On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:29:55 -0700, Mizter T wrote:

SNIPPED

Useful to know - though it is rather an odd situation. By what logic
does LU decide chuck zones A-D in as well?!

Is it even possible to buy a Zones 1-D Travelcard from a NR ticket
office (whether railcard-discounted or not) - or indeed from a
newsagent?

Section K of the NFM [1] suggests this is all possible, but I'm not
sure how I'd fancy my luck in getting a 1-D Travelcard from the ticket
office of say Lewisham or even Maidstone station.

Bizarrely it seems the NFM refers to the outboundary Met Line stations
both by their specific names and also uses the term(s) Outer
Underground zones 7 to 10, instead of using zones A-D (see page K2.3).
Is confurion purposefully designed into the ticketing system?!


[1] http://www.atoc.org/retail/_downloads/NFM/sectionk.pdf

It's interesting to read that in the fares manual.

I go from Bromley to Amersham on a semi-regular basis. The first time I
went, Bromley station (zone 5) told me that they could not issue 1-D
travelcards. They could only sell me a standard day return for
£18.80(!)[1] - compare with £7.40 for a 1-D travelcard. The National Rail
website also offers a cheap day return at £17.00 (I was travelling off
peak). I also tried a ticket agent who was much more helpful than the
station but who also was not able to sell me the travelcard. Eventually I
bought cheap day return to London and used Oyster pre-pay from London
Bridge to Amersham. It's valid all the way, including on Chiltern Trains
services.

I wrote to TfL about this and they replied that travelcards including
zones A-D can only be issued at Underground stations, not agents or
National Rail. Apparently "low demand" is to blame. It's not very helpful
if you live in South London quite some way from an Underground station.

Does anyone know why the single and return tickets are so expensive for
this route? It's not just Bromley, similar fares apply from Croydon as
well. Even a £17 cheap day return is far more than the sum of its parts.

A

[1] Actually I first went over a year ago and don't remember the exact
prices then - these are from the National Rail website today.