On 16 Oct, 23:38, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

Looking at the single fare finder, it seems that the default route for
stations west of Dalston Kingsland is changing at Highbury &
Islington, Kings Cross and Bank.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/fa...inder/current/

Just to throw a spanner in the works, before the pink validators were
introduced I often used the NLL from Finchley Rd + Frognal or Gospel
Oak or Camden Town to Wanstead / Snaresbrook on the far reaches of
the Central Line, and I was always charged the none Zone 1 fare i.e
£1.10 at anytime. I've just checked now and it looks as if the
"default fare" west of H+H is indeed the via Zone 1 fare, which seems
a bit silly because the Z1 journey does take a lot longer.
I can understand OP's gripe here as one could easily think that the
default journey is via Stratford and hence would not require touching
the pink validators at Stratford. I cannot believe this is a ploy to
stop people from deliberately using the Zone 1 route but paying the
non Zone 1 fare as it is clear that the NLL to Stratford route would
take considerably less time to complete.
Lucky that I read this post as if I did undertake a Gospel-Oak
Wanstead journey I wouldn't have touched the validators at Stratford
and would have been charged the zone 1 far on exiting Wanstead and as
a result would have been quite peeved.
It seems that the moral of the story is always touch the validators
even if you think that you don't need to on account of the route of
the journey you have undertaken being the quickest and hence, you
think, the cheapest.