On Aug 11, 6:32*pm, John B wrote:

In the meantime, we need a guinea pig with a PAYG card and no
Travelcard loaded to touch in and see what happens...

I took a detour on my way home this evening, and gave it a go myself
(stopping via Finsbury Park, where I also touched out at a standalone
reader, and bought a paper ticket just in case)

And... it seems to have worked.

I went down to Wood Green tube and got a journey history printout,
which shows Wood Lane - Finsbury Park (at £0.00) followed by Wood Lane
- Alexandra Palace at £3.80, then the next line says *cap applied*.
This price is also the same as the z1-3 PAYG off-peak cap with
Railcard discount, most of which makes sense.

The journey history on a ticket machine listed "Wood Lane - Alexandra
Palac", and had "Via Z3LO" at the end of the line (although the O had
fallen off the edge of the display a little).

I'm not quite sure what higher price it was trying to charge me, or
whether this is likely to be the actual price charged once PAYG is
properly accepted for this route. It's useful to know though that I
(unofficially) have the option if I'm heading into town and the
Piccadilly Line's not working - and not bad value, provided it's after
9.30am. Of course, it's still a bit of a grey area if one is north of
Finsbury Park and encounters an ticket inspector - though that's never
happened to me on a FCC train.

Incidentally, the readers on the platform were still wearing their
jackets.