Delay repay due to barrier staff incompetence?

[reduke]

So, today I had occasion to travel from Luton to Carpenders Park return (Saturday)

I chose to do so with an off peak travelcard so that I would have the flexibility to take buses while I was in London, and have a choice of routes outbound and return (as long as at least one direction was not via London) For what I ended up doing it was not the cheapest option, but it worked for me.

When I get to Carpenders Park I had to show my ticket as it is in zone 7 and the barriers don't automatically open. No problem on the way out.

On the way back, I got a slightly argumentative member of gate line staff who tried to tell me that a travelcard into zone 1-6 wasn't valid because his station was in zone 7, despite Carpenders Park being on a perfectly cromulent route from Luton to z1-6 on a ticket without any break of journey restrictions.

Thankfully when I started explaining the minutiae of ticketing restrictions his eyes seemed to gloss over slightly and he lost interest in the discussion and just opened the barriers.

My wonder begins at what I would have had to put on on the delay repay form had he not opened the barriers in time for me to catch my train... 15 minutes Overground delay equates to missing the once an hour Abbey Flyer - it quickly mounts up and I don't think Ive ever seen a box to tick saying staff re-education required...

I am also not about to start becoming a gate pusher just to make sure I catch my train with a valid ticket (semi-ironically, on the inbound I had to wait for the barrier to open until the pusher in front of me had gone through...)

 

[crablab]

I'm a little confused about the ticket you held - Z1-6 Travelcard does not exist on the Luton to Carpenders Park flow. So I assume you had a ticket further into London and you broke your journey at Carpenders Park. I assume the routes are indeed correct, but you may wish to clarify the exact ticket you held.

TfL gateline staff in general do not have sufficient training on Break of Journey or permitted routes. They are, in my experience, solely trained on 16.4 of the NRCoT and TfL do not explain that a great number of the services they operate are National Rail services for ticketing purposes - Overground (as in your case) and Elizabeth Line.

In these cases, I generally find it best to raise the issue with TfL customer services directly and ask for any compensation that way. For example if you had to tap in/out as gateline staff rejected your valid ticket, or you suffered onward delay.

If you would like to draft an email and post it here, we'd be happy to review it.

semi-ironically, on the inbound I had to wait for the barrier to open until the pusher in front of me had gone through...

Yes, I also find it deeply ironic to be held up having an extended discussion on the validity of my ticket, whilst people just force their way through in the background.

 

[Sonic1234]

TfL, at a high level, do not get National Rail ticketing. I've generally found their customer services even more useless than the people on the ground ("promotional special break-of-journey ticket type" anyone? TfL were very sorry mine didn't work!)

You should ask for delay compensation (called a service delay refund) from TfL for this? You'll need to email them with a photo of the ticket and bank details (they say write a letter, email is fine).

I expect as it is a National Rail ticketing issue, you should be prepared to firstly ask a manager to review your complaint, and then London TravelWatch. Small claims court if you are determined. Only way things will change with TfL (and the railway in general) is if it costs them.

whilst people just force their way through in the background.

Unfortunately, the easiest way around TfL's poor training! I hoped the ticket hall at Kentish Town would never reopen for exactly these reasons.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Jun 2025 ==

TfL are on an older version of delay repay where the issue has to be within the rail industry's control to be eligible for compensation. Staff incompetence definately is!

 

[Vexed]

I'm a little confused about the ticket you held - Z1-6 Travelcard does not exist on the Luton to Carpenders Park flow. So I assume you had a ticket further into London and you broke your journey at Carpenders Park. I assume the routes are indeed correct, but you may wish to clarify the exact ticket you held.

A Luton to Zones 1-6 Travelcard is valid via St Albans Abbey then Carpenters Park, or changing at West Hampstead.

 

[redreni]

TfL, at a high level, do not get National Rail ticketing.

At the heart of the issue, I think, is they don't think the rules should apply to them, hence their lack of interest in it, hence their lack of knowledge.

From a common sense point of view, if you hold an outboundary Travelcard (or an Inboundary travelcard / boundary zone x to named station combination), your origin is fixed but you could be travelling to any one of hundreds of destination stations (or vice versa). Obviously in the most common use case for an Outboundary Travelcard, the passenger will make a journey from the named station to a London Terminal and travel on from there, so routeing is straightforward. But you could be travelling to any station within the zones covered by the Travelcard, and there may be permitted routes (which may be the shortest and sometimes even the fastest) between the origin station and the station you're travelling to that would not be along a permitted route from the origin to London Terminals. The reality is, I think, the tickets are priced and revenue apportioned on the assumption that the passenger sticks to permitted routes between the origin and London Terminals, and the expectation is that they do so at least until they enter the Travelcard zones their ticket covers (at which point they can obviously go wherever they like by any route within the zones). The passenger isn't told this when they buy the ticket, of course.

 

[Sonic1234]

The passenger isn't told this when they buy the ticket, of course.

Nor is it of any concern to the passenger. The passenger was trying to do something perfectly valid, even if uncommon. They got delayed due to TfL's incompetence and/or inexperience and/or corporate culture (probably all 3).

The problem is the use of paper tickets at all, let alone niche things like break of journey, is so rare than even if this costs TfL, it won't change anything. If they paid out a court fee + Oyster fare for everyone breaking their journey on a National Rail paper ticket at an Overground station, it would probably be just noise - at most a perplexed "oh, the angry customer fund is a little short this month" at a meeting.

 

[reduke]

I'm a little confused about the ticket you held - Z1-6 Travelcard does not exist on the Luton to Carpenders Park flow.

A Luton to Zones 1-6 Travelcard is valid via St Albans Abbey then Carpenders Park, or changing at West Hampstead.

Indeed, that is what I had. It's a much nicer journey having a stroll through St Albans than fighting through crowds at London termini. It can sometimes take slightly longer, but that doesn't matter too much to me (plus there was no way I was going on LNWR from Euston until Bletchley was(/is) resolved!).

I've used travelcards for every trip to London ever since a return to east London cost me £5 more than one (which didn't even show up as an option for my destination!) and it wasn't clear that it's via West Hampstead restriction didn't include my service stopping at the Thameslink station...

They got delayed due to TfL's incompetence and/or inexperience and/or corporate culture (probably all 3).

Thankfully I didn't actually get delayed (~15 seconds to spare), but in future if I have to do this journey again I will leave a little more time on the return to deal with gateline delays...

 

[Nippy]

Just to add to this, The other day my 15yo son was travelling on his dated safeguarded dependent Priv and was held up by the gate staff at Watford High Street. The lady claimed it wasn’t his ticket. She let him through eventually ‘just this once’.

 

[crablab]

She let him through eventually ‘just this once’.

I would suggest a complaint to TfL, not that it's likely to change anything.

"Just this once" seems to be code for "I realise I'm wrong but I don't want to lose face by backing down".