Recent content by danthekyle

Hi all, My partner's Oyster failed to open the barriers recently, giving error code 30. She logged on to the TFL website to check why this might be, and discovered that her auto top-up card payments have been failing, since August 2024. It looks like the payment card used has just been...

Hi all, I purchased a 7 Day East Midlands Rover from an EMR ticket office today. I wanted to get a 26-30 Railcard discount, but the staff couldn't find this option on their system. They thought the discount should be available and so issued it with a 16-25 Railcard selected, and gave me a...

The LNER website does show the Azuma seating plan when you try to reserve seats for some services in June, so that should give you an idea of what's confirmed. I've only ever seen a 9 car presented on the seat selection map so far. It's not quite the same as the published PDF seating plan though...

This TFL document from 2016 states it will be 15tph between Abbey Wood and Paddington from December, which lines up with what is currently shown on RTT for the test services from July. I imagine they are doing this to provide a frequent service for the central stations. However it will be good...

Yes, I agree it will be quite simple in practice, but if you were to look at the fares tables, there are three scenarios that could apply in theory (TfL-LU, NR1, NR1-T). Are there many other examples (excluding airports) where two direct services between the same two stations are notionally...

That's a great trivia question. On paper, I believe Abbey Wood - Farringdon will have three different Oyster fares when Crossrail opens in December (peak fares shown): Direct on Crossrail: £3.90 Direct on Thameslink: £4.10 Using Southeastern/TL then DLR and/or Tube £5.80 In reality though I...

In case anyone is interested, I have heard back from my query to Southeastern regarding this (only took them three months). They said: They have added that they will get another team to look into why the barriers at Lewisham won't open. This implies they believe rail tickets to be valid on...

Do you mean St Pancras? London Terminals tickets are valid to Blackfriars from the south. But yes, all of these finer details haven't been communicated to passengers before the TL launch in any way. Ticket validity and first class seating on the new services are important things that passengers...

The number of times Thameslink (and other TOCs) give out misleading information on Twitter is ridiculous. Only last week they told somebody London Terminals tickets are valid to Farringdon & City Thameslink if coming from the north. And this is a question they get asked 20 times a week - you'd...

Thameslink's Twitter team remind people many times a day that the rear first class on all their services is declassified. In addition to this I have seen the digital screens on Luton-Rainham services say that this section is declassified. So I believe it's likely the member of staff was wrong...

After the relative success of yesterday and this morning, most of the Luton-Rainham services have been cancelled for this afternoon and evening peak.

I believe there are no issues with platform lengths on the route, because Woolwich Dockyard is skipped (the reason given for this was because it would not accept 12 car trains). But yes, I don't expect to be seeing any FLUs any time soon!

Indeed, the two trains I have used this week used to be 10 car 376s, meaning a capacity reduction of 120 people per train. The capacity of an 8 car 700 is only 7 more passengers than a 10 car networker, with around 400 fewer seats.

It certainly doesn't provide longer trains between Dartford and Greenwich - all trains are 8 car, often replacing 10 car SE trains. Many people left on platforms unable to board at Greenwich and Deptford yesterday.

What's particularly bad is how quiet Thameslink are being about it. Not a single tweet to alert people, and trains cancelled due to 'an operational incident'. Clearly they knew yesterday that a lot of services wouldn't be running, but they didn't put a notice out to give people time to change...