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If you travel to and from stations which have ticket gates you don't forget. In addition, you hear the beeps of other passengers tapping in and out as you enter and leave the station.
On the one hand I like the idea of contactless, but on a journey you haven't made before I find it a bit off putting if you don't know how much it's going to cost
Traditionally on the UK rail network, walk-up singles were/are relatively expensive. However contactless only has single fares. For the recent extensions to the Oyster/Contactless system the Oyster/Contactless fares were typically priced at about half the price of the corresponding traditional return ticket. Oyster/Contactless also has a it's own system of peak/off-peak rules which can be diferent from those on traditional rail tickets (peak/off-peak rules on traditional rail tickets are a total mess................).
Further complicating the matter on some rail journeys there are advance tickets available which significantly undercut walk-up tickets. There don't seem to be any of those on London to Reading though. I'm pretty sure TfL regard traditional rail tickets as an inconviniance and would rather everyone used their contactless system, so they have no incentive to offer advance fares.
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AIUI the crossrail core is owned by "Crossrail LTD" who in turn are owned by TfL The existing rail lines are still owned by Network rail who are owned by central Government.
The trains are operated my "MTR Crossrail LTD" (trading as "Elizibeth line") under a concession agreement with TfL. "MTR Crossrail LTD" are also members of the Association of train operating companies and are listed as participents in "National rail".
So like the overground the Elizibeth line leads a double life, it's very much part of TfLs empire, but it's also to some extent part of the national rail network.
In order to minimise potential revenue disruption from opening the core, TfL want to treat the crossrail core as an underground line for ticketing purposes. However this created a bit of a mess. e,g, TfL don't want "not underground" tickets to be valid, some where changed to "via city thameslink" or similar but not all.
I have this sinking feeling if I use contactless payments that I'll be voting with my wallet for there to be less staff at stations, which is what I don't want to see, it's just that the train tickets (plus the disel and car park ticket to get there) It soon gets quite expensive when you need to make multiple commutes
If you consider that using contactless is voting for fewer staff (which isn't necessarily true), surely buying your ticket with your phone has the exact same effect?
The other week, in he early hours I was looking on the train line app, at the price of train tickets, from the cities around London, I recall you could get 5am commutes into London for £20 ish from cities like Reading, Cambridge, Colchester, Brighton
But any further out at the same time of day the tickets got substantially more expensive by a factor of two or three
The annoying thing was, when I looked a couple of hours latter the tickets had all jumped in price, almost like a travel agents package holiday would if too many people were viewing the webpage
If any of these results included Advance tickets, then yes, the prices do go up exactly like an airline's because they work on the same principle - you buy a ticket for one specific itinerary and the prices go up as more of them are sold.
Because the Elizabeth line isn't meant to be standalone train company. For all but a few of its stations, it is no different to what would happen if you tried to buy a "Piccadilly line ticket".
Fundamentally, for you at Reading, there is no different in price between using GWR or the Elizabeth line to Paddington, only in the time taken. It's already been mentioned:
There is no such differential between GWR and Crossrail fares. The same ares from Reading to Paddington are valid on both operators, whether on the normal 'National Rail' scales or using Contactless as described above.
There are no 'GWR only' or 'Crossrail only' fares.
Fundamentally, for you at Reading, there is no different in price between using GWR or the Elizabeth line to Paddington, only in the time taken. It's already been mentioned:
So using the Elizabeth line from Reading to Paddington is not going to save you any money.
There is no difference in the through fare - as this is routed Any Permitted and can thus be used on any operator, and there is no Elizabeth Line only fare.
However, it can sometimes still be cheaper to use Elizabeth Line services, by virtue of the fact that this allows you to "split" your ticket at one of the intermediate stations, e.g. buy a combination of Reading to West Drayton and West Drayton to Paddington tickets.
This can present a considerable saving at times when the Off-Peak ticket isn't valid, as there is a huge premium for through Anytime fares between Reading and Paddington - whereas intermediate fares are more reasonably priced.
Most GWR services no longer stop at the optimal splitting points, so you effectively now have to use EL services if you want to split in this manner.
Ticket splitting sites such as TrainSplit will suggest the best split points based on the exact time of travel, and whether you're making a single or return journey.
However, it can sometimes still be cheaper to use Elizabeth Line services, by virtue of the fact that this allows you to "split" your ticket at one of the intermediate stations, e.g. buy a combination of Reading to West Drayton and West Drayton to Paddington tickets.
