Forthcoming changes to National Rail Conditions of Travel

[redreni]

Update 23 Oct 2025: Proposed new wording posted here.

Update 24 Oct 2025: Copy of NRCoT and Comparison table posted here.

I am reliably informed, by multiple sources, that changes are going to be made to the NRCoT over the next few months. Posting in this section as most of the changes mentioned below relate to fares, routeing and ticketing in one way or another.

This will be in two phases, one to take place before the end of the year and the next around April next year. There are quite a few changes, but I'm able to summarise a few that seemed quite key below. I believe there are quite a lot of other wording changes and similar but these were the ones that stuck out.

1. There is a new condition which will explicitly clarify that buying a ticket after boarding (including online) will be considered an invalid ticket and therefore the rules for travelling without a valid ticket would apply.
2. There is going to be a change that means instead of it being about your preferred method of payment (cash or card) now if you want to pay by cash it has to be your only method of payment (obviously how they would know this I don't know!).
3. Permit to Travel also appears to have been deleted entirely, and now it refers to Promise to Pay only. Particularly in the conditions dealing with Penalty Fares, where it now explicitly says you must get a Promise to Pay. But it also doesn't reference only where you want to pay by cash. So is the intention that now you can obtain a promise to pay and pay by card on board (as you could with a Permit to Travel)?
4. Change of Route Excesses can no longer be bought on board without penalty. The conditions have been amended to remove the reference to using a route which the ticket is not valid on as being one of the circumstances you can pay the difference in fare. Instead, it explicitly says you must excess it before you commence travel. This seems problematic as take the example of someone with London to Exeter Via Taunton ticket, if they use that via Honiton the excess payable is £0 (so staff are usually extremely reluctant to issue it) but under this that person would seem to be treated as if they had no ticket at all!
5. There is a new condition which explicitly allows TOC to recover their costs in taking action civilly or criminal up to but not exceeding their actual costs in taking such action. It will be interesting to see how they justify random round numbers as not exceeding the actual costs incurred!
6. Break of Journey is explicitly prohibited on the Elizabeth Line using Single/Return tickets between London Paddington and Stratford and between London Paddington and Abbey Wood. Though there is still no definition of what a Break of Journey is...
7. The conditions dealing with the routes you can use have also had some tweaks made to them. One thing is that any itinerary shown by NRE or a licensed retailer in connection with a buying a ticket is now considered a permitted route, which is probably a good thing overall. Though, the reference to the shortest route always being permitted has been deleted.
8. That being said the Routeing Guide itself has now been consigned to an "Information Box" which allegedly were only ever intended to provide "non-contractual" explanations so, er, the Routeing Guide is no longer a part of the contract maybe?
9. Conditions relating to refunds have also been changed and, excluding refunds due to disruption, you must request your refund before the ticket becomes valid for travel instead of the current situation where you can request a refund up to 28 days after expiry of the ticket. There is also an explicit warning that applications for a refund that are considered fraudulent will be investigated and could be subject to prosecution.

(By the by if anyone has a full copy of the changes being made, by all means DM me).

I think the changes regarding tickets bought after boarding and cost recovery are definitely of concern. I actually wonder a little bit if those are entirely compliant with unfair contract terms under the Consumer Rights Act? After all it feels like it creates quite an imbalance between the parties to the contract that the NRCoT represents!

 

[Kite159]

Permit to Travel also appears to have been deleted entirely, and now it refers to Promise to Pay only. Particularly in the conditions dealing with Penalty Fares, where it now explicitly says you must get a Promise to Pay. But it also doesn't reference only where you want to pay by cash. So is the intention that now you can obtain a promise to pay and pay by card on board (as you could with a Permit to Travel)?

I presume that is more down to the number of working Permit to travel machines at stations without TVMs being very much a minority these days.

At least point 9 could reduce the number of fraudulent refunds when someone has travelled with a valid ticket but it hasn't been scanned and they submit it for a refund to get some money back.

 

[nilvaj395]

I would hope that the condition on buying after boarding has the usual reasonable exceptions. If not, how will it deal with accessibility needs, which in some instances mean someone can ONLY buy on board (e.g from the guard). This has always been something where some guards do not know that people with accessibility/disability requirements can buy on board. How will it deal with your stations without facilities for people who have no means to or do not want to buy their ticket online?

I also really find an issue with the new excess policy, it's so unfair to continually find reasons to try to treat people as criminals who are otherwise more than happy to pay difference and get to their destination, there is also cases where people change their mind on-route and want to (in good faith) pay the excess as opposed to just, risking it? Treating it like someone who never tried to buy a ticket to begin with is a bit silly

I can understand the refund policy if you were only thinking about fixed tickets (is this hinting at the type of LNER ticketing we are gonna inevitably get), but I see it being really unfair for flexible tickets.

Edit: I wonder if TOCs would do a certain sneaky thing where if you asked for a refund before the validity date and they didn't get back to you until post-validity date, then they might not give you anything back at all as it's now 'technically passed'.

 

[redreni]

On the change of route excess thing, perhaps it's my ignorance, but I don't know what the process is for doing this online? If it has to be done before boarding, what happens if the ticket office is closed?

What happens if - as I found when I returned from Dover to Dartford recently and wanted to excess the return portion of a 'Not HS1' cheap day return to 'Plus HS1 Not Stratford Not London', the ticket office is open but the member of staff simply isn't capable of working out how to issue the excess, tries to fob you off with a more expensive HS1 Upgrade, then takes so long trying to issue the excess that you would miss your train if you continued to wait?

I think I know the answer, but making this change without providing an easy way to do this before boarding seems extremely retrograde and rather unfair, imho.

 

[nilvaj395]

On the change of route excess thing, perhaps it's my ignorance, but I don't know what the process is for doing this online? If it has to be done before boarding, what happens if the ticket office is closed?

What happens if - as I found when I returned from Dover to Dartford recently and wanted to excess the return portion of a 'Not HS1' cheap day return to 'Plus HS1 Not Stratford Not London', the ticket office is open but the member of staff simply isn't capable of working out how to issue the excess, tries to fob you off with a more expensive HS1 Upgrade, then takes so long trying to issue the excess that you would miss your train if you continued to wait?

I think I know the answer, but making this change without providing an easy way to do this before boarding seems extremely retrograde and rather unfair, imho.

You are correct, I dont think there is anything online for this?

Also, what if it's on a journey in motion with no changes, and you want to go a different way? If I recall, there aren't many, but surely it must happen where someone wants to alter their journey while on the move, in a way that means they might not even have to get off the train to change direction?

Do you have to try to get off and wait up to 1 hour or more for the next train, and find a suitable station with a ticket office available just to buy the excess at a ticket office? Furthermore, what if the last government or any future government got its way in removing all of the ticket offices? How would we deal with this then?

I dont know if excesses are even the type of ticket you would want to leave doing online? I'm not sure if that would open up another possible loophole for people to exploit for ticketless travel. Plus, given what it involves, like linking it to your existing ticket etc, I just dont know if it's a procedure that could be done by the customer. Not many customers know excess fares or tickets even exist at all, let alone what to do in the event you need one

I think the current situation is just fine, and it does not need changing. It merely feels like passing more power away from the consumer and onto TOC's, sometimes for the sake of catching people out and treating them like criminals at the first opportunity. There is very rarely any reason to change something like the NRCoT unless it is for this reason, at least in my view.

 

[Oscar M]

I'm absolutely not pleased with most of the changes mentioned. To touch on a couple things...

One thing is that any itinerary shown by NRE or a licensed retailer in connection with a buying a ticket is now considered a permitted route, which is probably a good thing overall.

One of the few (or perhaps only) good changes in my opinion. The National Rail journey planner only allows one via/avoid point (you can't even have a via AND avoid point set for the same journey) so in some circumstances it can be difficult, if not impossible, to get it to display the itinerary you want.

Conditions relating to refunds have also been changed and, excluding refunds due to disruption, you must request your refund before the ticket becomes valid for travel instead of the current situation where you can request a refund up to 28 days after expiry of the ticket. There is also an explicit warning that applications for a refund that are considered fraudulent will be investigated and could be subject to prosecution.

So if I buy a flexible ticket in advance and then cancel my plans on the day of travel, I'm sore out of luck? This is a very bad change in my eyes.

Also, what happens in the case of partial refunds? If I buy a London - Manchester Any Permitted Off-Peak Return for £114, complete the outward journey, then decide not to make the return journey, under the current rules I can get a partial refund consisting of the difference in price between the single and return, which means I'd get at least £29.20 back, taking the £5 fee into account. However, under the new rules; if I'm not entitled to a refund once the return ticket becomes valid, well, the return leg becomes valid at the same time as the outward leg, so would I not be able to get anything back?

 

[crablab]

So assuming this is accurate (I've no reason to doubt, other than no public source is yet available), picking out a few points:
- Agree that the suggested change to excesses is... interesting. The only place you can buy them is ticket offices or from onboard staff (maybe LNER ticket machines...?), so if the requirement is now to buy upfront it's potentially going to be extremely inconvenient and means (yet again) customers are going out of their way to please the railway. They're such a niche product, I can only imagine the reason such a rule would be introduced is similar to the reason for changing the rules around 1st Class excesses, as there's some "pay when challenged" loophole they wish to address. However, they're also a reasonably customer friendly way of dealing with minor ticketing irregularities; eg. someone using a ticket on a parallel route in error, so maybe it's coming up in revenue disputes.
- Explicit removal of BoJ on the Elizabeth Line would be disappointing. Unfortunately, it would remove the universality of BoJ and so creates precedent for other removals of BoJ on the National Rail; I wonder if they'll do the same for Thameslink and Overground soon?
- Removing the Routeing Guide from the contract would be a big shift. Historically that was provided as a way for people to calculate valid routes themselves; this being before the widespread use of online journey planners. An anachronistic inconvenience for RDG these days, I suspect, but a retrograde step which should be resisted. The Routeing Guide provides a level of introspection into the otherwise obtuse fares system, and if it ceased to be contractually valid (and published) then we'd be entirely reliant on whatever journey planners spit out.

Generally a set of changes which are weighted against the passenger.

 

[Benjwri]

That being said the Routeing Guide itself has now been consigned to an "Information Box" which allegedly were only ever intended to provide "non-contractual" explanations so, er, the Routeing Guide is no longer a part of the contract maybe?

I think it is really hard to comment on any of this without actually being able to read the way it is written, the vagueness of the changes given here is just going to lead to people drawing their own conclusions on a potentially pessimistic worst case scenario.

For example here does this mean 13.1 is gone? The wording makes it sound like routeing guide and shortest route have gone, but seems to lack detail on what it is replaced by, there is presumably something still detailing what route you can use, otherwise the railway arguably doesn't actually have a method to restrict the route, especially given places do still issue tickets without itineraries.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Conditions relating to refunds have also been changed and, excluding refunds due to disruption, you must request your refund before the ticket becomes valid for travel instead of the current situation where you can request a refund up to 28 days after expiry of the ticket. There is also an explicit warning that applications for a refund that are considered fraudulent will be investigated and could be subject to prosecution.

That is extremely concerning; there are many reasons to want to refund a ticket on the day of travel. I get the fraud thing, but I'd rather see something like compostage than the loss of this right which I've used a number of times, for instance in cases where disruption was looking possible but had not officially been declared (e.g. weather) and I chose to go by car instead. I get why they would want it, and the fraud issue, but this is a significant reduction in the value of walk-up tickets, particularly highly expensive Anytime ones. It also means that if one's plans might change days on the day of travel an Advance is a better bet, which is not intuitive, because while that is not refundable it can at least be changed to another day.

Of course one can just buy a walk-up ticket on the day, but there are advantages of buying one in advance such as reserving a preferred seat.

I can see how the railway might want this because it will basically wipe out refund fraud, but it's a big downgrade for honest customers.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Oct 2025 ==

For example here does this mean 13.1 is gone? The wording makes it sound like routeing guide and shortest route have gone, but seems to lack detail on what it is replaced by, there is presumably something still detailing what route you can use, otherwise the railway arguably doesn't actually have a method to restrict the route, especially given places do still issue tickets without itineraries.

It would be perfectly possible contractually to say that any itinerary given for that fare on the National Rail Enquiries site or the site where it is purchased at the time of purchase is valid, and if that site won't give a fare for the route then it is not. Indeed that's already in to some degree:

The easiest way to check for valid routes is to use the journey planner at

www.nationalrail.co.uk. You can also check the National Routeing Guide which is

available at data.atoc.org/routeing-guide or ask the Ticket seller when you buy your

Ticket.

...which isn't in an "info" box and thus does form part of the contract.

https://assets.nationalrail.co.uk/e8xgegruud3g/3Y9UXuFziljwsGFCUAwKAA/0aa50a101febffda28c070aae2572570/National_Rail_Conditions_of_Travel.pdf

It's also what Belgium has just done.

 

[redreni]

- Agree that the suggested change to excessss is... interesting. The only place you can buy them is ticket offices or from onboard staff (maybe LNER ticket machines...?), so if the requirement is now to buy upfront it's potentially going to be extremely inconvenient and means (yet again) customers are going out of their way to please the railway. They're such a niche product, I can only imagine the reason such a rule would be introduced is similar to the reason for changing the rules around 1st Class excesses, as there's some "pay when challenged" loophole they wish to address. However, they're also a reasonably customer friendly way of dealing with minor ticketing irregularities; eg. someone using a ticket on a parallel route in error, so maybe it's coming up in revenue disputes.

In my recent Dover Priory to Dartford experience, it wasn't pay when challenged, it was me, try as I might, being unable to get anybody to sell me the excess at any point - ticket office at origin station incompetent, onboard staff hiding and gateline staff at the only staffed interchange station I passed (Ebbsfleet) simply regarding it as too much trouble. Presumably they think the only problem here is me not being too worried about being prosecuted under these circumstances?

- Explicit removal of BoJ on the Elizabeth Line would be disappointing. Unfortunately, it would remove the universality of BoJ and so creates precedent for other removals of BoJ on the National Rail; I wonder if they'll do the same for Thameslink and Overground soon?

Let's not give them ideas. TfL does have form, when challenged for doing the wrong thing, for changing the rules to allow them to keep doing it, rather than just fixing the issue. About 10 years ago I wrote to them to complain about the heritage route 15 buses (which at the time ostensibly charged regular fares which counted towards the usual fare caps, and was a convenient route from my office to Cannon Street) refusing to accept a 7 day Travelcard on Oyster. They said it was a limitation of the handheld readers used by the conductors, refused to fix the problem and changed their Conditions of Travel to align with the dysfunction of their in-house tech.

Generally a set of changes which are weighted against the passenger.

It looks that way based on the limited information we have, doesn't it?

I think it is really hard to comment on any of this without actually being able to read the way it is written, the vagueness of the changes given here is just going to lead to people drawing their own conclusions on a potentially pessimistic worst case scenario.

For example here does this mean 13.1 is gone? The wording makes it sound like routeing guide and shortest route have gone, but seems to lack detail on what it is replaced by, there is presumably something still detailing what route you can use, otherwise the railway arguably doesn't actually have a method to restrict the route, especially given places do still issue tickets without itineraries.

I agree entirely it is unfortunate that the railway doesn't consult publicly on this sort of thing. Since they don't, I suppose we have to rely on fora such as this one to provide informed feedback to decision-makers, hopefully before any of this is set in stone. I guess all we can do is comment on what we have, and hope that when we are allowed to see the detail it will alay any concerns we might have, either because the summary had caused us to worry about nothing, or because somebody has seen our feedback and taken it on board.

For most of these items my suggestion would be not to do it, but if they're going to do it anyway there are things they could do to avoid looking extremely silly. E.g. they could make the requirement to get an excess before boarding contingent on the facility to do so being available at the station where they boarded the train. I would also like to see a rider to the effect that if a passenger has allowed at least 15 minutes between arriving at the station and boarding the train and was unable to get a change of route excess within that time, then the facility to get an excess will be deemed not to have been available. That would be a fair, reasonable and proportionate way of addressing any concerns about 'pay when challenged', if indeed they have any evidence to support the notion that it's a problem.

Incidentally, does anybody know if they need ministerial sign-off for NRCoT changes? If they do, unless Parliament has provided for another remedy, I believe the minister's decision to sign it off would be subject to judicial review. Irrationality by failure to consult passengers would be an obvious point to raise. Even if it's not the minister, it's still likely to be a decision of a public authority. If anyone with relevant legal expertise wants to comment, I'd be interested!

 

[EYFanatic]

I am reliably informed, by multiple sources, that changes are going to be made to the NRCoT over the next few months. Posting in this section as most of the changes mentioned below relate to fares, routeing and ticketing in one way or another.

This will be in two phases, one to take place before the end of the year and the next around April next year. There are quite a few changes, but I'm able to summarise a few that seemed quite key below. I believe there are quite a lot of other wording changes and similar but these were the ones that stuck out.

1. There is a new condition which will explicitly clarify that buying a ticket after boarding (including online) will be considered an invalid ticket and therefore the rules for travelling without a valid ticket would apply.

To clarify, I presume that this doesn't prevent people boarding a train and buying where no ticketing facilities are available

 

[Bletchleyite]

To clarify, I presume that this doesn't prevent people boarding a train and buying where no ticketing facilities are available

Another concern is it being no longer permissible to extend a journey once on board by purchasing a ticket before passing the end of the validity of the one already held.

 

[redreni]

To clarify, I presume that this doesn't prevent people boarding a train and buying where no ticketing facilities are available

I had assumed not based on the information I have, but I have no direct knowledge on the matter.

The ridiculous situation already exists where taking a short video clip demonstrating that the ticket machine isn't working and then waiting to be challenged and buying on board can be fine, but proactively paying your fare seconds after boarding and long before there's any suggestion you're going to be challenged can get you prosecuted. As it's been described as a clarification, I assume it's not meant to change anything in practice, but merely to make it harder for people to complain that they didn't understand the rules.

Another concern is it being no longer permissible to extend a journey once on board by purchasing a ticket before passing the end of the validity of the one already held.

But there's already a requirement to buy a ticket before boarding, which could be read that way but isn't.

In practice, if you're using a combination of tickets, as long as each ticket is issued before your train calls at the station where you change from one ticket to another, I suspect you'd be fine. Unless anybody is aware of cases over in disputes where people have been in hot water over this?

 

[nwales58]

There is a new condition which will explicitly clarify that buying a ticket after boarding (including online) will be considered an invalid ticket and therefore the rules for travelling without a valid ticket would apply.

There has to be a qualification to that.

Almost every non-advance ticket I buy is bought after boarding (Cambrian and Conwy Valley).

A few tickets cannot even be bought online, TfW concession tickets for instance.

Further, 'after boarding' would preclude buying a ticket to extend the journey. If instead 'after departure time from ticket origin', that would get into the nasty problem of not being able to buy a ticket for a late train as in Italy.

 

[MrJeeves]

If instead 'after departure time from ticket origin', that would get into the nasty problem of not being able to buy a ticket for a late train as in Italy.

Or buying a ticket a ticket from another station if you are returning to a station other than the one you're leaving from. That's something I do very often, living nearly equidistant to two stations where fares are identical.

 

[redreni]

There has to be a qualification to that.

Almost every non-advance ticket I buy is bought after boarding (Cambrian and Conwy Valley).

A few tickets cannot even be bought online, TfW concession tickets for instance.

I agree.

Further, 'after boarding' would preclude buying a ticket to extend the journey. If instead 'after departure time from ticket origin', that would get into the nasty problem of not being able to buy a ticket for a late train as in Italy.

I'm not sure I agree with this. "Departure time from ticket origin" can only mean the time the train departed the relevant station (which can be checked by RPIs). That is the time that is used currently to determine if somebody purchased a ticket after boarding, the logic being they must have boarded at or before that time. Buying after the scheduled departure time does not necessarily indicate the ticket was bought after boarding.

The problem I have with this is that if the ticket allows starting short, then I might buy a ticket on my phone before I board, but this might be after the train passed the origin station on the ticket. There are various circumstances where a passenger might legitimately wish to do this, the most obvious being where they intend to travel the full distance covered by the ticket on the return leg but not the outbound. That is in line with the current rules and, as far as we know, with the proposed amended NRCoT because the ticket is bought before boarding, but if there's no opportunity to scan said ticket before boarding, passengers may think it prudent to film themselves starting short in anticipation of the railway assuming they must have boarded at the origin station on the ticket and then seeking to reverse the burden of proof if they say differently.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The problem I have with this is that if the ticket allows starting short, then I might buy a ticket on my phone before I board, but this might be after the train passed the origin station on the ticket. There are various circumstances where a passenger might legitimately wish to do this, the most obvious being where they intend to travel the full distance covered by the ticket on the return leg but not the outbound. That is in line with the current rules and, as far as we know, with the proposed amended NRCoT because the ticket is bought before boarding, but if there's no opportunity to scan said ticket before boarding, passengers may think it prudent to film themselves starting short in anticipation of the railway assuming they must have boarded at the origin station on the ticket and then seeking to reverse the burden of proof if they say differently.

This is definitely an issue, and thus people are best advised to purchase a paper ticket from the TVM or booking office at that station if intending to do this (or if the TVM doesn't do issues from origins other than that one, buy it online for collection from a retailer that doesn't charge extra for a paper ticket). That is irrefutable evidence that the passenger did board at the intermediate station.

It is probably a good idea to do this (or in this latter example use Oyster or contactless) in any case where an allegation of short faring is not unlikely and the station has no opportunity to scan an e-ticket, for instance if actually travelling from Wembley Stadium to Marylebone at an unlikely time (e.g. when there's no event on and lots of people will be doing that).

 

[Tetchytyke]

Another concern is it being no longer permissible to extend a journey once on board by purchasing a ticket before passing the end of the validity of the one already held.

That was never technically permitted, the obligation being to purchase the additional extension ticket before boarding (where ticketing facilities exist), otherwise the obligation was to get off at the destination on your ticket. In reality, if you asked nicely the guard would usually sell you the extension ticket, but they didn't have to.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Oct 2025 ==

Further, 'after boarding' would preclude buying a ticket to extend the journey.

If you get off the train then immediately get back on it, you have bought the ticket before boarding. Although you are already supposed to buy the appropriate extension tickets before starting your journey.

 

[fandroid]

Wouldn't the problem of the route change excess of zero be covered if the coded route restrictions always specifically allowed travel on those parallel routes that had cheaper fares (as in your London to Exeter via Taunton example)?

 

[Bletchleyite]

That was never technically permitted, the obligation being to purchase the additional extension ticket before boarding (where ticketing facilities exist), otherwise the obligation was to get off at the destination on your ticket. In reality, if you asked nicely the guard would usually sell you the extension ticket, but they didn't have to.

It's not however specifically banned to continue on the same train. So you step onto the platform and back on, and suddenly your e-ticket purchased on board is "legal"...

This is all quite silly. Is a selfie evidencing standing on the platform mandatory?

I'm not talking about purchasing from the guard, I'm talking about e-tickets.

(Ireland specifically forbids rebooking to continue by the same train if I recall, but legal precedent doesn't allow the UK to do this if I recall).

 

[fandroid]

If you get off the train then immediately get back on it, you have bought the ticket before boarding. Although you are already supposed to buy the appropriate extension tickets before starting your journey.

I would love to see that come up as a challenge to a Penalty Fare Notice! (Buy extra ticket online 5 mins out from last station your previous ticket was valid for, then hop off and hop on again when the train stops)

Edit: the only plausible justification for this extra limitation has to be to prevent doughnutters from trying to evade detection, having spotted a ticket check coming. But even then the circs are very limited. Surely this is just another case of adding rules to close a loophole that few could ever take advantage of, meanwhile taking away a freedom that comes in handy on occasion when travel plans change.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would love to see that come up as a challenge to a Penalty Fare Notice! (Buy extra ticket online 5 mins out from last station your previous ticket was valid for, then hop off and hop on again when the train stops)

It really is ridiculous that this isn't explicitly allowed. The wording isn't hard - "your ticket must have been purchased before the actual recorded departure time in industry systems of the train on which you travel from the point you begin using the ticket to travel thereon*". Yes, it's not quite the same as "before boarding", but if it's throwing it down or freezing cold what harm is caused by me boarding the train, taking a seat and then buying provided I'm ready to alight if there's an issue with the purchase?

* Not the ticket origin; that would forbid the starting short example above.

 

[redreni]

Wouldn't the problem of the route change excess of zero be covered if the coded route restrictions always specifically allowed travel on those parallel routes that had cheaper fares (as in your London to Exeter via Taunton example)?

The nice thing about the status quo is you don't have to worry too much if you're on a route that would be permitted by an Any Permitted ticket but you are unsure if you are complying with a route restriction on your ticket (because you don't know whether the route you're on has cheaper, identical or more expensive fares), because when your ticket is checked you will be asked to pay an excess if one is due and there shouldn't be any consequence more adverse than that.

On the face of it, this looks like a proposal for a bit of an "all or nothing" situation where you have to be completely confident you're on a cheaper route that can be validated for travel using the ticket you hold, on pain of exposure to being sold an entirely new ticket, issued with a penalty fare or prosecuted.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's probably worth adding on the refunds one that this is a serious problem for the use-case of single-fare pricing, in that if you decided to stay a day longer somewhere at present it's just £5 to change to the following day, but this would no longer be possible without losing your whole ticket value unless your ticket was an Advance.

This is by far the most serious problem with this change. I get the refund fraud issue, but this to me is big - unless the idea is to further push people into using Advances because they are suddenly MORE flexible than the walk ups, given that you would presumably still be able to change them right up to departure as they don't have any validity until then! Unless they are proposing that no tickets would be changeable on the day of travel, which would be absolutely unacceptable.

 

[redreni]

It really is ridiculous that this isn't explicitly allowed. The wording isn't hard - "your ticket must have been purchased before the actual recorded departure time in industry systems of the train on which you travel from the point you begin using the ticket to travel thereon*". Yes, it's not quite the same as "before boarding", but if it's throwing it down or freezing cold what harm is caused by me boarding the train, taking a seat and then buying provided I'm ready to alight if there's an issue with the purchase?

* Not the ticket origin; that would forbid the starting short example above.

The whole system of split ticketing (apart from non-stop splits to extend a season ticket or daily zonal ticket) is premised on the idea that it must be possible and permissible for the passenger to alight and re-board (hence the requirement for an open Call), even though for obvious reasons of not wanting to look too petty and vindictive, they don't actually make you do it. If notional boarding at the split point is enough to make a combination of tickets valid, I don't see why notional boarding at the split point wouldn't apply when judging if a ticket was purchased after boarding? Maybe it should be made explicit, but unless anybody knows of anyone who has been pulled up for buying a ticket to continue their journey on board, but before the train called at the split point, I do wonder if this is really a major issue?

 

[Benjwri]

this would no longer be possible without losing your whole ticket value unless your ticket was an Advance.

Of course any ticket other than an advance, ignoring mandatory reservations that shouldn't happen anyways, could be bought just before departure anyways, as this forum advises.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe it should be made explicit, but unless anybody knows of anyone who has been pulled up for buying a ticket to continue their journey on board, but before the train called at the split point, I do wonder if this is really a major issue?

I haven't heard of it, but if the railway has the option to pull people up for something like that you can be sure some petty, vindictive RPI will do at some point, and the quality of the prosecutions teams is not now such that such stupidity is weeded out before a letter is sent like it might have been in the past.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Oct 2025 ==

Of course any ticket other than an advance, ignoring mandatory reservations that shouldn't happen anyways, could be bought just before departure anyways, as this forum advises.

There can be good reasons to buy in advance, such as wanting to reserve a preferred seat, or wanting to ensure a contract is in place in case things go wrong that day. (I was quite glad of having done this yesterday given the mess at Euston in the evening - I would otherwise have been quite stressed about whether I'd be stranded with no obligation on the railway to provide a taxi or hotel - though in the event the delays resulted in me catching a train I'd otherwise have missed and thus getting home half an hour earlier and with a 10 car formation for about 10 of us to boot! )

Fake compulsory reservations can also be an issue. For most Avanti journeys (all south of Oxenholme*) you can always get an inter available walk-up by fiddling with a planner to get it to select WMT services, but on the ECML that isn't always possible and so LNER would be quite able to prevent the sale of a ticket in disruption.

* Unfortunately both Avanti and TPE apply fake compulsory reservations, so the Oxenholme-Penrith gap would allow sale to be prevented north of Oxenholme. South of it there are always non-fake-compulsory-reservations services by some route or another so you could always fiddle an itinerary to get a walk-up without reservations.

 

[fandroid]

As for the change (1), making a bought online after boarding ticket invalid, wouldn't they need to tweak the Penalty Fare Regulations too, so that they cover such purchases? Or is changing a definition in NRCOT sufficient to then apply for Penalty Fares?

 

[blimmo]

Will change of time restrictions excesses also be required to be purchased before boarding? Tbh those seemed more open to abuse to me and while route excesses can be the only way to get the correct ticket (for a round trip with different routeing on the two directions) I think it's somewhat reasonable to require you change the ticket first to the correct time restrictions (putting to one side how most do not understand how the time restrictions work).

 

[Tetchytyke]

It's not however specifically banned to continue on the same train. So you step onto the platform and back on, and suddenly your e-ticket purchased on board is "legal"...

This is all quite silly. Is a selfie evidencing standing on the platform mandatory?

I'm not talking about purchasing from the guard, I'm talking about e-tickets.

True, e-tickets have changed things. Previously you were reliant on the guard to sell you the ticket before the destination on your ticket, but now you can (in most cases) buy the ticket on your phone and get an immediate e-ticket.

Without compostage, I don't see how they could enforce buying before boarding the train at your origin. You present a ticket from A to B purchased before the train left A. It doesn't matter that you also held a ticket from Z to A.

As you say, I don't have faith that you won't get some RPI making the rules up as they go along, but what's new?

Edit: the only plausible justification for this extra limitation has to be to prevent doughnutters from trying to evade detection, having spotted a ticket check coming.

I think it's probably a case of them trying to enforce the condition to purchase your tickets before boarding, nothing more than that.

By the time you see the RPIs coming it is too late to retrospectively buy a ticket. They can see when you bought it and, if it wasn't bought before the time your train left the origin, you're in breach.

It'll be interesting what the actual proposed wording will be.