We’ve long been pressing for passengers to have the flexibility to use their rail tickets on tubes and buses between London terminal stations during the London Bridge rebuilding.  This is an important detail that should have been agreed months ago.

Southeastern have this morning announced that there is to be some ticket acceptance between Charing Cross/Waterloo/Cannon Street/London Bridge:

“Southeastern passengers who are travelling to Charing Cross or Waterloo East are required to change at London Bridge or travel to Cannon Street, where their tickets will be accepted on London Underground and eligible bus services on the section of routes between London Bridge and Waterloo / Southwark, between London Bridge and Charing Cross, and between Cannon Street and Charing Cross / Embankment. Greenwich passengers may use the DLR for travel between Greenwich and Lewisham.”

That’s some good news – at last.

The Thameslink Programme website has some more details (although there are some typos and unclear points as marked):

Systems such as Oyster and ticket barriers will be programmed to allow eligible passengers to use their existing National Rail, Oyster and Contactless tickets/products to pass through barriers on the TfL network.

There are a number of exceptions to this:

• Magnetic paper point-to-point tickets on TfL bus services which will need to be shown to the driver.
• Southern specific Smart Cards on TfL bus services which will need to be shown to the driver.

You can use the following Underground and [bus?] routes without being charged:

• Between London Bridge and Waterloo/Southwark on the Jubilee line and on bus services (services 381 and RV1) on the section of route between London Bridge and Waterloo.
• Between London Bridge and Charing Cross on Jubilee/Bakerloo/Northern Lines and on bus services (services RV1 [? London Bridge to Covent Garden?] and 15 [? north end of London Bridge to Charing Cross?]) on the section of route between London Bridge and Charing Cross.
• Between Cannon Street and Charing Cross/Embankment on District/Circle lines and on bus services (service 15) on the section of route between Cannon Street and Charing Cross.
• Between Elephant and Castle and London Bridge on Northern Line and on bus services (service 35, 40, 133 & 343) on the section of route between Elephant and Castle and London Bridge.
• Between Blackfriars and London Bridge and on bus services (service 17 (Blackfriars North), 381 & RV1 (Blackfriars South)) on the section of route between Blackfriars and London Bridge.
• Greenwich passengers may use the DLR for travel between Greenwich and Lewisham.

The ticketing arrangement applies to all ticket types including National Rail season tickets and day tickets, Oyster Pay As you Go, Contactless and Southern Smartcards.

If you have a Travelcard (daily or season) you can use any route; however if you have a ‘London Terminals’ tickets will need to follow the specified routes to complete journeys.

It’s disappointing that Victoria is not part of this arrangement.   For Sevenoaks passengers this means that they do not have the cost-free option of travelling via Otford or Orpington and avoiding the congested rail stations.

However the bigger issue if that it has taken months for the different operating companies to come to an agreement on this simple issue – which has minimal real financial cost and which is part of a £6 billion programme – how well are they going to co-operate when the disruption at London Bridge really gets under way in January?

Amended 0745 29 October 2014: to include details from Thameslink website and clarifications from the SER Stakeholder meeting on 28 October.