Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 09:04:31 on Wed, 28 Aug 2013, Recliner remarked:
thus the train does not need to stop at the relevant station as long as
you're travelling on a participating TOC (i.e. all of them except East
Coast, EMT, Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains and Virgin).

That list is almost as long as a "what did the Romans do for us" list.

It's basically a list of all the TOCs that don't have any trains stopping
twice within the Zones (HEx being an oddity) and thus get no money for
Freedom Passes.

Watford Junction being just outside Z8 has a lot to answer for. Life
would be simpler, but I presume ToC revenue would be impacted, if it was
in Z8, which is what geographic common sense would dictate.

Why would it be lower?

Because I believe the ToCs (and TfL) arrange the rules to maximise their
income, and that's therefore the only plausible reason Watford Junction isn't in Z8.

Or even zone 9, like Amersham and Chesham. Funnily enough, Watford Met
station is only in zone 7, and it's about as far out, and only about a mile
away, from the Junction. The main effect of Watford Junction being outside
the zones is that Freedom Passes and other London concessionary tickets
aren't valid to it except on LO, an special fares apply on Oyster (which
are actually very cheap in contra flow).