Tapping in / out at London Bridge

[williamn]

Is there anywhere to tap in/out at London Bridge other than the gates? Travelled on contactless from St. Pancras but then have a ticket from London Bridge to Wadhurst, so needed to tap out but the only way I could see to do this was at the gates.

 

[Watershed]

No - I suspect this is entirely deliberate, as we hear of quite a lot of cases of people attempting to 'short fare' into London Bridge!

 

[paul1609]

Realistically as you have to interchange at groundlevel it's no bother to go out the gates and back in on a ticket. It is simpler than if you had separate readers. If you are staying on Thames link just use keygo throughout.

 

[Alex365Dash]

Realistically as you have to interchange at groundlevel it's no bother to go out the gates and back in on a ticket. It is simpler than if you had separate readers. If you are staying on Thames link just use keygo throughout.

Assuming that you’re also suggesting OP’s London Bridge to Wadhurst ticket should be on a GTR Key Smartcard, would this actually work considering OP’s destination (where they next touch out) is outside the KeyGo area?

It might, considering that the ticket on the smartcard would operate the validator at Wadhurst and keyGo would open the gates at St Pancras, which is a start.

Assuming that the tap at Wadhurst made its way back to the back office which appears to do calculations for journeys outside the keyGo area, as I found out when making a journey covered under my Travelcard from Stratford(?) to Liverpool Street LU where it didn’t get the touch in at Stratford but did get the touch out at Liverpool Street LU and asked me to fill in my journey, this could be reconciled and possibly correctly charged later but it’s definitely not something I’d suggest trying out since it’s more hassle than it’s worth in the likely event it doesn’t - the system definitely isn’t designed that way!

Of course though, if you’ve attempted this with a journey partially covered by keyGo with a Southeastern-managed station as your destination, I’d be interested to know.

EDIT: It turns out I’ve written an entire reply assuming Wadhurst even has so much as a smartcard validator to begin with, check the station map to make sure it doesn’t have a gateline, and then find out through the National Rail stations page it actually doesn’t have a validator. How do you propose the OP taps out?

 

[paul1609]

Assuming that you’re also suggesting OP’s London Bridge to Wadhurst ticket should be on a GTR Key Smartcard, would this actually work considering OP’s destination (where they next touch out) is outside the KeyGo area?

It might, considering that the ticket on the smartcard would operate the validator at Wadhurst and keyGo would open the gates at St Pancras, which is a start.

Assuming that the tap at Wadhurst made its way back to the back office which appears to do calculations for journeys outside the keyGo area, as I found out when making a journey covered under my Travelcard from Stratford(?) to Liverpool Street LU where it didn’t get the touch in at Stratford but did get the touch out at Liverpool Street LU and asked me to fill in my journey, this could be reconciled and possibly correctly charged later but it’s definitely not something I’d suggest trying out since it’s more hassle than it’s worth in the likely event it doesn’t - the system definitely isn’t designed that way!

Of course though, if you’ve attempted this with a journey partially covered by keyGo with a Southeastern-managed station as your destination, I’d be interested to know.

EDIT: It turns out I’ve written an entire reply assuming Wadhurst even has so much as a smartcard validator to begin with, check the station map to make sure it doesn’t have a gateline, and then find out through the National Rail stations page it actually doesn’t have a validator. How do you propose the OP taps out?

I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying. If your travelling from St Pancras. to Wadhurst the logical route is to change to a Southeastern (an OLR company) at London Bridge. Thames link (or GTR) don't serve Wadhurst so you have to change platforms by returning to the ground level so passing out of the barrier to tap out of contact less and then re-entering on a paper ticket, e ticket or itso really isn't an issue.
Wadhurst is outside of the Keygo area. Most Southeastern stations only have super off peak returns to/from London Terminals which doesn't include St Pancras for non hs1 tickets so it will often be cheaper to use contact less to London Bridge and then a super off peak ticket from there.
I don't use Wadhurst station but I'd be surprised if it does have smart card validators as SE have been using it for seasons for sometime.

 

[Haywain]

The season from Wadhurst would allow onward travel to Blackfriars and the exit/entry there could be done at platform level, which might be slightly easier. However, changing at London Bridge is likely to involve a change of platforms so the extra trip to the gateline would be a minor inconvenience.

 

[williamn]

No season, Wadhurst ticket was on paper. I don’t think Wadhurst has card readers.

Yes the gate line isn’t massively out of the way, but it’s not particularly intuitive to have to use them to tap out.

 

[Alex365Dash]

I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying. If your travelling from St Pancras. to Wadhurst the logical route is to change to a Southeastern (an OLR company) at London Bridge. Thames link (or GTR) don't serve Wadhurst so you have to change platforms by returning to the ground level so passing out of the barrier to tap out of contact less and then re-entering on a paper ticket, e ticket or itso really isn't an issue.
Wadhurst is outside of the Keygo area. Most Southeastern stations only have super off peak returns to/from London Terminals which doesn't include St Pancras for non hs1 tickets so it will often be cheaper to use contact less to London Bridge and then a super off peak ticket from there.
I don't use Wadhurst station but I'd be surprised if it does have smart card validators as SE have been using it for seasons for sometime.

I did indeed!

 

[Haywain]

Yes the gate line isn’t massively out of the way, but it’s not particularly intuitive to have to use them to tap out

For a lot of people using two tickets isn’t particularly intuitive.

 

[williamn]

For a lot of people using two tickets isn’t particularly intuitive.

In my case I had a pre existing return portion of a period return to use for the London to Wadhurst leg, and I was arriving into St. Pancras from a trip, so using Thameslink to connect to London Bridge seems like a normal thing to do.