My understanding is that contactless payment should now be accepted on all services fast and slow between London and Reading. However, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website is not particularly clear on this, and I'm finding that neither ticket office staff at Reading nor many train managers on long distance services have any understanding of this. Repeated advice I've received at Reading ticket office is that contactless is only valid on TfL^» (Transport for London - about) services, while I've now faced two rather bemused train managers on long distance GWR services who have had to ring their control for advice on what to do when I explain why I'm travelling without a ticket.

Using contactless to travel between Reading and London costs £24.40 peak and £10.60 off peak. The equivalent peak or off peak return paper tickets cost £48.90 and £21.20 so using contactless both ways will save you 10p on the paper tickets. However while a paper peak single ticket is a bit more than half a return at £25.90, a paper single off peak costs £21.20 only 10p less than the return. This means some much bigger savings are possible if you want to travel in the peak in one direction and off peak in the other, as using contactless you can buy a combination of peak and off peak tickets for £35, whereas doing the same for paperless costs £47.10. For someone like me who commutes occasionally into London and generally goes in early and back late this provides a nice saving.

To add the confusion, the definition of peak and off peak is different for contactless and paper tickets. In the evening from London, going contactless you are charged peak fare on any service if you tap in between 16:00 and 19:00, whereas an off peak paper ticket allows you to travel on a whole host of stopping services (mainly the TfL services) during this time.

This means one can now see a small group of wised up travellers loitering by the gate line at Paddington wanting to catch the 19:02 fast train to Reading, who all tap in as soon as the clock ticks past 19:00 and then run down the platform to jump on the train for £10.60. Meanwhile those with off peak paper tickets have to stand and watch or pay £25.90 for a peak single.

https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/tickets-railcards-and-season-tickets/contactless-payment

I got told that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) get negative publicity and public criticism if they declare a void day as this is then excluded from their PPM^▸ (Parry People Mover, or Pence Per Mile, or Public Performance Measure - depending on context) performance measures which impacts season ticket discounts. I was told they were damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I was also told that in the past that FGW had been too generous in declaring void days, and that they have since made a corporate decision to assess the criteria rather more strictly. The manager wasn't able to explain what these criteria actually are, and agreed with me that these need to be better publicised. Indeed I was told they would pursue this with their web team as a high priority.

On last Friday, she said that disruption did not impact enough of the day to be declared void. The manager I was speaking with didn't know the reasons for the 28th December but they promised they would get back to me with an explanation and took my email.

All in all, whilst I didn't really come away particularly convinced by any of this, I did get the impression that some of my points about the lack of transparency in the way void days are declared was at least heard with a degree of sympathy. They also admitted that this issue had been raised by a number of other people that morning.

If I ever hear anything more I'll let you know.