Regarding the Northern Smart card is it only for season tickets or can I load off peak tickets onto it? I regularly travel on Northern so it would be beneficial than having to carry paper tickets around, I prefer not to use e tickets if my phone battery goes then they are useless.
Whether a ticket can be loaded onto a Smartcard is determined by a combination of the Train Company that sets the fare and the retailer. The easiest way to determine whether it's an option for your specific journey is to go onto a Train Company website (for all its faults, the
Chiltern site is good for this), go through the booking flow and see if it offers the option to load your ticket onto a Smartcard.
Here's the results of a sample search on the Chiltern site. The symbol between the price and the ticket type shows it can be loaded onto a Smartcard, though it would have to be a Chiltern card to buy it through their website:
Image shows the results of a search for a Single ticket from Marylebone to High Wycombe on the Chiltern Railways website. The results show the Off-Peak Single can be loaded onto a Smartcard.
