Can anyone tell me why Waterloo, one of the city's major stations, does not
have the ability to print out a pre-paid Fasttrack ticket?

I am going to Bournemouth on Monday from Waterloo, but am going to have to
go to Kings Cross first to pick up my ticket as there's no fasttrack
machine in Waterloo.

Can someone tell me what is particularly fast about that?

There isn't one in London Bridge either.

I really don't want to go to Kings Cross on Monday morning come to think of
it, as it will mean leaving the house even earlier (the queue for the
machines can be pretty non-fast) so I'm going to make a special journey
there on the weekend.

FFS!!

On 17 Mar, 00:06, "Tristán White"
wrote:
Can anyone tell me why Waterloo, one of the city's major stations, does not
have the ability to print out a pre-paid Fasttrack ticket?

I am going to Bournemouth on Monday from Waterloo, but am going to have to
go to Kings Cross first to pick up my ticket as there's no fasttrack
machine in Waterloo.

Can someone tell me what is particularly fast about that?

There isn't one in London Bridge either.

I really don't want to go to Kings Cross on Monday morning come to think of
it, as it will mean leaving the house even earlier (the queue for the
machines can be pretty non-fast) so I'm going to make a special journey
there on the weekend.

FFS!!

It's incredibly annoying. I bought tickets to Norwich, and had to go
to Kings Cross to collect my ticket as there are no suitable machines
at Liverpool Street, and I couldn't risk trying the ticket office
there (given the queues, and also the answer may have been no!).

Worryingly, the new style of fast ticket machine favoured by the likes
of SEtrains and SWtrains do not have a button to collect previously
booked tickets. I tried my luck using the Southern machine at
Streatham Hill, which does offer the option, but it 'cannot connect to
the TOD database' - in fact, none of Southern's can.

You used to be able to collect tickets from the Gatwick Express
machine at Victoria, if that's any easier?

Tristán White wrote

Can anyone tell me why Waterloo, one of the city's major stations,
does not
have the ability to print out a pre-paid Fasttrack ticket?

I am going to Bournemouth on Monday from Waterloo, but am going to
have to
go to Kings Cross first to pick up my ticket as there's no fasttrack
machine in Waterloo.

Can someone tell me what is particularly fast about that?

There isn't one in London Bridge either.

Or Victoria ?

In fact possibly none south of the Thames and east of Reading.

SWT were dissatisfied with their machines and swapped them all for
different ones some time back, maybe this feature was lost at that
time.

--
Mike D

On 17 Mar, 21:44, "ONscotland" wrote:
On 17 Mar, 00:06, "Tristán White"
wrote:





Can anyone tell me why Waterloo, one of the city's major stations, does not
have the ability to print out a pre-paid Fasttrack ticket?

I am going to Bournemouth on Monday from Waterloo, but am going to have to
go to Kings Cross first to pick up my ticket as there's no fasttrack
machine in Waterloo.

Can someone tell me what is particularly fast about that?

There isn't one in London Bridge either.

I really don't want to go to Kings Cross on Monday morning come to think of
it, as it will mean leaving the house even earlier (the queue for the
machines can be pretty non-fast) so I'm going to make a special journey
there on the weekend.

FFS!!

It's incredibly annoying. I bought tickets to Norwich, and had to go
to Kings Cross to collect my ticket as there are no suitable machines
at Liverpool Street, and I couldn't risk trying the ticket office
there (given the queues, and also the answer may have been no!).

Worryingly, the new style of fast ticket machine favoured by the likes
of SEtrains and SWtrains do not have a button to collect previously
booked tickets. I tried my luck using the Southern machine at
Streatham Hill, which does offer the option, but it 'cannot connect to
the TOD database' - in fact, none of Southern's can.

You used to be able to collect tickets from the Gatwick Express
machine at Victoria, if that's any easier?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Although most of the machines at Liverpool Street are not suitable for
Fastticket collection, I successfully collected tickets from the
"Stansted Express" machines which were in the middle of the concourse
by the low numbered platforms some time last year. Have these been
removed?

Does the Gatwick Express machine at Victoria still permit collection -
it only sells tickets to Gatwick. Quite why Southern don't set their
machines up to allow collection, I don't know seeing as they all claim
to offer this service.

Marylebone, Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Kings Cross should all
allow collection of tickets. Indeed, FGW's machines of the same make
as the South West Trains advertise themselves as being suitable for
collection of tickets. FGW's newer machines also list all
destinations for walk-up puchase including to Northern Ireland via
Stranraer and some +bus destinations, the SWT and SET ones do not.

Jonathan

wrote:

Does the Gatwick Express machine at Victoria still permit collection -
it only sells tickets to Gatwick. Quite why Southern don't set their
machines up to allow collection, I don't know seeing as they all claim
to offer this service.

Ultimately, it's down to money. A TOC has to pay to have their machines
enabled for ticket collection, so someone has to do the sums and work
out whether the commission earned will recoup that. If it doesn't, they
won't offer the facility. [1]

Marylebone, Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Kings Cross should all
allow collection of tickets.

And indeed they do, as all of them use Shere FAST machines. In fact, the
majority (all?) of the Chiltern stations equipped with said machines
offer collection now, including the unstaffed ones (Kings Sutton, Monks
Risborough, Saunderton, Wembley Stadium and West Ruislip).

HTH,

Barry

[1] That's slight oversimplification, but there you go.

In article ,
(Barry Salter) wrote:

wrote:

Does the Gatwick Express machine at Victoria still permit
collection - it only sells tickets to Gatwick. Quite why Southern
don't set their machines up to allow collection, I don't know
seeing as they all claim to offer this service.

Ultimately, it's down to money. A TOC has to pay to have their
machines enabled for ticket collection, so someone has to do the
sums and work out whether the commission earned will recoup that.
If it doesn't, they won't offer the facility. [1]

Marylebone, Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Kings Cross should all
allow collection of tickets.

And indeed they do, as all of them use Shere FAST machines. In
fact, the majority (all?) of the Chiltern stations equipped with
said machines offer collection now, including the unstaffed ones
(Kings Sutton, Monks Risborough, Saunderton, Wembley Stadium and
West Ruislip).

HTH,

Barry

[1] That's slight oversimplification, but there you go.

Cambridge has Shere FAST machines but has never provided for ticket
collection, even in WAGN days.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote:
Although most of the machines at Liverpool Street are not suitable for
Fastticket collection, I successfully collected tickets from the
"Stansted Express" machines which were in the middle of the concourse
by the low numbered platforms some time last year. Have these been
removed?
Nope - I went there to collect a couple of tickets last week as a matter
of fact. All the Stansted Express machines there are of the Shere
FASTticket variety, whereas the rest are of the Scheidt & Bachmann
Ticket XPress variety.
Quite why Southern don't set their machines up to allow collection, I
don't know seeing as they all claim to offer this service.
Technically, both FASTticket and Ticket XPress machines are capable of
issuing pre-paid tickets (the Silverlink 'Ticket XPress' machines at
London Euston have apparently been enabled for this, although I never
tested this theory having collected my tickets from a nearby Virgin
'FASTticket' machine beforehand that day).
As another poster has already said it is really a matter of money.

"Barry Salter" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Does the Gatwick Express machine at Victoria still permit collection -
it only sells tickets to Gatwick. Quite why Southern don't set their
machines up to allow collection, I don't know seeing as they all claim
to offer this service.

Ultimately, it's down to money. A TOC has to pay to have their machines
enabled for ticket collection, so someone has to do the sums and work out
whether the commission earned will recoup that. If it doesn't, they won't
offer the facility. [1]

Why does it cost money? Surely the Trainline would want as many stations as
possible to allow ticket collection so that more customers use their
website.

Peter Smyth

On Mar 17, 1:06 am, "Tristán White"
wrote:
Can anyone tell me why Waterloo, one of the city's major stations, does not
have the ability to print out a pre-paid Fasttrack ticket?

I am going to Bournemouth on Monday from Waterloo, but am going to have to
go to Kings Cross first to pick up my ticket as there's no fasttrack
machine in Waterloo.

Can someone tell me what is particularly fast about that?

There isn't one in London Bridge either.

I really don't want to go to Kings Cross on Monday morning come to think of
it, as it will mean leaving the house even earlier (the queue for the
machines can be pretty non-fast) so I'm going to make a special journey
there on the weekend.

FFS!!

It may have changed now but wasn't Trainline originally a 50/50
venture between Virgin Trains and Stagecoach.

Which is why a large number of the stations where Fasttrack operates
are used by Virgin trains.

I assume that Stagecoach's holding in Trainline has diminished as
stations where they run trains through do not seem to feature. (ie
Waterloo)


A.

On 26 Mar, 11:12, "Londoncityslicker"
wrote:

It may have changed now but wasn't Trainline originally a 50/50
venture between Virgin Trains and Stagecoach.

Which is why a large number of the stations where Fasttrack operates
are used by Virgin trains.

Not quite: TTL was a Virgin Group company, not a Virgin Rail Group
company - in other words, Stagecoach had neither a direct nor an
indirect stake. I think NEG held a small stake for a while after TTL
was merged with Qjump.

I assume that Stagecoach's holding in Trainline has diminished as
stations where they run trains through do not seem to feature. (ie
Waterloo)

I don't think this is the reason.

In general, ticket machines allow Trainline pick-up if they're at
stations run[*] by TOCs who make significant use of advance purchase
tickets: Virgin, MML, GNER and FGW-intercity stations allow pick-up,
while SWT, Southern and Southeastern stations do not.

This makes a degree of sense: there is no real advantage to you, and
there is a cost disadvantage to SWT (both directly in enabling the
machine and indirectly in losing commission), if you buy your SWT
ticket on the Trainline and pick it up from the machine, rather than
just buying it from the machine.

Of course, it's annoying if a suburban TOC's station is the first leg
of your mostly-intercity advance-ticketed journey, but them's the
breaks [**]

[*] meant in the sense that Piccadilly and Euston are run by Virgin,
not in the sense that they are run by Network Rail.

[**] Weirdly, although Finsbury Park doesn't appear in the Trainline's
listing, selecting "King's Cross" on the website and then typing your
confirmation code into the Fasticket machines at Finsbury Park
normally works. I assume this is a strange local oversight by FCC /
Shere / TTL, rather than a wider piece of undocumented functionality -
has anyone tried this at other stations which don't appear on the
list?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org