Dave Newt wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

As she'd travelled from a terminal (i.e. Liverpool St) she'd be charged
£5 if she hadn't touched out and 'completed' her journey, so the walk
was worth it!

Thanks - that is what I guessed from memory. Bloody stupid restriction
though - having it valid on a short line, but just random bits thereof.


V annoying, yes. Thankfully pre-pay will be valid on National Rail (NR)
all over London - but not until 2008 at the earliest [1].

It's all down to transport politicking - if TfL had waited for NR to
agree to participate in Oyster Pre-Pay, it would never have been
launched. By going ahead with Pre-Pay and making a success of it on the
Tube, TfL has forced the hand of the wary DfT into agreeing to it's
introduction.

I remember reading something on here where Paul Corfield - who famously
admits to working for LU and was involved in Oysters early days [2] -
saying that London Transport couldn't get the NR TOCs to take this
future smartcard ticket system seriously in the 90's. Though I doubt
there would've been a utopia of co-operation if LT had to have dealt
with a pre-privatisation Network Southeast given the traditional BR/LT
animosity! Perhaps I'm being too harsh.


[1]
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-cent...t.asp?prID=776

[2] To be honest I'm not sure of what Paul does (and in the past did)
for LU, but he was involved in the Prestige project at some point. AIUI
Prestige is the name of the whole ticketing system run by TranSys for
TfL which includes Oyster smartcards.