Waterloo & City Line

[tivoli]

Recently travelled Kings Cross to Waterloo via Bank and W&C line. Entered using Oyster but on leaving at Waterloo ended up on mainline concourse without having to pass through any barrier. Continued journey on SWT to Kew Bridge which presumably registered that we had passed through Waterloo, but had our journey finished at Waterloo would Oyster card have been charged with more than necessary?

 

[mickey]

Yes, unless you 'touched out' using a reader somewhere on the station. Lots of LU/DLR stations have no barriers but there are plenty of readers dotted around for people to use. It's passengers' responsibility to find one if necessary. Often at major stations (particularly Euston) the Underground barriers are left open for crowd control reasons (i.e. the station is too busy to cope!) but Oyster passengers should still scan their cards, and there are usually staff around to remind them.

 

[A60K]

Recently travelled Kings Cross to Waterloo via Bank and W&C line. Entered using Oyster but on leaving at Waterloo ended up on mainline concourse without having to pass through any barrier. Continued journey on SWT to Kew Bridge which presumably registered that we had passed through Waterloo, but had our journey finished at Waterloo would Oyster card have been charged with more than necessary?

As you come up the stairs from the WC at Waterloo there are standalone Oyster readers the same as on the DLR - they're fairly easy to miss if you're expecting a full gateline. And yes, if you were leaving the system at Waterloo and didn't touch out it would be treated as an incomplete journey. My opinion is that unbarried exits should be more clearly designed and marked - on the continent the paid area with validation machines is often laid out in such a way that you can't avoid realising you're passing it.