John Band wrote:
"GreatWesternSean" wrote in message
oups.com...


Well i'd love to get an answer to what i've been wondering for years
now. How come Watford Junction isn't in the travelcard zones when it is
nearer to london than say, Epping? It's even within the M25 area! I
used to think it was because Virgin stopped there but Virgin don't let
people travel to Watford from London.


Epping was only added to the TfL zone system recently (1998ish) -
previously, the stations on the Epping branch of the Central Line outside of
Greater London behaved like the Met stations beyond Moor Park do now. The
idea is to simplify life for Tube travellers (and for TfL ticketing!). The
stations around Hainault, many of which are also in Essex, were in the zone
stysem from the start to simplify life for passengers going round the loop.


You may be right about that, and in that case I was wrong in my other
post, and that would mean that the Hainault line was the only bit
outside of London when zones started.

But I had thought (as I mentioned elsewhere) that it was around the
same time as the Hampton Court line, which I definitely needed
extensions for up to the early 1990s and then no longer did afterwards.


The Met stations remain outside the standard zone system because even in the
interests of simplification, it would be silly to treat a 15 minute
Surbiton - London journey as the same as a 45 minute Amersham - London
journey.

So Watford Junction is out because it doesn't have an Underground service.
Watford Met is out because that bit of the Met has to go beyond the zone
system anyway, so there are no simplification benefits. If TfL were to take
over the DC lines (whether as part of a takeover of NLL service
specification, or a conversion to the Bakerloo - both mooted by official
types recently), things might change, or they might not.

NB Watford is only within the M25 area because the M25 bulges out to go
round Watford:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51....0.853226&hl=en

--
John Band
astic - delete iastic to reply

Epping was only added to the TfL zone system recently (1998ish) -
previously, the stations on the Epping branch of the Central Line outside of Greater London
behaved like the Met stations beyond Moor Park do now. The idea is to simplify life for Tube
travellers (and for TfL ticketing!). The stations around Hainault, many of which are also in
Essex, were in the zone stysem from the start to simplify life for passengers going round the
loop.

All of the stations on the Hainult loop are within walking distance of the Greater
London boundary. The main reason for there inclusion was probably so a journey
from Woodford to Hainault (both in London) would not be charged excessively
because of passing briefly into Essex.

"TKD" wrote in message
. ..

Epping was only added to the TfL zone system recently (1998ish) -
previously, the stations on the Epping branch of the Central Line outside
of Greater London behaved like the Met stations beyond Moor Park do now.
The idea is to simplify life for Tube travellers (and for TfL
ticketing!). The stations around Hainault, many of which are also in
Essex, were in the zone stysem from the start to simplify life for
passengers going round the loop.

All of the stations on the Hainult loop are within walking distance of the
Greater
London boundary. The main reason for there inclusion was probably so a
journey
from Woodford to Hainault (both in London) would not be charged
excessively
because of passing briefly into Essex.

In fact, the only station on the Hainault loop outside Greater London is
Chigwell.

Grange Hill and Roding Valley are right on the boundary line.

In message .com, at
13:11:43 on Thu, 10 Nov 2005, Mizter T remarked:
Also I read a story on the Kingston Times website that says SWT are
considering extending Zone 6 out to "stations such as Esher, Hinchley
Wood and Claygate" [3].

Those three stations are all within the extended urban sprawl that is
London. And Hinchley Wood even has 020 phone numbers (to the east of the
railways line). To that extent they "deserve" to be in Z6 just as much
as Thames Ditton and Hampton Court.

The next stations out, however, are outside that sprawl (just).
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote in
:

In message .com, at
13:11:43 on Thu, 10 Nov 2005, Mizter T remarked:
Also I read a story on the Kingston Times website that says SWT are
considering extending Zone 6 out to "stations such as Esher, Hinchley
Wood and Claygate" [3].

Those three stations are all within the extended urban sprawl that is
London. And Hinchley Wood even has 020 phone numbers (to the east of
the railways line). To that extent they "deserve" to be in Z6 just as
much as Thames Ditton and Hampton Court.

The next stations out, however, are outside that sprawl (just).

The real anomaly is the Tattenham Corner line: because of the way the
Greater London boundary is routed, you can travel further out of central
London to Couldson, but then when you turn back north again, ending up
closer to London than you were before, you are outside the boundary.
Similarly Epsom and Epsom Downs are a lot closer into London than Coulsdon.

In these cases, I wonder whether I'm being cynical in thinking that it's
done like this make visitors to Epsom racetrack pay as much as possible ;-)

You'd think that it would make sense for the boundaries between one "county"
and another to be moved from time to time to take account of any urban
sprawl of a city on the boundary, so as always to avoid splitting that city.
The conurbation of Reading is split between Reading, West Berkshire and
Wokingham, when it would be much better for the boundary to be moved so it
runs through sparsely-populated areas between Reading and the surrounding
villages. Likewise for London - though where you (literally!) draw the line
between London and its surroundings is a more difficult one!

You'd think that it would make sense for the boundaries between one "county"
and another to be moved from time to time to take account of any urban sprawl of a city on the
boundary, so as always to avoid splitting that city. The conurbation of Reading is split between
Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham, when it would be much better for the boundary to be moved
so it runs through sparsely-populated areas between Reading and the surrounding villages. Likewise
for London - though where you (literally!) draw the line between London and its surroundings is a
more difficult one!

Ken Livingstone has suggested aligning the London boundary to the M25.

Initially Epsom, and several other peripheral districts, were intended to be part
of Greater London.

"TKD" wrote

Ken Livingstone has suggested aligning the London boundary to the M25.

Initially Epsom, and several other peripheral districts, were intended to
be part
of Greater London.

The parish of Knockholt was actually put into Greater London, but protested
so much that it escaped back into Kent. Knockholt staton is however, not in
Knockholt and (just) within Greater London, so within Zone 6.

Peter

On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 18:18:18 -0000, "TKD" wrote:


You'd think that it would make sense for the boundaries between one "county"
and another to be moved from time to time to take account of any urban sprawl of a city on the
boundary, so as always to avoid splitting that city. The conurbation of Reading is split between
Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham, when it would be much better for the boundary to be moved
so it runs through sparsely-populated areas between Reading and the surrounding villages. Likewise
for London - though where you (literally!) draw the line between London and its surroundings is a
more difficult one!

Ken Livingstone has suggested aligning the London boundary to the M25.

Initially Epsom, and several other peripheral districts, were intended to be part
of Greater London.


Ken has had some daft ideas but I'm with him on this one. But will it
entitle all those domiciled within the M25 to have a vote in the
election for London mayor? Somehow I doubt it. All those within the
"London commuter zone" are likely to be affected by plans made
Transport for London/Lefties!

G

In article ,
(Martin Underwood) wrote:

You'd think that it would make sense for the boundaries between one
"county" and another to be moved from time to time to take account of
any urban sprawl of a city on the boundary, so as always to avoid
splitting that city. The conurbation of Reading is split between
Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham, when it would be much better
for the boundary to be moved so it runs through sparsely-populated
areas between Reading and the surrounding villages. Likewise for
London - though where you (literally!) draw the line between London
and its surroundings is a more difficult one!

A British obsession that will never work. There are no clear boundaries
between conurbations as you seem to think.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
Martin Underwood writes
You'd think that it would make sense for the boundaries between one
"county" and another to be moved from time to time to take account of
any urban sprawl of a city on the boundary, so as always to avoid
splitting that city. The conurbation of Reading is split between
Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham, when it would be much better for
the boundary to be moved so it runs through sparsely-populated areas
between Reading and the surrounding villages. Likewise for London -
though where you (literally!) draw the line between London and its
surroundings is a more difficult one!

This happened in Reading about a century ago. The Berks/Oxon boundary
used to be the Thames, then Caversham - the Reading suburb north of the
Thames - was moved into Berks, and into Reading.
--
Thoss