Leaving at a station along route (Season Ticket)

[Gawge]

I have an annual season ticket from Streatham to London Terminals.

Today I was visiting a friend near Clapham, so was travelling from Streatham to Clapham Junction. I understand this is covered on my ‘London terminals’ season ticket.

The best route for that is Streatham to Streatham Common, then Streatham Common to Clapham Junction. I am confident this is included in my season ticket, and also the national rail journey planner identifies this as the first route, and does not require a second ticket etc...

However, as Streatham Common is so close to Streatham, I walked to Streatham Common rather than waiting for a train one stop there from Streatham. But the barriers would not work with my season ticket (weekend staff meant I could just walk through).

Is there anything I’m missing here? Why wouldn’t my ticket operate the barriers at Streatham Common for leaving and/or exiting the station? I haven’t had any issues with other stations along routes (e.g Clapham Junction, Peckham Rye, North Dulwich etc...). Should I not be able to enter/exit here?

 

[Esker-pades]

Streatham Common is further away from London than Streatham is.

 

[Hadders]

I can’t comment on the validity but ticket gates are ‘dumb’ and are not normally programmed to recognise break of journey, starting/finishing short etc.

It doesn’t necessarily mean your ticket is invalid at that location, you just need to be let through manually.

 

[maniacmartin]

Streatham and Streatham Common are both members of the Streatham Routeing Group.
Streatham Routeing Group to London Routeing Group has mapped routes FC and TK.
The route you wished to take is mapped on map FC with no doublebacks (passing through the same station twice), thus is valid.

As Hadders said, the ticket gates are not overly smart. They have the most common valid tickets that staff programming them expect to be seen there, but because permitted routes are so complex, there are often tickets that are overlooked when programming the gates. When this happens, you just need to show your ticket to staff who can let you through.

I haven't checked, but I expect that the season ticket from Streatham Common is the same price, so to avoid future issues you could buy that instead in future.