London London Underground

[gramps]

Looking to visit ‘the smoke’ for a days street photography and that will mean arriving by train at Paddington and then tube onward.

What’s best for paying for tube travel - do I need a card and purchase before or at Paddington?
How does it work? (I normally use car, bus or ferryboat and my last London visits, years ago, used expense-paid taxis!)

 

[Musicman]

Using your contactless bank card is the easiest these days

Contactless and mobile pay as you go

Use a contactless bank card or mobile device to pay as you go on all our transport services

tfl.gov.uk

It's pay as you go, no registration required.

Just make sure to use the same card every time* and it will be capped at a daily rate appropriate for the zones you travel in - once you have hit that limit, there are no further charges. Travel on buses and trams is also included.

* You can also use your mobile phone for contactless payments, but for travel it is treated as a separate card from the physical card it is linked to, so make sure you use only one or the other consistently.

 

[gramps]

Brilliant, thank you.

 

[Bodian]

Using your contactless bank card is the easiest these days

Contactless and mobile pay as you go

Use a contactless bank card or mobile device to pay as you go on all our transport services

tfl.gov.uk

It's pay as you go, no registration required.

Just make sure to use the same card every time* and it will be capped at a daily rate appropriate for the zones you travel in - once you have hit that limit, there are no further charges. Travel on buses and trams is also included.

* You can also use your mobile phone for contactless payments, but for travel it is treated as a separate card from the physical card it is linked to, so make sure you use only one or the other consistently.

But make sure you don't spend too long underground taking photos. Or what will happen is that the system assumes that you completed an earlier journey and didn't 'tap-out' when leaving the tube - and will charge you a fortune for avoiding a fare, which will then take you weeks of bickering with TFL to get refunded....

Speaking from experience obviously!

 

[gramps]

But make sure you don't spend too long underground taking photos. Or what will happen is that the system assumes that you completed an earlier journey and didn't 'tap-out' when leaving the tube - and will charge you a fortune for avoiding a fare, which will then take you weeks of bickering with TFL to get refunded....

Speaking from experience obviously!

Ouch ... a distinct possibility, is there a specific time-limit?

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

But make sure you don't spend too long underground taking photos.

Before doing that, you may want to read London Underground's advice about taking pictures....

Guide to filming or taking photos on the TfL network

Find the costs and rules for filming on TfL's network

tfl.gov.uk

...most of it is about professional usage, so skip to the end and read the small section for "private photographers".

 

[Bodian]

Before doing that, you may want to read London Underground's advice about taking pictures....

Guide to filming or taking photos on the TfL network

Find the costs and rules for filming on TfL's network

tfl.gov.uk

...most of it is about professional usage, so skip to the end and read the small section for "private photographers".

View attachment 424704

Very interesting. I've been down many a time with my tripod, and no-one has ever been concerned. I do recall one security guard approaching me to see what I was up to, but when he saw I was just taking photos of the mosaics and artwork on some of the walls he wandered off.

This is one of my favourites.

 

[Bodian]

Ouch ... a distinct possibility, is there a specific time-limit?

Depends where you are going! Although they seem to have changed it to 'double the price of the fare' rather than something like the £60 I was billed.

Keep within maximum journey times

Keep within maximum journey times when you travel so you don't pay more for your journey

tfl.gov.uk

 

[Willid1]

Although you do not need to register your contactless card to use it on the TFL network I was advise you to set up and account and register your card as this makes it much easier to correct mistakes and miss charges.

Hopefully this will no happen to you but as any seasoned London traveller will tell you it's actually quite easy to confuse the charging system and it does not always sort itself out without intervention.

And yes there is a TFL Maximum Journey time as they oviously cannot concieve of anyone wanting to spend more the absolute minimum time for a journey.

HTH

David

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

And yes there is a TFL Maximum Journey time as they oviously cannot concieve of anyone wanting to spend more the absolute minimum time for a journey.

After school, a few friends and I would get out at Golders Green, grab the bench at the far end of the platform and hang around there for an hour or more until one boy's mum came to pick him up.

None of the staff bothered us. Mind you, the 'sixties wasn't so much a different country as a different universe!

 

[nx4737]

Bit late to the party here, but I'd recommend going for a ride on the DLR, it's a unique experience, but going back to the subject of payment, it doesn't have ticket barriers, so you have to tap in/out on the Oyster readers that aren't always where you'd expect them to be!

I echo the advice about creating a TFL account though, so if you do forget to tap out somewhere, it's a simple task to correct it, the system is quite clever and can sometimes auto-complete the journey for you,

I changed from the Central line to Greater Anglia at Stratford a couple of weeks ago and forgot to tap out of the TFL network on the Oyster reader on the platforms, logged in the following day and yes, auto completed, I'm guessing this happens in certain locations quite a lot though...