /all/
Oyster readers have this kind of display. Most have nothing. Perhaps I'm
missing them, perhaps I just don't know where to look. But when I'm
fleeing like the White Rabbit into the depths of t'Underground, the only
thing I really notice is whether the wretched gate opens or not.

I have on occasion noticed screens at Tube station gates that say
something along the lines of "one pound seventy pence deducted" - in
figures obviously, not words. And then at other stations, when I've
looked for just such a screen with just such a confirmation, I've found
nothing, nothing at all. Since I've got the hordes of Midian beating
down upon me, I don't tend to hang about but go through the gate and
query the journey later, at one of the big fancy ticket machines.

What I would /like/ to see is something that tells me how much money
I've just thrown away. At the ticket barrier, as I commence my journey.
It's not rocket science, surely?
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
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