Senior Railcard

[hellymedic]

A crowded gateline is not the place to faff with a phone if you're able-bodied.
A crowded gateline is not the place to faff with a phone if you're encumbered by luggage, a child or two or a bicycle.
A crowded gateline is not the place to faff with a phone if you're disabled.

I wouldn't want to be standing on a crowded train & have to show an e-ticket to an inspector, either.

[lissotriton]

Most train companies now have NFC smartcards you can load tickets onto. Could be easier than faffing with a phone. Just have to make sure your tickets are loaded beforehand.

Though not sure if any way of storing a railcard on the smartcard? You can for some of the ScotRail railcards, don't know about other companies or national railcards.

[Kim]

There is/was a go-to-the-ticket-office-in-That-London procedure for linking your Disabled Railcard (and possibly other railcards?) with your Mollusc.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It is said that plans are afoot, though not yet on hand, now that rail is being taken over by GBR, to close many (most?) ticket offices and replace them with ticket vending machines and online purchases. TVMs do, at present, still dispense orange card. Online I believe still can but prefers not to. What neither of them will give is advice of the "best go via Bigglesford but split at Winville Magna and if you're coming back on Friday best take a single to Seaborough Bay" sort  (but then not all ticket offices can really do that either nowadays).

[Paul H]

TVMs do, at present, still dispense orange card.

Not in my local station, you get a paper ticket, like a wide till receipt, with printed travel details and QR code to scan through the barriers. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

For "card" read "physical printed object".

[MikeFromLFE]

The Young Mr M who works in the railway industry (but no longer has anything to do with passengers) has told me that orange tickets and magnetic stripes are being quickly phased out in favour of 3D bar codes.
He's not impressed with the technical know how of the people in his industry who ought to understand technology, although he's generally of the impression that GBR might shake things up a bit.

It's my understanding that the adoption of NFC is a TOC specific solution, not industry wide. This is possibly due to the luddites referred to above at a national level.

[Jaded]

Slightly off-topic, but in That London the weekend before last I had a Senior Moment in Paddington, fretting that I hadn’t NFC’d my way out of the below ground stuff. Of course, I had, and it was mandatory (not like some termini in London), but I realised that the two years of far less travel had reduced my internal confidence. Probably a bit like it is being older.

[Wowbagger]

Sorry - glossary of terms needed please.

TOC I know = Train Operating Company.

NFC?

GBR?

TVM? Edit: light gone on Ticket Vending Machine?

[Kim]

NFC = Near-field Communication.  In this context, communication between a mobile phone and another device over a range of a few centimetres by magnetic induction.  Think contactless payments.

GBR = Great British Railways, the re-branding of Network Rail.

[Cudzoziemiec]

TVM? Edit: light gone on Ticket Vending Machine?

Your light is bright and right.

[Mr Larrington]

GBR = Great British Railways, the re-branding of Network Rail.

AKA “Greatly Adored Genius Grant Shapps' Train Set”

Last edited by contribsx 2022-07-01 15:11

[Tim Hall]

There is/was a go-to-the-ticket-office-in-That-London procedure for linking your Disabled Railcard (and possibly other railcards?) with your Mollusc.

Senior Railcard can be linked but AFAIK a Network Railcard can't.  (Translation clarification: I'm assuming Mollusc is Oyster card).

[Wowbagger]

I don't possess an oyster card.

[Kim]

I don't think I do any more.  Last time I used the Tube, I just used contactless.  But barakta maintained a Mollusc after leaving That London (while we lived there, she was entitled to a Freedom Pass) in order to have the Disabled Railcard discount applied.

[Wowbagger]

I read somewhere, quite a while ago, that if you repeatedly use the same contactless card for tube journeys in excess of a certain amount, then a maximum daily amount kicks in and you get charged that, rather than the number of trips you make. But - if I need to go the London from Southend and I'm expecting to use the tube, then buying a 1-day "travelcard" is, I think, the most economical way of doing this.

[Notsototalnewbie]

If you have an iphone then you can already use it as a contactless card on TFL trains, trams and buses without doing anything to it other than switching this option on one time (I guess this is the tech Kim is talking about). I don't know about other phones. This is very useful as you don't need to rummage round in an app.

For trains outside London I moved over to e-tickets since getting the dog because the point at which I collected tickets from the machine was also the point at which most people chose to swoop and try to pat her on the head while I tap the reference number in, which she does not like (a hi-viz bandana warns of this but we all know how much notice people take of hi-viz) and it inevitably results in barking which echoes all around the concourse and makes everyone look at us. So I chose to cut that step out where I could. Iphone does make it quite easy to access the e-tickets via the Wallet app so I'm not faffing at gates.

[Beardy]

I have about 6 or seven Molusc cards that I have collected over the years, with varying amounts of cash still recorded. Getting said valise transferred to a single card (last time I tried) requires you to use them within a certain timeframe which is not easy when one rarely travels to THAT LONDON any more. I might remember to take them all and visit a manned TFL office (if I can find one!) and ask them to do the necessary.

[lissotriton]

I read somewhere, quite a while ago, that if you repeatedly use the same contactless card for tube journeys in excess of a certain amount, then a maximum daily amount kicks in and you get charged that, rather than the number of trips you make. But - if I need to go the London from Southend and I'm expecting to use the tube, then buying a 1-day "travelcard" is, I think, the most economical way of doing this.

The daily cap is usually a bit cheaper than the equivalent travelcard. Can check prices here. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares
Either using an Oyster, or contactless card, or phone. Just have to make sure you use the same card all day.

Though the weekly cap is much the same price as a 7 day travelcard. And the weekly cap is Monday to Sunday, whereas you could start a 7 day travelcard on another day, maybe more useful.

[ian]

I have about 6 or seven Molusc cards that I have collected over the years, with varying amounts of cash still recorded. Getting said valise transferred to a single card (last time I tried) requires you to use them within a certain timeframe which is not easy when one rarely travels to THAT LONDON any more. I might remember to take them all and visit a manned TFL office (if I can find one!) and ask them to do the necessary.

You can get them refunded online – that's what I did when I switched to only using contactless.

[Beardy]

I’ve ordered a disabled persons rail card, which is actually cheaper than a senior persons rail card and as noted above allows +1 to travel at ⅔ cost. However, as many of you know, the concept of ‘registered disabled’ has been consigned to the history books and as I’ve always had NHS hearing aids, I’ve never been issued with prescription. So the only documented evidence of my hearing aid user status is my NHS ‘battery book’. As I’ve never used it, I had to rummage around in a draw and fill in the front cover with my name and address before I could photograph it and attach it to my application. It doesn’t seem like much in the way of official evidence, but we’ll see. I’ve now got to wait for someone to vet my application before they’ll issue me the card. Which is a pain because I’m travelling today.

[Wowbagger]

If you can demonstrate that you have applied, the ticket inspector accepts that with other railcards.  Dunno about disabled ones though. Worth a punt I reckon.

[Aidan]

I’ve ordered a disabled persons rail card, which is actually cheaper than a senior persons rail card and as noted above allows +1 to travel at ⅔ cost. However, as many of you know, the concept of ‘registered disabled’ has been consigned to the history books and as I’ve always had NHS hearing aids, I’ve never been issued with prescription. So the only documented evidence of my hearing aid user status is my NHS ‘battery book’. As I’ve never used it, I had to rummage around in a draw and fill in the front cover with my name and address before I could photograph it and attach it to my application. It doesn’t seem like much in the way of official evidence, but we’ll see. I’ve now got to wait for someone to vet my application before they’ll issue me the card. Which is a pain because I’m travelling today.

They accepted my battery book as enough evidence,  didnt take too long either, that was three or four years ago. I didnt travel between application and receiving the card so cant help there, but have been asked to show my card pretty much every time I've travelled.

[MikeFromLFE]

Apparently the battery book is the official evidence required.
Bizarre, but there we are

[barakta]

Not all audiology departments use battery books. I have two from 4 different audiology depts I've used in adulthood - I didn't have a book as a child at all. They were often stingy when I was a kid, only giving out 6 batteries at a time, which was hardly any use to me cos bone conduction aids munch through batteries in a shorter time than even analogue aids did. We did have a lovely hearing aid centre man who gave us boxes of 6x 6 batteries without a fuss and got my hearing aids fixed when they broke.

Kim recently went to collect more batteries from audiology for me (an easy bikeride for her) and they didn't even want the book which is unusual. I think they either log it on the computer or recognise the faff isn't worth the low risk of fraud. Just say 2x BAHA and they give us plenty cos they have a set dispensing rate depending on type and number of aids (or cochlear implants).

I got my first disabled railcard in ~1996 and I think we had to some bullshit registering with social services for the first time since my infancy to prove relevant disability status for me as it wasn't as simplified as it was now (railcard page still lets you get social services stamps - deities know how you get a stamp out of such, they don't respond to registration since the 2000s - cos I got made to do that for bus passes). Once I had that first social services stamp tho, the railcard renewals have come from that.

I do now have a second layer of eligibility now through PIP (formerly DLA) and indeed I kept my battery books for that purpose if nothing else.