Query on Southern S-Ticket

[white43306]

I have an annual Southern S-Ticket from London Thameslink to Three Bridges. Tonight, out of mild curiosity as I was at Victoria I scanned it to get the train expecting it to decline and it worked and opened the barrier. For the avoidance of doubt and not wanting to fare evade I also touched my Oyster card in.

How comes the ticket worked?

 

[mikeg]

Given that you didn't have to take the underground, I'd expect it to be valid? I'm a bit sketchy as to how 'London Thameslink' works versus London Terminals (the ticket but it allows you to use the ticket from, say, St Pancras? I believe however this is additional validity? I could be wrong so I'll let someone who travels more in London provide a definitive answer, however I note it's routed 'not underground' rather than 'Thameslink only'. 'London Thamselink' is an origin, rather than a TOC restriction.

 

[Watershed]

Barriers are not very comprehensively programmed to determine which tickets they do and don't accept. Just because a ticket works the barrier, that does not necessarily mean it is valid - and vice versa, rejected tickets can be valid too.

London Thameslink is a fares destination which includes all of the stations between London Bridge/Elephant & Castle and St Pancras. It does not include all of the traditional London Terminals such as Victoria, Waterloo etc.

You can still travel to any other London Terminals that are on a permitted route to somewhere like London Bridge. Historically speaking this would have permitted travel at least as far as Clapham Junction on the way to Waterloo, where you could change for Waterloo East and then London Bridge.

However, @miklcct 's insistence on raising this to the TOCs' attention (despite being warned of the likely consequences) resulted in a negative easement being created, which now bars such routes:

Customer travelling with tickets priced on route (00208) NOT VALID ON UNDERGROUND are not permitted to travel from London Bridge, Elephant & Castle, London Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and London St Pancras Intl, to stations on the Brighton Mainline between East Croydon and Brighton via London Waterloo, Clapham Junction, London Victoria, London Charing Cross, Waterloo East and London Cannon Street. This circuitous route easement applies in both directions

Therefore you can't travel to Victoria on such a ticket and would need another ticket from Balham to cover your journey into Victoria. Since you have a season ticket, the train doesn't need to stop at Balham for you to extend your journey to Victoria with an additional ticket.

However you would need to buy the additional ticket (e.g. as an eTicket) before the train departs the last station where your season ticket is valid - i.e. likely East Croydon if it's a fast service. You can't just touch out at Victoria with an Oyster card or contactless card/device as you need to touch in and out to validly make a PAYG journey.

 

[white43306]

Thanks @Watershed - most helpful ad informative.

Is there a thread about raising this to the TOCs attention resulting in the easement? Would make fascinating reading!

 

[Wallsendmag]

Barriers are not very comprehensively programmed to determine which tickets they do and don't accept. Just because a ticket works the barrier, that does not necessarily mean it is valid - and vice versa, rejected tickets can be valid too.

London Thameslink is a fares destination which includes all of the stations between London Bridge/Elephant & Castle and St Pancras. It does not include all of the traditional London Terminals such as Victoria, Waterloo etc.

You can still travel to any other London Terminals that are on a permitted route to somewhere like London Bridge. Historically speaking this would have permitted travel at least as far as Clapham Junction on the way to Waterloo, where you could change for Waterloo East and then London Bridge.

However, @miklcct 's insistence on raising this to the TOCs' attention (despite being warned of the likely consequences) resulted in a negative easement being created, which now bars such routes:


Therefore you can't travel to Victoria on such a ticket and would need another ticket from Balham to cover your journey into Victoria. Since you have a season ticket, the train doesn't need to stop at Balham for you to extend your journey to Victoria with an additional ticket.

However you would need to buy the additional ticket (e.g. as an eTicket) before the train departs the last station where your season ticket is valid - i.e. likely East Croydon if it's a fast service. You can't just touch out at Victoria with an Oyster card or contactless card/device as you need to touch in and out to validly make a PAYG journey.

Much better gates are available but TOCs don't seem to want a mixed fleet.

 

[yorkie]

Thanks @Watershed - most helpful ad informative.

Is there a thread about raising this to the TOCs attention resulting in the easement? Would make fascinating reading!

Frustrating reading , more like!

Here it is:

Train station range covered by London Thameslink?

Hi, I am going to travel back to Brighton after traveling to the West Coast Main Line at London Euston. I was searching for tickets from London Euston to Brighton on trainsplit and found a ticket called "London Thameslink to Brighton" that is priced the same as the ticket from St Pancras to...

www.railforums.co.uk

This is correct.

However in my opinion, your exploits in particular (and, to probably a lesser extent, those of others) in trying to gain additional valdity to distant terminals is likely to result in the rules being changed back to how they used to be, i.e. the shortest route data would go back to including the LU mileage. The sad thing about this is that it would also remove some totally reasonable routes.

I have just contacted Customer Service about this ticket as I intend to use it in combination with a Travelcard season ticket. The response is that it isn't expected to be valid this way via Waterloo - Clapham Junction, however we all know that it's valid using the usual rules of the Routeing Guide, which means unfortunately what we see as a perfectly normal routing (mapped route to London and continue to another terminal) is actually a loophole which is not drawn to the attention of the Pricing Manager.

The ticket can currently be validated via Waterloo East / Clapham Junction on National Rail Enquiries by entering suitable parameters.

The most flexible reasonably-priced ticket from Brighton with access to most terminals is a ticket to West Hampstead Stations routed +Any Permitted, priced by Thameslink with cheap Super Off-Peak Day Return available, which indisputely allows the use of all southern terminals and the whole of Thameslink core, and it should also allow Euston, Moorgate and Liverpool Street as well as there is a mapped route from these terminals to West Hampstead (Overground).

Bringing this ticket to the attention of the train company will almost certainly result restrictions from Waterloo East introduced.

Shame someone chose to make GTR so blindly aware of the issue!

Among other things, they also threatened to make a tool that would calculate over distance loophole tickets and bring them to the attention of pricing managers. This was years ago; it never materialised. But I have no doubt they would have carried out their threat if they had been capable of producing such a tool.

Such a tool does exist, but only a handful of people have access to it. The result for York to Leeds is 'interesting' and demonstrates why such a tool should never actually be released. If anyone wants to know a bit more about it, join us at a forum walk / meal / fares workshop some time.

There are many examples of fares being valid via routes that undercut intermediate journeys, and some people are very keen to put a stop to such routes. Many have already been closed down, but there are good ones that remain for as long as people don't use them irresponsibly and/or bring them to the attention of certain people such as pricing managers etc.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Much better gates are available but TOCs don't seem to want a mixed fleet.

And in the London and Project Oval areas you're restricted to Cubic as you can't put a TfL reader on a non-Cubic gate.

Though that does beg the question of what will happen if new stations are built or gates get upgraded/replaced at such stations once Indra takes over the TfL contract from Cubic.

 

[white43306]

I never even knew my ticket was valid legitimately to places like Balham, is there anywhere I can find a list of stations I can use some how?

 

[Adam Williams]

And in the London and Project Oval areas you're restricted to Cubic as you can't put a TfL reader on a non-Cubic gate

I'd thought that TfL owned all the intellectual property related to contactless - which on the face of it seems like a very sensible thing to do to avoid vendor lock-in - so I'm quite surprised we're stuck in this position where there is effectively no choice. Perhaps there is something fundamental I am missing.

 

[Watershed]

I never even knew my ticket was valid legitimately to places like Balham, is there anywhere I can find a list of stations I can use some how?

There isn't a list, unfortunately. You can work it out using the Routeing Guide but it's not particularly easy and there are a number of 'gotchas'.

The simplest way of checking whether you can validly travel via a station, is to enter it as a 'via' point in a journey planner and see whether the fare you have bought (a "not Underground" routed ticket to London Thameslink) is offered for that route.

Unfortunately if you ever 'via Balham', you will probably get journeys via Clapham Junction (which is not valid) because that's the quickest route. You would need a journey planner that allows multiple via and avoid points, for example TrainSplit or the forum's ticketing site (a branded version of TrainSplit) which allow up to 3 via and 3 avoid points in the advanced settings.

 

[Adam Williams]

allow up to 3 via and 3 avoid points in the advanced settings

I am unaware of any such limitation.

 

[Watershed]

Ah that must have been a past limitation (in the frontend), good to know it's no longer the case!

 

[Adam Williams]

Yeah, seems to be in place on the V3/classic site but I don't think was implemented elsewhere - I'm not really sure why!