martin j wrote:

My wife recently had the experience at Streatham Hill station where
the new Oyster compatible ticket machine was out of order (as are many
on various Southern stations), she needed to do a topup and the ticket
office staff just laughed at her and pointed to their obviously
unofficial sign saying no topups done here. She was able to get this
done at a local newsagent, but aren't all local rail station in the
Travelcard zones supposed to be able to do topups for pay-as-you-go.

No. A lot don't have the equipment and it's not clear who's going to stump
up for it. Look at the ridiculous situation around Oyster Extension Permits
where there's an avoidance rate of c 97%, not least because the things are
not available at most NR stations.

What's the general experience about Oyster pay-as-you-go on National
Rail with Travelcard zones?
Are we just getting a crap service from Southern?

No it's a crap service in general. NR had to be dragged kicking and
screaming into accepting PAYG and have done very little to make it
functional. (Even before the general roll out there were problems on the
sections that accepted it - for instance it wasn't obviously available at
Barking.) Passengers are expected to get PAYG from wherever, regardless of
the different opening hours.