On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:18:06 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

You are entitled to one full journey on LUL on the outward and return
legs. The only way you could "break" a journey is at an out of station
interchange where the gates are configured to allow such a break but
with a time limit in place.

Out of interest, do you know how long that time limit is?

I knew someone would ask. I know what it used to be for OSIs but I
understand that it has been amended to deal with pre-pay issues such as
the one below. I can't recall what the new time limit.

I presume the same time limit applies for Oyster Pre-Pay in similar
out-of-staion interchange situations?

I believe you would be right.

It strikes me that it might need to be different at different
locations. I'm particularly thinking of journeys like the reverse of
the one below, where you could have to wait on the concourse at Euston
for up to half an hour before going through the barriers to board your
fast train to Harrow & Wealdstone. At Marylebone on Sundays there's
only 1tph to the Amersham line (and you can't really go through the
barriers until the platform is announced, shortly before departure).
OK so it's unlikely anyone would end up waiting for the full hour, but
it shows that you can't easily define a maximum interchange time.

OTOH, at a Tube interchange like KX, or going in the other direction
(Euston NR to Euston Tube), 15 minutes would be more than plenty.

Incidentally, if you arrived at the NR concourse to find a long wait
ahead (e.g. if your train was cancelled), is there any way you could
decide to continue your journey by Tube instead without being charged
for a new journey? (At Euston you might be able resume from Euston
Square, but what about, say, Marylebone?)

I've also wondered if Oyster Pre-Pay allows for such out-of-station
interchanges at more locations than paper ticketing would. An example -
I recently travelled from Harrow & Wealdstone to Euston (on
Silverlink), then on south via the Northern Line to Balham. I was
pleased to see the following when I checked my Oyster journey history
on a Tube ticket machine...

Harrow & Wealdstone - Euston
Harrow & Wealdstone - Balham

Which is, of course, correct and demonstrates how much more complex the
ticketing logic needs to be to deal with the permutations that are
possible. Now scale it up for pre-pay for all of NR in London!

... i.e. the whole journey of Harrow & Wealdstone to Balham had been
treated as one. I've never done the aforementioned journey on a £3.80
tube single ticket but if I did I would fear that it'd be swallowed by
the ticket gates at Euston with the presumption that I'd completed my
journey.

It'd be nice if there was a list available of all the out-of-station
interchanges. IMHO information like this should be made available to
passengers, as it's a fairly opaque part of the ticketing system, and
it would make their journeys easier without having to worry about
being charged twice. Does anyone have one? Some of them are less than
obvious (e.g. Baker Street to Marylebone NR).