Specific Elizabeth line question (follow up)

My original answer was wrong so I deleted it as not to confuse people.

I think Frank might be wrong but I'm struggling to find a definitive answer. You can definitely buy tickets for travel on the Elizabeth Line at the Heathrow stations and also collect tickets bought online. They are a bit more expensive than using a contactless method or an Oyster card - £15.80 for an off-peak single to Paddington for example, but that would probably be worth it for profjenn's purpose. I can't see why they would not have the National Rail symbol on them but as I say I don't have definitive proof.

For others reading this you can't get a National Rail ticket to go to an Elizabeth Line station between Paddington and Liverpool St but it seems OK just to Paddington. You can also buy and use national rail tickets to pass from Heathrow through London to other UK stations but again it would probably be cheaper not to do that.

There are paper tickets. There are ticket machines beside the gates- at T2/3 they are to the right of the gate line.

Just because everyone on this forum uses contactless does not mean that you can't get paper tickets.

Like when this was asked originally I don't know definitively, although every piece of logic says they should have the correct logo.

As you are trying to do 2for1 responsibly, if I lived anywhere near London I would buy Elizabeth Line tickets in advance for you from a ticket machine at a non Elizabeth Line National rail station, and either mail them to you, or hand deliver them to you.

Paper Tickets for the Elizabeth Line can be issued at any National Rail station up to 12 weeks before travel, post dated. However I live 300 miles away.

I even had a plan to route into London via Heathrow in 2 weeks time, to specially buy a ticket to prove the matter one way or the other then forgot when buying my ticket to London from Edinburgh on Sunday. I knew I meant to do an odd route on that journey, but couldn't remember what.

There was a previous discussion about Elizabeth Line tickets purchased at Heathrow, and whether they had the National Rail symbol so they could be used for 2-4-1 purposes. Maybe someone can find it. But there was no resolution; we ended with the hope that someone in London would buy tickets and resolve the question.

If you go online at national rail.co.uk you can buy tickets for the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow Terminal 5 (Rail station) to Paddington rail station. The website will switch you to Crosscountry Trains for the actual purchase, and the delivery system they offer is to “pick up your tickets at the railway station”. And they say that there are ticket machines for retrieval of tickets at Heathrow T5 in the rail station.

https://crosscountrytrains.train-help.com/en/support/solutions/articles/78000000082-which-stations-have-self-service-ticket-machines

So does the National Rail website:

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/heathrow-terminal-5-rail-station-only/

That does not resolve the question of whether the tickets have the National Rail symbol, but at least you know you can get paper tickets there to check. And hopefully you or someone else will give it a try and report back! Inquiring minds want to know.

I am no UK rail expert, but the fact that the tickets are sold by and issued by Crosscountry Rail seems to weigh in favor of them having the National Rail symbol. I know the Heathrow Express tickets bought online do, but they are definitely not valid for the 2 for 1 offers.

National rail seems to randomly select an operating company for the purchase. I just tried twice and the first time it was going to send me to C2C and the second LNER. It doesn't matter, they will all work and I can't see any reason why they would not have the national rail logo on them.

Thank you all -
@Lola - I was the OP on the previous Elizabeth line thread; just wondering if anyone had new intel as a few weeks had passed since the original question.
@isn31c - you are a good-hearted soul.

If anyone gets any physical 'proof' in the next few weeks, please consider an update? Otherwise, I'll report back in my trip (5weeks and counting).
Jenn

Since Stuart suggested it, I'm happy to buy tickets from Clapton to the national rail London terminus of your choice (Liverpool Street possibly? Would that do?) tomorrow. [edit: it would make more sense for me to buy Heathrow - Paddington tickets from the ticket office at Clapton to keep it more legit]

I had a proper good moan about dummy tickets a while ago so I may be at risk of contradicting the stance taken from my high horse a while back. We shall ignore that if it helps :)

Stuart would those tickets be fine for the OP to take advantage of 2for1?

[edit: I remember now. The protesting I did from my high horse was mainly about someone posting a how-to guide to dummy tickets using a really silly journey]

Gerry- thank you for that offer. When I saw this tonight I realised, too late, my error (which had purposely not been 'advertised' on the original post). I just do such things.

I even know how the error happened- I was meant to have started my southbound journey in Glasgow, not Edinburgh!!

Very thoughtful of you.

Clapton to a London terminal is a genuine journey within the intended meaning of the scheme. Or Heathrow to Paddington.

Maybe the details of this could be ironed out between the OP and Gerry by PM.

Profjen, PM me and I'm happy to Air Mail tickets to you, Happy to do Clapton to Liverpool Street (cheap) or Heathrow to a terminus of your choice.

Absolutely! Will do that tonight.
Best,
Jenn

For the formal record I have checked on the TVM at my local national rail station, Corkickle, this morning. That is on the edge of the Lake District.
Advance dated Elizabeth Line paper tickets can be issued from Heathrow to Paddington for £12.30. That is the same price as contactless or Oyster on the day at the gateline.
I checked for five weeks today, while waiting for my train to Burnley.
Furthermore national railcard discount can be applied off peak to bring that fare down to £8.10.
If I wanted I could get a Heathrow to Corkickle ticket via the Elizabeth Line and tube to Euston.

I've been in touch with Jenn this morning and we should be fine. Thanks Stuart.

To close this matter out yesterday I diverted to Heathrow and purchased a ticket on the Elizabeth Line ticket machines.
I can confirm that it is printed on tickets with the national rail symbol on.

Furthermore the machines can issue tickets from any UK station to any UK station, both for the day of travel and for future dates. They can also both issue new Oyster cards and top up existing ones. Also issue paper day travelcards.

That was what I was using yesterday- a paper day travelcard pre issued in the Lake District. The ticket I paid for yesterday wasn't one I needed, just a demonstration one for the forum.

In short they are all singing, all dancing machines.

And you can collect pre-ordered tickets from them.

Thank you isn31c! This is above and beyond, but appreciated.

I ended up buying some tickets for the OP at Liverpool Street. None of the TfL run Overground stations (at least in my area) are selling National Rail paper tickets now.

Gerry, I know and thanks for that. However it still left the general question, as opposed to this OP's specific needs, open as to what the machines could actually do. Specifically what ticket stock they use.

That is an important and very reasonable question, and it was surprising that between us all it wasn't definitively answerable.

I must admit that I was very surprised at their functionality.

I had to go from the Lake District to York anyway for a horticultural awards ceremony for our Community Garden up here. Because the hotel market is so overheated in York I had to come down to London anyway to catch the overnight coach up, as finding somewhere affordable in York in July turned out to be an impossible ask. That was supposed to be Wednesday in Manchester, evening train or bus to London and straight connection to York.

Not at all ideal to have a 44 hour day, but the tourism market is what it is. And hotel prices are what they are.

In the event I moved Manchester to Monday, then came straight through to London with split ticketing across Stafford (change of train and company), went out to Heathrow in the afternoon then did some other crazy non touristy stuff in the evening before the midnight bus to Leeds for York.

At Heathrow I fitted in some other outstanding war memorial work things at Sipson- actually quite an interesting nearly 2 hours. So made something useful out of the exercise.

Thank you for doing the experiment and confirming that Lizzie Line tix bought from machines do have the National Rail Llogo. that means they count as a ticket “into London’ for the purposes of the Days Out 241 offers.

So if the same is true of tickets bought at Liverpool Street Station to return to Heathrow, one could in theory have access to the 241 offers for one’s entire stay in London?

We now know that you can buy the tickets from the machine at Heathrow, so you'd just buy returns (round trip) and you're good for 2-4-1.