Buying National rail tickets when / if LUL ticket offices close

[whole diary]

[Surrey 455]

I mentioned in another post that I had bought a National rail ticket from West Ham underground station. This has made me wonder how easy it will be to buy these tickets in the future if the ticket offices close at a station that serves both LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) and National rail. I did see LUL ticket machines but no NR^» (Network Rail - home page) ones. Can you buy NR tickets from an LUL machine? You can't collect prepaid tickets from them can you?

[ChrisB]

I have seen LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) machines showing a selection of fares onto the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) network - I think on the outer echelons on the Met line (but it might have been on a different line, I didn't take much notice as I dudn't want one)....

However, LUL shared stations wouldn't be the only National Rail stations to not have TOD ability, so that's not really an issue for this debate

[Brucey]

A "limited selection" (in TfL^» (Transport for London - about)'s words when I asked them) of NR^» (Network Rail - home page) tickets are available from TfL machines at stations where LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) provide ticket issuing facilities on behalf of NR*.  But in reality, it depends on what has been programmed into the machine.  I understand someone has to manually enter the fares available for each station.  At the ticket office, they can look up fares that aren't in their machine and manually (yes, manually) enter them into their computer.

My experience at West Ruislip (which is on the Chiltern line up to Birmingham Moor Street) would sell tickets to most Chiltern destinations up to Birmingham, with three ticket types (super off peak, off peak and anytime) being available and at slightly different fares to the NR machine.

Using a pink ticket issued to Birmingham Stations was fun after I'd changed to Cross Country and Virgin services at Banbury and Coventry respectively.  Neither had seen such a ticket previously.

* = However, at stations where LUL provide the ticketing on behalf of London Overground (e.g. at Harrow & Wealdstone), the TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) are actually LO's Scheidt & Bachmann machines and print on orange stock, just the machines are LUL branded.  But the ticket office still uses LUL machines and prints on pink stock.  Confused yet...? 

[Worcester_Passenger]

On my trip round the Overground during the LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) strike, I tried to buy a ticket at Camden Road ticket office to get me back to Worcester.

But I was quoted a staggering price (^100+), so I did the journey to Clapham Junction on my Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) and rebooked there.

Question : should I have been able to buy a Worcester ticket at Camden Road?

[Brucey]

On my trip round the Overground during the LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) strike, I tried to buy a ticket at Camden Road ticket office to get me back to Worcester.

But I was quoted a staggering price (^100+), so I did the journey to Clapham Junction on my Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) and rebooked there.

Question : should I have been able to buy a Worcester ticket at Camden Road?

Yes, London Overground can retail the full range of National Rail tickets, including those outside London.  They can also do reservations, advance fares, rovers, railcards, anything really.  However the training they are given is very minimal and lacking, whilst staff attitude appears to be very poor.

[SDS]

London Overground in all but name is a NR^» (Network Rail - home page) TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), and as such has to abide by the TSA^▸ (Ticketing and Settlement Agreement.).

So if the LO ticket office is being difficult then report them to Atoc for breaching the TSA. There are some exceptions and they are listed in Schedule 17. Only 7 LO stations can (or have to) do reservations according to Sch 17 but not before 10am.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks for posting that useful information, SDS.

I've added 'TSA^▸ (Ticketing and Settlement Agreement.)' - Ticketing and Settlement Agreement - to our acronyms/abbreviations page, and for those who wish to read further on the subject, the TSA is available on the ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) website.