Forthcoming changes to National Rail Conditions of Travel

[Bletchleyite]

I’m not too sure what your definition of short fairing is, I suspect they may differ from mine.

Short faring is purchasing a ticket for a journey shorter than the one you are going to make, e.g. a ticket to the next stop to get through a gateline.

Doughnutting is doing that to get through gatelines at both ends, i.e. having an unticketed "hole" in the middle.

Starting/ending short is where you buy a ticket for a longer journey than the one you intend to make because it's cheaper (or more convenient, e.g. you're returning to the more distant station later). This is usually permitted on walk up tickets but isn't on Advances, though it is only generally enforced where done specifically to save money, except Northern who seem to enforce it regardless. There are cases where this is completely unenforceable on any ticket type, e.g. where it involves crossing London for the bit you didn't do.

 

[yorksrob]

I’m not too sure what your definition of short fairing is, I suspect they may differ from mine.
I think I may have crossed over from short stopping to faring, apologies.

Short faring is purchasing a ticket for a journey shorter than the one you are going to make, e.g. a ticket to the next stop to get through a gateline.

Doughnutting is doing that to get through gatelines at both ends, i.e. having an unticketed "hole" in the middle.

Starting/ending short is where you buy a ticket for a longer journey than the one you intend to make because it's cheaper (or more convenient, e.g. you're returning to the more distant station later). This is usually permitted on walk up tickets but isn't on Advances, though it is only generally enforced where done specifically to save money, except Northern who seem to enforce it regardless.

Yes, as with @Bletchleyite notes above, I have absolutely no problem with starting/ending short - if a passenger can get a better deal within the rules, all power to him !

 

[AlterEgo]

Short stopping? Shouldn’t be done without seeing the ticket to cover the journey

What does this mean?

 

[Haywain]

There was a story I heard of a gent who went 10 years without buying a ticket from Hough Green to Widnes,

So, if we stop giving refunds that will really teach him.

 

[Red Rover]

Short faring is purchasing a ticket for a journey shorter than the one you are going to make, e.g. a ticket to the next stop to get through a gateline.

Doughnutting is doing that to get through gatelines at both ends, i.e. having an unticketed "hole" in the middle.

Starting/ending short is where you buy a ticket for a longer journey than the one you intend to make because it's cheaper (or more convenient, e.g. you're returning to the more distant station later). This is usually permitted on walk up tickets but isn't on Advances, though it is only generally enforced where done specifically to save money, except Northern who seem to enforce it regardless. There are cases where this is completely unenforceable on any ticket type, e.g. where it involves crossing London for the bit you didn't do.

Yes doughnutting is totally different to short faring, short stopping is buying a ticket further than the destination than you need in order to circumvent conditions of travel or because a rail operators fare flow is cheaper than the destination required, I don’t think I need to put stations on here to demonstrate.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2026 ==

What does this mean?

As above.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2026 ==

So, if we stop giving refunds that will really teach him.

No, that example was used as someone stated northern are good at going through, in this case if true evidently not, they don’t have time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2026 ==

Yes, as with @Bletchleyite notes above, I have absolutely no problem with starting/ending short - if a passenger can get a better deal within the rules, all power to him !

But if they’re on a service that they’re not entitled to they run the risk of confiscation of tickets or penalty fare.

 

[yorksrob]

But if they’re on a service that they’re not entitled to they run the risk of confiscation of tickets or penalty fare.

I think that's more a symptom of our laissez-faire ticketing system.

If they've bought a ticket on that train, they should be entitled to start or stop short on it.

 

[AdamWW]

Personally I think it is tremendous news concerning refunds, taxpayers money being given out, if the staff are reduced to a point of not being able to check tickets then this is the only way, not too sure how many it will affect as it as advance tickets are unaffected, £40 million is a crazy amount to lose.

Is is not, of course, the only way.

But anyway - presumably calculating the £40 million involves some element of estimation since in a given circumstance the railway doesn't know if a refund is valid or not.

Given that this is the railway that will claim with a straight face that someone who failed to renew a £35 railcard they were entitled to has by some mysterious form of accounting lost them thousands of pounds in revenue, I can't see why anyone would take that figure at face value without some information to back it up.

 

[Red Rover]

Is is not, of course, the only way.

But anyway - presumably calculating the £40 million involves some element of estimation since in a given circumstance the railway doesn't know if a refund is valid or not.

Given that this is the railway that will claim with a straight face that someone who failed to renew a £35 railcard they were entitled to has by some mysterious form of accounting lost them thousands of pounds in revenue, I can't see why anyone would take that figure at face value without some information to back it

I’d say yes it’s an estimate of course, misuse of tickets is rife, toc’s won’t say that necessarily as it highlights weakness and doesn’t inspire confidence.

 

[AdamWW]

I’d say yes it’s an estimate of course, misuse of tickets is rife, toc’s won’t say that necessarily as it highlights weakness and doesn’t inspire confidence.

On the other hand exaggerating the losses is a good way of attemping to justify unpleasant policies.

I have often wondered if the figures bandied about for fare evasion are the prices of the actual fares evaded, or the inflated amounts the railway claims to be contractually entitled to in such cases. And also whether they assume that every fare evader would have travelled if required to buy the correct ticket.

 

[saismee]

No, of course not.
It will stop one specific method of fraud where a passenger buys a ticket and then gets a refund after use.
But there are plenty of others where this makes no difference. Buying a ticket for a shorter journey, claiming discounts without entitlement, reusing flexible tickets, etc.

All of the other methods are much easier to catch. A passenger can't be given an MG11 or PFN on the train on the suspicion that they may have refunded it if not scanned. Travelling ticketless for a portion of your journey or paying when challenged is actually able to be enforced properly.

 

[AdamWW]

All of the other methods are much easier to catch. A passenger can't be given an MG11 or PFN on the train on the suspicion that they may have refunded it if not scanned. Travelling ticketless for a portion of your journey or paying when challenged is actually able to be enforced properly.

But on the other hand this method is much easier to stop!

All the railway has to do is arrange to scan or mark the ticket at some point on the journey.

I can see that may not be practical for many short journeys and there is therfore perhaps a good case for making refunds much harder for low value tickets.

Another thought on the new 15 minute refund window. What harm would be done if retailers were permitted to offer a 1 hour refund window on journeys that couldn't possibly be completed in that time?

 

[Adam Williams]

Another thought on the new 15 minute refund window. What harm would be done if retailers were permitted to offer a 1 hour refund window on journeys that couldn't possibly be completed in that time?

Ah, but what if you deliberately bought much more expensive long distance tickets to finish short!!

 

[Haywain]

- presumably calculating the £40 million involves some element of estimation since in a given circumstance the railway doesn't know if a refund is valid or not.

It shouldn't, in theory at least, be that difficult to figure out the value of refunds currently issued on or after the day of travel.

 

[AdamWW]

It shouldn't, in theory at least, be that difficult to figure out the value of refunds currently issued on or after the day of travel.

No but I hope they aren't just quoting that figure and counting them all as fraudulent.

Ah, but what if you deliberately bought much more expensive long distance tickets to finish short!!

Quite.

 

[Haywain]

No but I hope they aren't just quoting that figure and counting them all as fraudulent.

Fraudulent or not they'll be 'saving' that amount of money.

 

[redreni]

Fraudulent or not they'll be 'saving' that amount of money.

Of course they won't, because this is actually a rather well-publicised change so it is reasonable to think some people will change their behaviour, postpone their purchases until just before travel, and therefore what looks like a saving on the refund bill is actually just an intended purchase that never materialises. In other words, sales will fall.

Perhaps I'm being overly simple-minded, but if the railway knew which refund requests were fraudulent, surely it wouldn't pay them? It suspects a certain percentage of them may be fraudulent. But it can't prove it, because if it could, it would be extorting money from the fraudsters in return for deciding that it is not in the public interest to prosecute them.

 

[AdamWW]

Fraudulent or not they'll be 'saving' that amount of money.

I don't think that follows because it's quite possible that some people will stop buying tickets in advance because of the change.

Or will claim to be asking for a refund due to disruption.

And it also makes the assumption that everyone who was cheating in that way would otherwise have travelled by train at the full price.

And that nobody shifts to a different way of avoiding their fare.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2026 ==

Perhaps I'm being overly simple-minded, but if the railway knew which refund requests were fraudulent, surely it wouldn't pay them? It suspects a certain percentage of them may be fraudulent. But it can't prove it, because if it could, it would be extorting money from the fraudsters in return for deciding that it is not in the public interest to prosecute them.

Yes. For some things (say benefit fraud) it's presumably possible to get a good idea of the extent by auditing a small fraction of cases and extrapolating. I'm not sure how you'd do that here.

But in any case what would be the point in doing that as opposed to making some wild assumptions and coming up with a nice big figure to justify the change?

 

[Sonic1234]

It might mean more people switch to buying at the station. In a lot of cases, that will mean less "smart" tickets around, which they won't like.

 

[saismee]

It might mean more people switch to buying at the station. In a lot of cases, that will mean less "smart" tickets around, which they won't like.

TVMs are (very) slowly being upgraded to give PRT tickets with Aztec codes, so maybe it will just hurry that along.

 

[redreni]

TVMs are (very) slowly being upgraded to give PRT tickets with Aztec codes, so maybe it will just hurry that along.

Isn't this entire measure (on refunds) a bald admission that they very often don't scan Aztec codes at any point during a passenger's journey anyway, and they have no intention of doing anything about it? In which case, what does it matter if some tickets continue to be CCSTs?

 

[Sonic1234]

Isn't this entire measure (on refunds) a bald admission that they very often don't scan Aztec codes at any point during a passenger's journey anyway, and they have no intention of doing anything about it?

The railway wants its cake and to eat it. They want the lower costs from destaffing, but the compliance of a fully staffed railway. I expect they've put too much faith in a high trust society too.

I'm sure Thameslink would prefer a few refunds and inappropriately claimed discounts than to fully staff its trains. But really it would like 100% compliance and DOO.

 

[AdamWW]

Isn't this entire measure (on refunds) a bald admission that they very often don't scan Aztec codes at any point during a passenger's journey anyway, and they have no intention of doing anything about it? In which case, what does it matter if some tickets continue to be CCSTs?

I suppose moving people towards buying at stations might help the case for retaining ticket offices.

And also make it harder to retrospectively penalise people for failing to renew a railcard.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I see that the link for further information (https://nationalrail.co.uk/refundschange) from the RDG media brief (https://media.raildeliverygroup.com/news/ticket-refund-changes-media-factsheet) does not work!

 

[mmh]

Is is not, of course, the only way.

But anyway - presumably calculating the £40 million involves some element of estimation since in a given circumstance the railway doesn't know if a refund is valid or not.

Given that this is the railway that will claim with a straight face that someone who failed to renew a £35 railcard they were entitled to has by some mysterious form of accounting lost them thousands of pounds in revenue, I can't see why anyone would take that figure at face value without some information to back it up.

Quite. And frankly, this estimated £40 million is an insignificant amount.

 

[MrJeeves]

I see that the link for further information (https://nationalrail.co.uk/refundschange) from the RDG media brief (https://media.raildeliverygroup.com/news/ticket-refund-changes-media-factsheet) does not work!

Both of these links work for me?

 

[AlterEgo]

I see that the link for further information (https://nationalrail.co.uk/refundschange) from the RDG media brief (https://media.raildeliverygroup.com/news/ticket-refund-changes-media-factsheet) does not work!

It does work. Of note:

The majority of passengers will not be affected because most only seek refunds before travel or due to genuine disruption - both of which remain protected.

Implies that £40m figure is people applying for refunds for unused tickets after the booked time of travel, and hence is all fraudulent. Because of course all those people are dishonest (!).

Anyway for what it's worth I will not buy flexible tickets prior to travel any more and have resolved to travel by train less in this country. I've seen the whole network anyway.

 

[NER1621]

The railway wants its cake and to eat it. They want the lower costs from destaffing, but the compliance of a fully staffed railway.

This, exactly. If the railway is genuinely losing £40m a year in fraudulent refunds* then that would pay for a lot of ticket-checking staff who would then “pay for themselves”. If the railway doesn’t want to pay for the staff numbers which would eliminate the fraud then it’s because they’ve calculated that it’s an acceptable shrinkage cost.

Either way there’s no justification for this passenger-unfriendly collective punishment.

I wonder if we’ll see a reduction in organisations calling off planned afternoon meetings on the day, or entertainment artists calling off evening shows due to sudden illness when they realise that this means all those planning to attend who’d bought off-peak tickets for their return journeys (because the event end time wasn’t predictable) now will lose all their money? (Sarcasm)

*Which they aren’t, having just made up the figure.

 

[Bikeman78]

The railway wants its cake and to eat it. They want the lower costs from destaffing, but the compliance of a fully staffed railway. I expect they've put too much faith in a high trust society too.

I'm sure Thameslink would prefer a few refunds and inappropriately claimed discounts than to fully staff its trains. But really it would like 100% compliance and DOO.

I can't recall the last time I had my ticket checked on a Thameslink train but it has never happened on a 700 so that gives some sort of timescale.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Both of these links work for me?

It does work. Of note:

Must have been a glitch. The link to RDG worked but not the link from that page to National Rail. I did try it several times though.

 

[yorksrob]

I can't recall the last time I had my ticket checked on a Thameslink train but it has never happened on a 700 so that gives some sort of timescale.

And therein lies the problem.