Nick Jackson Bucking the trend since 1987.

Oyster Fail

Today, as some of you may know, I am in London with Claire to have a bit of a break, a bit of culture and a bit of musical. Like all good travellers we came prepared – rail tickets booked in advance, hotel reserved, how to get around the tube worked out and a topup for our Oyster cards waiting for us at King’s Cross.

So when our train pulled up at King’s Cross (East Coast first class, nice complimentary tea and coffee) we duly meandered to the Underground station, only to find that since our last visit it had moved. Northern line now exclusively departed from a brand new and very shiny ticket hall. Since our Oyster topups were nominated to be waiting at the Northern/Victoria/Picadilly barrier I smartly swiped my card at the new barriers and walked through. Claire, on the other hand, was stuck. No topup waiting and not enough balance to get through the barrier. Oops.

I then had to touch back out at the same station (incurring a “WTF are you doing?” charge) whilst we sorted the mess out. Gate assistance staff told us to speak to the ticket office, who then gave us some weird advice. Apparently our topup for Northern/Victoria/Picadilly was waiting at the other (older) barriers from which we couldn’t get to the Northern line we so desired. The solution was for us to walk to the barriers at the other end of the station, explain to the gate staff what was going on, touch in (beginning Claire’s journey and acquiring the topup) then walk back and get the gate staff to just whisk us through without touching again.

Fortunately, before being whisked through the barrier I was smart enough to check with the ticket office about the state of my in/out at the same barrier, and the nice man removed my stray transaction so I was back to my original balance with no journeys in progress. As a result of this I got a receipt detailing my £9.50 balance. “Odd”, I thought. “I had £9.50 before, and should have a £10 topup on top of that. Balls”.

It transpired that my topup wasn’t on the Northern/Victoria/Picadilly barrier at King’s Cross, but like Claire’s was on the Northern/Victoria/Picadilly barrier at King’s Cross. Another yomp across the station, explain it to the guards, touch in (we are now both touched in at King’s Cross) and yomp back so we could be waved through sans-touch and get underway.

Apparently this is a recurring issue caused by the new barriers being confused. Annoyingly there is no indication of a problem with the topup not being at the barrier you may expect unless you either a) don’t have enough credit on your card to begin a journey; or b) pay close attention to what the gate tells you about your balance as you rush past. If Claire’s card hadn’t failed to work then we would both have been on our way without our topups, leading to calamity later in the trip.