First Great Western Oyster PAYG confirmed for September
The Mayor has announced that First Great Western will be the fifth train company to roll out Oyster on all its London services:
Thousands more passengers using these routes will be able to enjoy the greater convenience and speed of Oyster at stations from West Drayton and Greenford into Paddington. Zonal fares the equivalent of those on the Tube will apply for journeys from these stations.Since April 20th they've accepted it on trains between Paddington, Ealing Broadway and Greenford, but at no other stations. Oddly there's no mention of Heathrow Connect, which is a surprise given much of the local service on this route is supplied by trains with that name on the side*. I shall enquire.
Boris also promises a summit with the five remaining companies to get their agreements sorted out. Apart from South West Trains, none have legally committed to accepting PAYG any time soon. Southeastern do publicly "hope" to accept it by January 2009.
Update: Just had confirmation that, as expected, this applies to Heathrow Connect as far as Hayes & Harlington, but not to Heathrow.
* Heathrow Connect isn't a company, it's the manifestation of an agreement between BAA/Heathrow Express, First Great Western and various government bodies, and has a suitably byzantine operating structure
5 comments:
Presumably Heathrow Connect is included, as the press release mentions Hanwell which only gets one or two non-HC services per day. That said, it'll be highly unlikely PAYG will be valid past Hayes to Heathrow.
Gratifying to see the new mayor trumpeting this as a great step forward for Londoners.
Pity it actually represents a four-month delay when viewed in the light of First GW's telling London Travelwatch back in February that PAYG would be available THIS month.
What's the four-letter word beginning with 's' one associates with political announcements? Ah yes - 'spin' - that's it.
Pity Boris confused Networkrail lines with overground, and Oyster with Oyster PAYG......several references picked up by LBC 97.3.....further confused the same issues
perhaps TfL Overground should rebrand..terrarail or terrorrail might be appropriate if you have used GOBLIN after 9.30PM
I think the Northern line should be extended from edgware station to watford high street. This would reduce traffic in rush hour mornings. Driving to Hampstead Heath in the morning is mad if the line was extended it would benefit the local commuters in watford.
London transport and hertfordshire council need to propose this as the bus service in watford is not good at all. I have had lot of the same views from neighbours and collegues who all feel that the public transport in watford needs to be looked at and needs alot of improvement.
TFL need to look at opening a new underground line similar to the circle line to cover zone 8 and 9. This would be really fantastic as they can call it outer circle line.
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