Network Railcard

The card is intended to encourage leisure travel by rail by offering discounts for adults and accompanying children on a wide range of off-peak fares.

The Network SouthEast brand was introduced to what had been the London & South East sector of British Rail on 10 June 1986.

[3] At this time, the name Network Railcard was adopted; the joint-holder option was removed; the price was increased to £20.00; and the First Class supplement facility was discontinued.

[10] In May 2009 the Network Railcard terms were revised again, making the card both more expensive and raising the minimum fare for a discount to £13.00.

This is left blank if an adult is travelling at full (undiscounted) fare; but if any discount or other special condition applies, a code of up to five letters appears.

ATOC introduced the following codes accordingly,[11] and uploaded them to all ticket issuing systems in mid-2002: By August 2003 (18 May 2002 + 15 months), no "old" Network Railcards remained in use, and ATOC eventually stopped using the new codes on ticket issuing systems, reverting to NSE and CHNSE instead; however, the codes NR02A and NR02C are still used in paper and online forms of the National Fares Manuals issued to the train operating companies, Rail Appointed Travel Agents and other ticket-issuing locations.

As can be seen, discounts of various sizes were given until 1997 to holders of Young Persons and Senior Railcards who wanted to buy a Network Card.

[12] These discounted Network Cards were issued in bulk on British Rail's behalf at an agency in Slough, and carried an endorsement on the reverse to show which type of reduction applied.

[2] First Class supplement upgrade tickets were initially priced at a flat fare of £1.00 for both adults and children for any length of journey.

[15][page needed] Although ownership had declined to around 360,000 by the time of the £10.00 minimum fare change in 2002,[7] extra ticket sales totalling approximately £70 million were still generated per year.

The following extensions have been made at various times since the scheme was introduced: The London & South East map shows the boundary of the Network Railcard area as of 2019.

The earliest version of the Network Card, issued manually rather than through an APTIS machine.
The first APTIS version of the Network Card. This was used from the start of the APTIS era in 1986/1987 until well into the 1990s, as stocks had to be used up despite the introduction of the new-look orange-banded version in 1991.
The introduction of the weekday minimum fare condition in 2002 resulted in a minor change: the red "R" shows that this is the "Revised" version of the railcard.
A First Class supplement ticket showing the post-February 1990 flat fare of £3.00.