"John Salmon" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote

Just to clarify, it's a 'zones 6-9 + Grays' fare - and the fact it's
being the same price as a 'zones 5-9 + Grays' fare doesn't surprise
me greatly as many fares are 'stepped' in such a manner.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14414.aspx shows a Zone 6 + Grays fare.
That seems to be the only fare involving Grays that does *not* include
Zones 7-9. Perhaps it's a mistake?

I apologise John, you're absolutely correct. That page is the 'National
Rail' fares page, and I suspect I was just looking at the 'Tube, DLR and LO'
fares page which shows a "Zones 6-9 + Grays" fare, but doesn't show a "Zone
6 + Grays" fare.

I'd strong suspect it's a mistake, yes. TBH, and I'm quite possibly being a
bit dim here, but the inclusion of zones 7-9 in the NR-only fares table
seems a bit of a nonsense anyway. I was going to suggest that it's only done
for the sake of consistency with the Tube/DLR fare table, but then why show
NR fares for say z2-9 when it's impossible to make such journeys at the NR
rate (bearing in mind that journeys on LO's Watford-Euston DC line are
charged at the TfL/Tube rate, including those made on parallel LM services).

Indeed I see there are NR fares shown for the following AFAICS 'impossible'
journeys - z1-7/8/9; z2-7/8/9; z3-7/8/9 - but there's nothing for z4/5/6 to
z7/8/9. Additionally there are fares shown for z1/2/3-9 + Watford Jn, but
nothing for z4/5/6-9 + Watford Jn. Meanwhile going out to Grays, there's
z1/2/3/4/5-9 + Grays and then, as you say, "Zone 6 + Grays" which seems
inconsistent and should I think be z6-9 + Grays.

But the inconsistency seems like nothing compared to the question of why
these NR-rate fares even appear at all, when I can't see what journeys they
can possibly refer to. At a complete guess, maybe they exist to provide
future extra-territorial expansion of the zonal system beyond zone 6, should
any TOC sign up for that - though it'd seem more likely that they'd want to
opt for the arrangement used for fares to/from Watford Jn and also to/from
the four c2c stations yonder zone 6. (Though perhaps it might all start
getting too unwieldy and TfL could say that 'you can join in Oyster PAYG,
but you've got to use zones 7-9' - but I'm just wildly speculating here.)

All that said, I could of course be missing something blindingly obvious
which would explain it all.