Commuting from Potters Bar to Kings Cross St Pancras

[OrangeTree83]

Hello all,

I've browsed a few threads here and elsewhere about season tickets etc from Potters Bar, and I'm not too proud to admit that I am confused.

I will be moving to Potters Bar in the new year. The nature of my work means that my commute changes day to day in terms of destination stations but the most common options all seem to converge largely around Baker Street when coming from the north (as opposed to at the moment, when I travel from the west) - Baker St itself, Regents Park, St John's Wood, London Bridge. Ok, so there's also Sloane Square which will be a pain but that's a further level of complication I am not worrying about at this point.

Therefore my current plan is to aim for Baker St via Kings Cross St Pancras most days. The question is whether I do so by getting the mainline from Potters Bar into Kings Cross, or get a bus to Cockfosters and just do it all on the tube network using Contactless. As Potters Bar station would also mean getting a bus, and as I'm more accustomed to the tube, I suspect that Cockfosters will be my main plan at least at first, with Potters Bar as an alternative. However, going via Potters Bar would actually be marginally quicker even taking the bus into account, and so I'm willing to be convinced otherwise- IF the fare implications are reasonable and I can get my head around them (please bear in mind I am far too used to the simplicity of the tube).

So...background over, my question is this. If I was to decide to use Potters Bar fairly often, what are my options? I'm not even sure where to buy a season ticket but that may be the next problem.

I have read that the next stop south of Potters Bar (apologies, the name escapes me) is actually on the Oyster system. Would it therefore be possible to get a season ticket just from Potters Bar there, or would that mean I had to get off the train there, touch in with my Contactless card, and then wait for the next train? I have a feeling I would, and clearly that would negate any advantage in time saved. Also, does anyone know how much that journey (from the edge of the Oyster zone to Kings Cross) would cost, as I'm assuming it is outside the tube capping system? And would anyone happen to know the cost of such a season ticket, either from Potters Bar to Kings Cross or alternatively just from Potters Bar to the next station- in fact, is that even possible? How many journeys do you even get on a season ticket anyway?

Apologies for all the stupid questions, but I'm very new to all this and I haven't been able to find them answered anywhere in a simple enough fashion. Explain Like I'm Five, as they say on Reddit. Also, any other suggestions would of course be gratefully received. A season ticket from Potters Bar to Baker Street presumably isn't an option, especially as I wouldn't necessarily be touching out.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

A season ticket from Potters Bar to Baker Street presumably isn't an option, especially as I wouldn't necessarily be touching out.

If you are happy to travel via Potters Bar every day, then Potters Bar to Zone 1 would surely be the choice. That's available as a Travelcard.

http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=PBR&dest=1072

As it covers Zones 1 to 6, I believe it would also be valid at Cockfosters and on buses for that matter.

The weekly Price is shown as £ 74.00

For London Terminals (Kings Cross & Moorgate) only, the price is £ 51.10

 

[greatkingrat]

For comparison a Zone 1-5 Travelcard is £55.20 per week. This is valid at Cockfosters, and on the bus to Potters Bar, but not on the train to Potters Bar.

 

[cuccir]

Yes, a Travelcard would be valid on bus 298 from Cockfosters to Potters Bar.

Another point to make would be that Hadley Wood, the station before Potters Bar which is in the Oyster Zone, is under 2 miles from the most southern houses in Potters Bar. If you're on that side of town, it would certainly be cyclable, depending on the stuff you need to carry to work etc...

--
Though note that there is currently a proposal to change the terminus of this service in Potters Bar.

 

[Deerfold]

For comparison a Zone 1-5 Travelcard is £55.20 per week. This is valid at Cockfosters, and on the bus to Potters Bar, but not on the train to Potters Bar.

And would get you to Baker Street or any other Central London destination (and quite a way out in any direction).

To get this on Oyster you'd have to buy at a tube station - or you could use contactless cards on the bus and tube which would cost no more than a weekly season and may cost less if there's days when you don't travel.

What bus route(s) do you live closest to? If they're TfL routes they'll be covered too.

It does feel very slow commuting on the 298 - it's only every 20 mins (30 evenings / Sundays) which feels like a long time if you just miss one from the tube (especially if you're waiting to cross the road when it goes by).

 

[OrangeTree83]

And would get you to Baker Street or any other Central London destination (and quite a way out in any direction).

To get this on Oyster you'd have to buy at a tube station - or you could use contactless cards on the bus and tube which would cost no more than a weekly season and may cost less if there's days when you don't travel.

What bus route(s) do you live closest to? If they're TfL routes they'll be covered too.

It does feel very slow commuting on the 298 - it's only every 20 mins (30 evenings / Sundays) which feels like a long time if you just miss one from the tube (especially if you're waiting to cross the road when it goes by).

Yes the 298 is my option for Cockfosters it appears, and I must admit the timetable did make me raise my eyebrows somewhat...I've been spoilt living in Richmond the last few years and having 2 routes with 2 or 3 buses each arriving every 10-15 minutes plus a tube station at the end of the road.

Also, I will always be travelling back in the evenings as I don't finish work until 8.30pm. So 30 minutes it is...

More options it seems going towards Potters Bar with either the 298 in the other direction or, from what I've seen, the 313, 'PB1', 84/ 84A, or 242 doing the job. No idea which of those apart from the 298, if any, are tfl buses....anyone? Or about a 20 minute walk which isn't out of the question at all.

I'll be living just off Southgate Road, near the junction of Mutton Lane and the High Street. Hadley Wood is indeed just a shade over 2 miles away....does anyone know how much it would cost on Oyster/ Contactless to go from Hadley Wood to wherever the tube capping comes in?

Sincere thanks to everyone for all the help.

 

[OrangeTree83]

Actually, on the subject of evenings...I would be travelling to work about 6.30am and back about 9 - 9.30 pm (by the time I've got to either Cockfosters or Kings Cross). Any options for off peak travelcards/ season tickets in that case? I hadn't thought of that at all until now.

 

[Deerfold]

More options it seems going towards Potters Bar with either the 298 in the other direction or, from what I've seen, the 313, 'PB1', 84/ 84A, or 242 doing the job. No idea which of those apart from the 298, if any, are tfl buses....anyone? Or about a 20 minute walk which isn't out of the question at all.

The Travelcard will be valid on 298 or 313 (and infrequent school buses 692 and 699). It used to be valid on the 84 South of Potters Bar but hasn't been for a couple of years.

 

[Deerfold]

The 610 and 611 Luton to Cockfosters/Enfield runs approximately hourly by Uno. Sullivan buses run the 398 hourly to Watford. Most of the other buses in the area are run by Metroline. Intalink do offer tickets that can be used on all non-TfL buses in the area but they're quite expensive for the amount you're likely to be using them.

Unfortunately I don't know of any tickets that can be used on the 298 and the 610/1 except for Plusbus - and that's not valid very far and would need a rail ticket from Potters Bar.

 

[cuccir]

I'll be living just off Southgate Road, near the junction of Mutton Lane and the High Street.

Just a point on this one - it doesn't look to me like you'd benefit from getting a bus to Potters Bar station, given the lower frequencies in the 'burbs compared to London.

Hadley Wood is indeed just a shade over 2 miles away....does anyone know how much it would cost on Oyster/ Contactless to go from Hadley Wood to wherever the tube capping comes in?

Hadley Wood is covered by a Zone 1-6 Travelcard (£59.10) - Oyster weekly capping would be the same cost. Cockfosters is in zone 5 so you'd want a Zone 1-5 Travelcard (£55.20), again weekly capping is the same. If you're only travelling 5 days a week, you'd pay £55 a week to Cockfosters or £59 a week to Hadley Wood using daily Oyster caps. There's no difference in off-peak/peak prices is this instance.

I don't know for sure how the fares for bus tickets work on these routes which go out of the zones, particularly if you've reached Oyster caps or have a travelcard? If it's included (as greatkingrat implies) then your choice seems to me to be between:

* A £74.00 a week Potters Bar - Zone 1-6 Travelcard, which would give you the most flexibility, allowing you to go to Potters Bar or to Cockfosters and get a bus

* A £59.10 London Travelcard Zones 1-6/Oyster Cap, which allows you to go to either Hadley Wood (and cycle home?) or Cockfosters and get a bus

* A £55.20 London Travelcard Zones 1-5/Oyster Cap, which leaves you with Cockfosters and bus as your option

If there is an extra charge for the bus, then the Potters Bar ticket seems to give you the best option

 

[Deerfold]

I don't know for sure how the fares for bus tickets work on these routes which go out of the zones, particularly if you've reached Oyster caps or have a travelcard? If it's included (as greatkingrat implies) then your choice seems to me to be between:

If there is an extra charge for the bus, then the Potters Bar ticket seems to give you the best option

At the moment all TfL buses which leave the zones ignore that fact.
A Travelcard or capped Oyster/contactless card (for any zones) includes any number of buses.
Without a cap, Oyster/contactless will charge £1.50 for 1 or 2 buses (where the second touch is within an hour of the first).

Bus fares outside the zones have not been higher then inside since 2001 (when some fares outside the zones fell substantially).

 

[Deerfold]

I don't know for sure how the fares for bus tickets work on these routes which go out of the zones, particularly if you've reached Oyster caps or have a travelcard? If it's included (as greatkingrat implies) then your choice seems to me to be between:

* A £74.00 a week Potters Bar - Zone 1-6 Travelcard, which would give you the most flexibility, allowing you to go to Potters Bar or to Cockfosters and get a bus

* A £59.10 London Travelcard Zones 1-6/Oyster Cap, which allows you to go to either Hadley Wood (and cycle home?) or Cockfosters and get a bus

* A £55.20 London Travelcard Zones 1-5/Oyster Cap, which leaves you with Cockfosters and bus as your option

* A £51.10 a week Potters Bar - Kings Cross/Moorgate then PAYG on the tube or bus at £2.40 a tube (within zone 1) or £1.50 a bus. This would not include any local Potters Bar bus fares unless you'd already capped for the day on Oyster or contactless.

 

[OrangeTree83]

Another sort of related question...regardless of cost for the moment, what are the practicalities of getting on a bus 'out there'...you mention capping in relation to Potters Bar buses, does that mean I could use my Contactless card on them and count towards the cap, or is it a pay on te bus and/or paper ticket situation? Or does that depend if it's a tfl route or not?

 

[Deerfold]

Another sort of related question...regardless of cost for the moment, what are the practicalities of getting on a bus 'out there'...you mention capping in relation to Potters Bar buses, does that mean I could use my Contactless card on them and count towards the cap, or is it a pay on te bus and/or paper ticket situation? Or does that depend if it's a tfl route or not?

On the TfL buses you cannot pay with cash. Unless you have already bought a bus pass or Travelcard you will need to use an Oystercard or Contactless card. This will count towards any daily caps (or charge no more if you've already hit a cap).

On the other buses, cash payments are normal. Metroline do some season tickets, I'm not sure about the others. Intalink.org.uk do some coordination and pay for some bus services, but they're very understaffed and underfunded these days.

These may help:

http://www.intalink.org.uk/tickets/
http://unobus.info/fares.shtml
https://www.metroline.co.uk/country-routes

 

[OrangeTree83]

Very helpful indeed, thank you once again to everyone.

One hopefully final question if I may....although the web seems a bit vague on such things, it looks like there is no such thing as an off peak train from Potters Bar towards London (East Coast Main Line run by Virgin, I believe). Can that be true?

 

[cuccir]

First, the trains from Potters Bar are operated by the Great Northern brand of Thameslink trains - Virgin only do the long distance trains on the East Coast: the closest to London that any of these stop at is Stevenage.

There's no such thing as an Off-Peak train anywhere . For future reference, that answer is slightly pedantic but it may be useful to know that 'off-peak' is determined by the ticket that you hold, rather than the train itself. You can find out when a ticket is valid at BR Fares, though if you're not familiar with ticketing it's not the most intuitive site.

For journeys to 'London Terminals' from Potters Bar, the Off-Peak Day Return ticket is not valid on trains departing from Potters Bar from 04:29-09:39. If you buy it with a Travelcard the wording is slightly different (it's not valid on trains after 04:29 arriving into London before 10:00) but the effect is the same.

The Super Off-Peak Return and Super Off-Peak Single are valid only on weekends and Bank Holidays.

 

[philjo]

If you are planning to use the buses be aware that the bus routes cross over the M25 junction and will get delayed if there are problems on the M25.
The traffic in Potters Bar can get bad around school times.
when the M25 has a bad day it can take a lot longer to get through Potters Bar.

One morning a couple of weeks ago the traffic lights on the South Mimms roundabout failed causing the traffic to back up on both M25 and A1(M) around 8am and by 9am many of the buses through Potters bar were taking nearly an hour longer then scheduled. So if you have an important early appointment you would need to allow for potential delays.

 

[jon0844]

Google maps (or another navigation app) can be your friend here. My Android phone now has an option to tell me the traffic conditions in the locality automatically each morning (and evening, or indeed any times it knows I travel). You could even set up the home/work locations as being the two bus stops end to end, so you'll get to know if there are delays directly affecting your journey.

Otherwise a quick check to see if the roads are orange/red or there's an incident could mean deciding to travel by train for that one time, and just buying a single ticket as appropriate (if you had a Z1-5 travelcard, that would mean a Potters Bar to boundary zone 5 ticket, which I assume you can buy?).

Traffic on most navigation apps is now scarily accurate and real-time, based on data gathered from hundreds and even thousands of mobile users.

 

[OrangeTree83]

Otherwise a quick check to see if the roads are orange/red or there's an incident could mean deciding to travel by train for that one time, and just buying a single ticket as appropriate (if you had a Z1-5 travelcard, that would mean a Potters Bar to boundary zone 5 ticket, which I assume you can buy?).

Opening this up to the floor....

 

[ainsworth74]

There are indeed tickets to/from Boundary Zone 5 and Potters Bar. Anytime Day Return £4.50, Off-Peak Day Return £4.20 and Super Off-Peak Day Return £3.00. So if you wanted to on the odd occasion use Potters Bar station you'd just need to buy the appropriate ticket before travel from a ticket office (sadly they're not available online or from machines).

 

[OrangeTree83]

Excellent stuff!

 

[island]

There are indeed tickets to/from Boundary Zone 5 and Potters Bar. Anytime Day Return £4.50, Off-Peak Day Return £4.20 and Super Off-Peak Day Return £3.00. So if you wanted to on the odd occasion use Potters Bar station you'd just need to buy the appropriate ticket before travel from a ticket office (sadly they're not available online or from machines).

They are available from some machines, though possibly not those the OP is likely to encounter.

 

[OrangeTree83]

I'm still confused...apologies all. Humour me if you will.

If I get a boundary of zone 5 to Potters Bar ticket then how am I covered between the boundary of zone 5 and Kings Cross seeing as I won't be touching into the tube network with my Contactless card until I get there, but my paper ticket will stop covering me at said boundary - or, on the way back, I will presumably be getting through the gates for the train to Potters Bar using my Contactless card (as my boundary of zone 5 ticket won't be any use yet) but I then won't be touching out again.

Do I need to get off the train somewhere at the boundary of zone 5, go out with one card/ticket and then back in again with the other?

 

[greatkingrat]

You wouldn't be able to use a contactless card here. You would have to either buy a paper zones 1-5 travelcard, or a travelcard stored on Oyster.

 

[OrangeTree83]

That makes sense. Thank you.

 

[OrangeTree83]

Thanks once again to everyone for the great advice here.

As has become increasingly apparent, I am a complete novice when it comes to dealing with mainline trains and while a lot of this stuff probably seems simple to many of you, to someone used to just tapping in and out on the tube every day it can be a bit baffling. As I have demonstrated...

I must admit that my first inkling was to aim for Cockfosters most days and keep Potters Bar as an occasional alternative, due mainly to the aforementioned sense of familiarity with the tube network.

However, especially given the excellent local insight on the possible delays with buses to Cockfosters- my job not being one where I can really afford to be late as it impacts on the preceding shift - I am now thinking that getting up marginally earlier and travelling from Potters Bar may be the best option, meaning I am at least on a train rather than the road when travelling south. It also turns out that there is a slight advantage in terms of tube fares in travelling to my various destination stations from Kings Cross rather than Cockfosters...which seems weird, but there we go.

At the very least I will give it a try for a while and see how it goes.

I assume the service is fairly reliable- I mean, it's not Southern is it at least. Of course, any dire warnings from people accustomed to the service in advance would be appreciated!

For the record, it appears on investigation thay any kind of travelcard or combination of travelcard and ticket doesn't really seem to be an ideal option in my situation, as from my calculations the daily price works out much the same and while there are clearly discounts to be enjoyed with weekly or monthly options depending on use, that's the rub really - as I am never sure how many journeys I will be making in any given week - some weeks it may be 4 or 5 and a weekly/ monthly travelcard would seem a bargain, but some weeks it may only be 2 even and therefore I stand to lose all the advantage gained during the previous week.

Thanks again everybody. I was utterly baffled and posted here as something of a last resort, hoping for maybe one or two helpful replies, and it has been more helpful than I could ever have imagined.

Now I just need to try and get a straight answer out of Metroline about their fares...although I will probably just stick to the TFL routes initially for the convenience of using my Contactless card.

Only pain will be having to buy a ticket every morning...I've gotten too used to the convenience of turning up as a train pulls in and waltzing through the barriers with a tap!

 

[jon0844]

GTR has said that it intends to introduce a form of flexible season. I forget the specifics, and so far there's no date for implementation, but the principle is that you can pay for a weekly or monthly ticket - but use it over a longer period.

You MUST tap in and out every time, and being caught without having tapped in will get you in trouble (penalty fare or possible prosecution) but this does mean you get the savings even if you only do 2 or 3 days travel in a week.

It has all gone quiet of late, so I have no idea if it's still going to happen. I do believe it's part of the contract though and someone else might be able to advise further.

 

[OrangeTree83]

Yes, I remember hearing about that but as it seemed to have all gone quiet I had pretty much forgotten about it. Wll keep an eye out though.

 

[jon0844]

Yes, I remember hearing about that but as it seemed to have all gone quiet I had pretty much forgotten about it. Wll keep an eye out though.

Just about anything to do with The Key has gone quiet. They did what they had to do contractually, then seemed to forget about it.

The flexible season option would be useful for loads of people, as a good replacement to the awful carnet options today (with all the potential for grief or lost money).

 

[Abpj17]

GTR has said that it intends to introduce a form of flexible season. I forget the specifics, and so far there's no date for implementation, but the principle is that you can pay for a weekly or monthly ticket - but use it over a longer period.

You MUST tap in and out every time, and being caught without having tapped in will get you in trouble (penalty fare or possible prosecution) but this does mean you get the savings even if you only do 2 or 3 days travel in a week.

It has all gone quiet of late, so I have no idea if it's still going to happen. I do believe it's part of the contract though and someone else might be able to advise further.

While it's arguably a whole separate thread - I'm not sure how pay as you go etc. will work on GTR - I've not found the card/gates terribly reliable.