Author: Bob Handford
Get Through The Ticket Barriers Like A Local First Time
The short clip below demonstrates the ticket barriers on London’s Underground network. You will have to negotiate a set of ticket barriers both on entering the Underground system and when you exit.
Very similar barriers are also in place at London’s railway stations.
If you have an Oyster Card just swipe your card over the yellow pad on top of the ticket barrier.
If you have a Travelcard on a card or have bought a single ticket then insert it into the barrier (and don’t forget to pick it up again, you’ll need it to get out at the end of your journey!)
There is also a display on top of the machine. For Oyster cards this will show at the end of your journey how much your Oyster has been charged.
Children under 11 travel free on the London Underground and are not issued with tickets.
For such children you will need to go through a manned gate, not one of the automatic barriers.
If you have a wheelchair, pushchair or have big luggage then there is a special wide gate, (see end of video clip below)
17 Comments
4 of us are travelling to London for 3 days – Friday afternoon (14th June) until Sunday lunchtime.
What are the best tickets/travel cards to buy?
My son and his girlfriend (both 17) already have Oyster cards
For 3 days an Oyster Card like your son sounds the appropriate ticket/pass.
My husband and I have purchased London Passes along with 7 day Travelcards. Must we have Photocards as well??
No
Hi, Bob,
My wife,my daughter aged 9 and I will be in London for 5 days starting 6th to 9th May.
I have searched in vain for a cheaper price for a daily family travelcard for zone 1-2.
There is only one price per adult but I cannot find a family price. Can you advise me?
Best regards,
Danny
There are no family tickets on London’s public transport.
For 5 days a 7 day Travelcard is cheaper than 5 x 1 day Travelcards
However, your 11 year old needs an Oyster ID Card to qualify for child fares for a 7 day Travelcard.
Your option is to eithe buy 5 x 1 day Child Travelcards which don’t require an ID card or to buy the 7 Day Travelcard from a railway station ticket office (not Underground) that will issse a PhotoCard free on the spot if you bring along a passport size photograph.
Is late May to early June the high season or low season for travelling to England?
In terms of getting to the UK the cost is driven by where you are travelling from and to an extent how popular that is with British travel patterns going the other way.
Once you are in England, May, June and early July will be peak for London as there is both business and leisure travellers at full throttle.
In the UK, kids only get about 6 weeks off for the summer holiday centred on August so families take their main holiday around August, the busiest week is the last in July.
However, because of this business, conferences and training courses fall off and so in London August is a relatively cheap time for hotels, especially if you want 4 star hotels favoured by businessmen that are no longer there.
On the flip side, as the British are away at this time most of the places outside London are at their peak in August and end of July.
Hi, Bob,
Since my husband and I will stay at London for 3 days, we have already bought the London Pass with travel. However, we will then leave London and go to Brighton and stay there for 2 days. After that we will go to Scarborough and York. Finally back to London again. Do you think we must buy an Oyster card for travelling between underground and the railway stations?
Is it more flexible and cheaper if we book the tickets stop by stop(i.e. we book the tickets from Brighton to London, then from London to Scarborough)
We can use journey planner to book the tickets directly from Brighton to Scarborough, but it is more expensive.
We will arrivve Heathrow terminal 4 at 06:45, but we cannot use the travel card before 09:30, so what can we do? Do we need to go to Queensway, do we need buy an Oyster card ?
There are direct trains fron Brghton to St Pancras station in London, that is connected to Kings Cross Station where the York trains start from so there is no Underground required.
Railway fares are very complex and unpredictable. Normally it is chaeper to buy a complete through ticket than two individual fares but sometimes it is not.
I suspect you may get a good price for a return Kings Cross to York fare, rather than a Brighton to York, then another single fare back to London.
The only real way of find out is trying the railway planner, url below – promotional fares come out 3 months prior to travel and are a fraction of the price if you pay on the day for any longer distance trips.
http://www.londontoolkit.com/affs/london_trainline.htm
If your flight is on time then it will be close to 8 a.m. before you get through customs.
If you have an off peak Travelcard then you can travel at any time on Saturday or Sunday.
From Heathrow you’re probably better off going to Bayswater, rather than Queensway – the stations are only 200 yards apart. Change at Earls Court.
An hour or so isn’t too bad to kill time at Terminal 4, there is a Weatherspoon’s pub and a few coffee shops in T4.
Travelling at that time mid-week with luggage on the Underground might not be a great start to your break, it will be very crowded by the time you hit Earls Court.
You could pay a cash fare on the Undergrond.
You could take the Heathrow Connect train to Ealing Broadway (not covered by Oyster / Travelcard) then get the Underground to Queensway or you could blow the expense and get the Heathrow Express to paddington, under a mile from Bayswater then get a black cab.
I want to use an Oyster card from Heathrow to Crayford. I believe both are within zones 1-6 at either end of London. I think you swipe the oyster card at the beginning and end of the journey in order for the fare to be calculated. I plan on travelling underground from Heathrow to London Bridge and then overground to Crayford. Am I able to change at London Bridge from underground to overground without swiping my oyster card?
Afraid not, its 2 separate journeys
I will be arriving from Newcastle upon Tyne to Kings Cross and then take the tube to Heathrow Underground.as I want to get to terminal 5 I need prices of this last journey and time it takes to arrive to terminal 5. Is this the cheapest way to travel from Newcastle??Is this easy to do with a medium suitcase??Thanks a lot
The single fare between Kings Cross and Heathrow on the Underground is £5.50 and the journey time is scheduled to take an hour.
The cheapest opton from Newcastle to Heathrow would be National Express bus, but obviously much slower.
Thank you very much for your prompt reply
peak time in sense not too many people on the tube cuz as i said i will have luggage (a big suit case)
i have seen that 8:30 to 9:30 AM would be peak time and in evening 5
The Underground is always busy whatever tine you travel, you may well have to stand at the times you are travelling.
The Underground Station at Euston is beneath the railway station, just follow the signs down the escalators within the station.
When you get on the platform at Green Park if you look at the electrovic destination boards it will be clear if the next train is going to T4
For cash fares there is no peak / off peak fares its a standard flat fare.