Cant understand trainsplit journey ?

[jrh2254]

I want to purchase a single fare from Euston to Shepherds Bush whilst using my oyster card. Trainsplit tells me to use my Oyster card to get to vauxhall on the underground then take a train vauxhall to shepherds bush costing £2.30 with a railcard?
However I thought I could use my oyster card to get all the way to shepherds bush ? Is trainsplit telling me its cheaper to buy a paper ticket ? I am confused?

Later in the day I want to go shepherds bush to Oxted using my oyster card. Trainsplit tells me to forget using my oyster buy a single ticket costing £4.30 with a railcard?
Surely as I have already used my oyster card in the day I could use this for part of my journey to oxted as I will be subject to the oyster card daily cap?

Thank you.

 

[Hadders]

I want to purchase a single fare from Euston to Shepherds Bush whilst using my oyster card.

You don't purchase a ticket and load it on an Oyster card (unless it's a Travelcard season). You need to make sure you've got enough credit loaded on your Oyster card and just touch in at Euston and touch out at Shepherds Bush.

Euston to Shepherds Bush using Oyster costs £3.60 peak and £3.10 off peak. Unless you've got a railcard loaded on your Oyster card the cost will be the same if you use contactless.

Trainsplit tells me to use my Oyster card to get to vauxhall on the underground then take a train vauxhall to shepherds bush costing £2.30 with a railcard?

I don't understand why you're using Trainsplit for this.

Later in the day I want to go shepherds bush to Oxted using my oyster card.

Oxted is outside the Oyster area so cannot be used for this journey. Contactless is accepted at Oxted so you can either:

1. Use contactless. The cost of a Shephers Bush to Oxted journey using contactless is £11.40 peak or £6.40 off peak
2. Use Oyster as far as Upper Warlingham, which is the last station where Oyster is accepted. Leave the train, touch out and then continue on a later train using contactless or a traditional ticket.
3. Use a traditional ticket.

Unless you have a railcard contactless will likely be the best option.

 

[jrh2254]

You don't purchase a ticket and load it on an Oyster card (unless it's a Travelcard season). You need to make sure you've got enough credit loaded on your Oyster card and just touch in at Euston and touch out at Shepherds Bush.

Euston to Shepherds Bush using Oyster costs £3.60 peak and £3.10 off peak. Unless you've got a railcard loaded on your Oyster card the cost will be the same if you use contactless.


I don't understand why you're using Trainsplit for this.


Oxted is outside the Oyster area so cannot be used for this journey. Contactless is accepted at Oxted so you can either:

1. Use contactless. The cost of a Shephers Bush to Oxted journey using contactless is £11.40 peak or £6.40 off peak
2. Use Oyster as far as Upper Warlingham, which is the last station where Oyster is accepted. Leave the train, touch out and then continue on a later train using contactless or a traditional ticket.
3. Use a traditional ticket.

Unless you have a railcard contactless will likely be the best option.

Thanks for your advice. I have a railcard so shepherds bush to oxted I think I have enough time at clapham junction to tap out. So I will buy a ticket clapham junction to oxted. I could tap out at upper warlingham (is it possible to leave the train, tap out and get back on the same train !) but I will have to wait for the next train and I am on a tight schedule !
However I now see I dont save any money as clapham junction to oxted is still £4.30 , same as Shepherds Bush to Oxted !

 

[Haywain]

I would just add that to look up Oyster or contactless fares, do not try using Trainsplit - it is very good for many things but not for that. In theory you should use the TfL site, but @MikeWh of this forum has a far better site for this at Oyster Fares Central.

 

[jrh2254]

I would just add that to look up Oyster or contactless fares, do not try using Trainsplit - it is very good for many things but not for that. In theory you should use the TfL site, but @MikeWh of this forum has a far better site for this at Oyster Fares Central.

Thank you Haywain

 

[MrJeeves]

I want to purchase a single fare from Euston to Shepherds Bush whilst using my oyster card. Trainsplit tells me to use my Oyster card to get to vauxhall on the underground then take a train vauxhall to shepherds bush costing £2.30 with a railcard?
However I thought I could use my oyster card to get all the way to shepherds bush ? Is trainsplit telling me its cheaper to buy a paper ticket ? I am confused?

TrainSplit will only suggest Oyster/contactless if you enable the feature in advanced options. This feature is explicitly only for crossing London as part of a longer journey.

It is not designed to optimise the cost of a generic journey within the London Zones, and is instead intended to allow passengers easier access to E-Tickets (by excluding the cross-London leg which forces the use of paper tickets) in exchange for using another payment method to transfer between two London stations.

Even with this option enabled, if a ticket which includes a cross-London transfer is the cheaper option (or maybe the same price?), it will still offer that ticket rather than trying to rip off a customer with a ticket to London and another ticket from London.

 

[SickyNicky]

TrainSplit will only suggest Oyster/contactless if you enable the feature in advanced options. This feature is explicitly only for crossing London as part of a longer journey.

It is not designed to optimise the cost of a generic journey within the London Zones, and is instead intended to allow passengers easier access to E-Tickets (by excluding the cross-London leg which forces the use of paper tickets) in exchange for using another payment method to transfer between two London stations.

Even with this option enabled, if a ticket which includes a cross-London transfer is the cheaper option (or maybe the same price?), it will still offer that ticket rather than trying to rip off a customer with a ticket to London and another ticket from London.

Agreed. The main reason we put this option in was because it's often cheaper to split journeys each side of London, and that would result in a U12 type paper ticket to cross London, which is outrageously expensive. Instead you can use Oyster/contactless at a much cheaper rate and just pay the rail fares each side.

If your journey is fully within the London zones, you should use Oyster, contactless or a travelcard.

No doubt someone will now prove me wrong and find an example where a set of split tickets is cheaper than the Oyster fare!

 

[Sonic1234]

No doubt someone will now prove me wrong and find an example where a set of split tickets is cheaper than the Oyster fare!

The main cases where a paper ticket (not necessarily a split ticket) is cheaper than Oyster is if you have a railcard and are travelling in the evening peak but not going to hit a cap, or if you want to break your journey on a National Rail route.

www.ltfares.com is an excellent site for finding the price of Oyster and Contactless fares

 

[JamesT]

The main cases where a paper ticket (not necessarily a split ticket) is cheaper than Oyster is if you have a railcard and are travelling in the evening peak but not going to hit a cap, or if you want to break your journey on a National Rail route.

www.ltfares.com is an excellent site for finding the price of Oyster and Contactless fares

I'm not sure it's even that. Sticking Oxford to Kirkcaldy via King's Cross return into trainsplit for a couple of days next month gets me £172.15 excluding the London segment, but £177.25 included. So £5.10 difference, but you'd pay £6 for a couple of singles on contactless. No railcard selected.

 

[Deerfold]

I'm not sure it's even that. Sticking Oxford to Kirkcaldy via King's Cross return into trainsplit for a couple of days next month gets me £172.15 excluding the London segment, but £177.25 included. So £5.10 difference, but you'd pay £6 for a couple of singles on contactless. No railcard selected.

But still useful for those with a season ticket or who get free or reduced rate travel on the Underground but not National Rail.

 

[Sonic1234]

I'm not sure it's even that. Sticking Oxford to Kirkcaldy via King's Cross return into trainsplit for a couple of days next month gets me £172.15 excluding the London segment, but £177.25 included. So £5.10 difference, but you'd pay £6 for a couple of singles on contactless. No railcard selected.

The examples I gave are for travel entirely within the London Zones. For cross-London travel, sometimes a through ticket is better value (like your example above) and sometimes it is not. The forum's site will search if you are better off with a through ticket or not if you select "use Oyster for travel across London".

I use a through ticket fairly often where the extra for crossing London and travel on to a surburban station is under £2, where using Oyster from the London terminal would cost 2x mixed-mode fares - about £8.

 

[Haywain]

The forum's site will search if you are better off with a through ticket or not if you select "use Oyster for travel across London".

I'm not sure that's true. It might look at whether a through ticket is better than a ticket split across London Terminals but I don't think it will take into account the cost of paying for the transfer on Oyster or contactless.

 

[Belperpete]

I would just add that to look up Oyster or contactless fares, do not try using Trainsplit - it is very good for many things but not for that. In theory you should use the TfL site, but @MikeWh of this forum has a far better site for this at Oyster Fares Central.

Agreed. Journey planners, such as Train split, that are based on national rail services will often not consider routes via the underground. So for Euston to Shepherds Bush it will consider the overground routes via Willsden Junction and Clapham Junction, but it won't suggest the various underground routes (such as via Oxford Circus, or Euston Square direct to Shepherds Bush Market).

The same happens with West Brompton, which like Shepherds Bush is a joint underground/overground station. It is a relatively easy journey by underground from Euston or Euston Square, but rail planners will try sending me from Euston to Victoria, then train to Clapham Junction, then change for the overground!

 

[MrJeeves]

I don't think it will take into account the cost of paying for the transfer on Oyster or contactless.

That is correct.