On 19/06/2012 15:47, Paul Corfield wrote:
If it is magnetic then you will need to pay a cash excess at a ticket
office before starting your journey.

You could do as you suggest by breaking your journey at Moor Park
which is on the Z67 boundary by catching a Watford service, doing the
necessary at the ticket hall and going back up to catch an Amersham
train. A quick look shows a 7 minute gap between an arriving Watford
train and the next Amersham. A pain in the posterior I know but
feasible.

Thanks Paul - it will indeed be on a paper ticket because will have been
issued at a National Rail station. Changing at Moor Park would work,
but I agree that it's not ideal. It seems ridiculous to have to change
trains because the ticketing system is so intractable.

Actually I only just realised that Amersham is a national rail station
as well, so maybe I can buy in advance from an NR station an
out-boundary zone 6 to Amersham return before starting my journey.
That would obviously be valid (assuming such a ticket is available) on a
NR train from Marylebone in combination with my Z1-6 travelcard. It's
not clear to me whether it would also be valid on the Metropolitan line.
And I failed to work out how to find the cost on the National Rail
website.

I've been caught by these complications once before when going to
Watford - it seems high time the system was made simple enough that
ordinary mortals can understand it.

--
Clive Page