Paul Terry wrote:

Well currently Epsom Downs doesn't have Sunday services or for that matter
a
ticket office (the station building is now a nursery) but the other
stations
do and the point does apply to evenings. In the old days the solution was
obvious - buy a permit to travel and sort it out on the train or the
destination.

But a permit to travel only covers the user from the starting station to a
point at which they can pay for a ticket.

Maybe in theory but it was proof of intention to buy a ticket and so one
could request the extension in good faith either from an inspector on the
train or at the destination. One didn't need to interrupt the journey en
route purely to obtain the extension.

What I'm saying is that the situation from 2/1/2010 is no worse than it is
at present - the journey will have to be interrupted at some point in
order to either buy an extension ticket or collect an OEP if neither are
available at the start of the journey.

Well that *is* worse to be honest because one currently *doesn't* need to
stop off en route as the human contact on the trains are aware that there
are stations where one cannot buy the necessary ticket. That's different
from the OEP system where at a ticket inspection en route the passenger is
expected to have sorted all this out at the start and tough myran if
that's not possible at the start,