Great Western Coffee Shop

I renewed my annual travelcard with SWT in January. It's exactly the same one as before except it's a bit more pricey. Bought at the same station. Since then I've noticed that when I change trains at SWT stations and pop outside for a smoke or something to eat, the ticket barriers let me back in without any hassle. Last year I would have to wait about 10 minutes for the barriers to accept my ticket again or I'd have to show it to gate staff to get back in.

Has the software on the barriers changed or is there something different about my ticket this time?

Haven't tested this at Ealing Bdwy or Padd stations.

It has almost certainly been programmed into the barriers.  There was an explanation a while back in a different forum that mag stripe tickets cannot contain enough info to control barriers at intermediate stations, and only hold origin and destination, or London zones if applicable.  Programming the barriers is not an insignificant task either, as at any given station there are loads of station pairs that may be valid, but far more pairs that won't be, and the barrier isn't intelligent enough to look up the routeing guide on the fly when you present a random ticket.  AIUI rather than an actual 'software change' it is a question of loading additional data manually for each possible journey that is valid through the station, so the default situation, considered across the whole network, is normally that break of journey doesn't work.

Paul

I'd be interested to know if this now works at Paddington.. Many is the time I've got to my train to find I can't actually get on it as it's sooo full.. And then to add insult to injury the barrier won't let me back out to the main concourse.. I imagine I'll get to test it myself soon  ;D ::)