On Jul 20, 12:31*am, Roy Badami wrote:
I recently had need to make a return journey on my Oyster card from
Kings Cross St Pancras tube station to the Canonbury Overground station.

Interchanging at Highbury and Islington on the outward journey there was
a pink Oyster validator on the Overground platform at Highbury and
Islington with instructions that one must touch the validator when
interchanging at that station, and a notice about penalties for
travelling without a validated Oyster card. *It was worded in a way that
didn't seem to make touching the pink validator optional.

My recollection of previous descriptions on this group was that the pink
validators were route validators, and that one could optionally touch
them to get cheaper journeys when one took a route using fewer zones?

So, is their use really compulsory? *If so, under what circumstances?
Does one always need to check for route validators on every platform one
interchanges at, or is Underground-to-Overground transfer a special case?

In a word Roy (well, not many), no, I don't think there is (or indeed
can possibly be) any compulsion to use Oyster route validators (or
penalty for not using them) - touching on them mid-journey can
possibly result in a cheaper (non zone 1) fare being charged, but that
is conditional on the specific journey that a passenger is making. In
your case, a journey from KXSP to Canonbury is always going to be a
zones 1&2 journey - no possible way of avoiding zone 1 because you
started there!


I touched the pink validitor as instructed (although, not expecting it,
I very nearly failed to notice the validator); what (if anything) would
have happened if I *hadn't* touched the pink validator?

Nothing, and you would have still been travelling perfectly
legitimately.

Oyster route validators are all about providing a way for people to
prove they've avoided zone 1 and hence allow them to pay/ be charged
the non-z1 fare.

Commissioner Hendy's Pread-Street-torian guards won't be hunting you
down for this, worry not. But that chocolate truffle you had on the
Victoria line - it wasn't infused with booze, was it?