Charlbury Station Ticket Office

Wed 7 Sep 2022, 09:52

Thank you William. That is indeed helpful.

But how do you show where and when you have got onto the train, given there is no ticket gate or platform validator at Charlbury? This would be particularly relevant for those using a flexi-season ticket, allowing travel for 8 days of travel between 2 specified places in any 28 day period.

Do you have to touch in on the ticket machine at the start of every journey? Or how else does it work?

Given that single and return tickets can't be bought on a smart card at Charlbury except online, at least 2 hours in advance of travel, having to load them onto to the smartcard via the machine makes more sense. It hardly reduces queues at the machine, however! 

Very interested to hear from anyone who uses a GWR smart card for single and return journeys from Charlbury. Also those who have opted for a smartcard from any other train company (e.g. Chiltern) and who have used it to travel from and to Charlbury. 

Wed 7 Sep 2022, 07:32

An update for those who might find it useful.

The ticket office was open today but the very helpful staff member couldn’t load the season ticket using her machine - she said this was a repeated issue. She suggested it was automatically loaded but that she can’t see that and recommended I check via the ticket machine outside. I tapped and the screen showed my season ticket on the card. 

So Christine, I should think that might help in relation to your concerns but I don’t know if season tickets work differently to regular tickets. It did give me the option to add tickets to my card though so I think so.

Purchase online and choose Charlbury but just tap on the outside machine to check it’s loaded. 

Tue 6 Sep 2022, 14:22

Alex, thanks for the advice but you have to select an option at purchase and I checked Charlbury, according to the information they send the information to the Ticket Office. I don’t travel to Oxford so it doesn’t make much sense to travel there just to pick up a ticket to travel elsewhere. 

Tue 6 Sep 2022, 12:46

I travelled most days last week and the only day I saw the ticket office open was Friday

Tue 6 Sep 2022, 12:44

Why not travel to Oxford station and get it done there? Just an idea. 

Tue 6 Sep 2022, 12:42 (last edited on Tue 6 Sep 2022, 13:33)

Does Charlbury ticket office offer this smartcard loading facility even when they are open? 

I was very puzzled by the smallprint on the GWR smartcard page which says "You can get your touch smartcard straight away from any GWR ticket office*, *excluding Camborne, Liskeard, Crowthorne, Mortimer, Bramley, Cholsey, North Camp, Charlbury, Tiverton Parkway, Yeovil Pen Mill, and Yatton."

But perhaps it's OK for season tickets, although not for buying single or return tickets on a smartcard?? 

And I can also see that there is no smartcard platform validator at Charlbury, but the National Rail site does say that smartcards are accepted from Charlbury for some (but not all) journeys.

It all seems very unfair, and I decided against a smartcard because I couldn't understand how it would work from Charlbury. This doesn't matter to me much now, but I may want to use this facility when the Elizabeth Line from Reading opens up in a more joined up way in a few months time.

Would really appreciate somebody explaining it all.

Tue 6 Sep 2022, 12:01 (last edited on Tue 6 Sep 2022, 12:01)

Hello,

Does anybody know if the ticket office is open “as usual” again? I need to load a season ticket on to my smart card but don’t know how else to do so if Charlbury is closed.