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Hi Mike, before I bring up my query I just wanted to thank you for everything that you do and all the amazing work that you’ve done on here for the past (I believe?) over 10 years. Legend!
My query is this:
I’ve thoroughly checked your ‘Fare Finder’ page and your ‘Fares Guide & Tables’ page and cannot work this out. Why is the journey of Oakleigh Park to Canary Wharf Elizabeth line (changing between Moorgate NR and Liverpool Street EL) charged using the cheaper ‘NR’ bracket when your diagram seems to show that it should be charged using the more expensive ‘NR-T’ bracket, due to using both the Outer London National Rail plus the Elizabeth Line core.
And strangely enough the opposite also seems to be true. The journey of Oakleigh Park to Stratford/Ilford/etc. changing between Moorgate NR and Liverpool Street EL should (as far as I can tell) use the cheaper ‘NR’ bracket but it’s charged using the more expensive ‘NR-T’ bracket, despite not using the Elizabeth Line core at all, only using the Liverpool Street-Brentwood Elizabeth Line.
Am I missing something here?!
Thanks,
-JR
Hi JR,
The Elizabeth line core is actually defined as Paddington to Stratford/Abbey Wood. However, there are a number of issues which determine whether the mixed mode will apply to parts of the core.
Taking the Canary Wharf example first. Oakleigh Park to Abbey Wood is historically defined as NR only taking Oakleigh Park to Highbury & Islington to New Cross to Abbey Wood. This was actually a success of this site back in the day. Today you are likely to use the EL from Moorgate/Liverpool Street, but you don’t have to and they can’t tell if you have, so NR fares still apply. It’s likely that they decided that intermediate stations between Liverpool Street and Abbey Wood should also have just NR fares to avoid the situation where travelling further on the same train costs less.
As for Stratford, I’m puzzled. That can also be done only on NR by walking along the EL platforms to Liverpool Street and using a Greater Anglia train. It might be worth asking TfL whether they agree that this counts as an option avoiding any of the EL core. You could also make the journey changing at Highbury & Islington and avoid zone 1 altogether, thus getting an even cheaper fare.
Thanks so much for the thorough reply. There’s undoubtedly some very interesting and weird stuff going on here.
As soon as you think you’ve got the hang of how TfL fares work… NOPE! Do you think they’ll ever rehaul the entire thing completely? Maybe in like 50 years or something? I highly doubt they will in the next decade or two.
Thanks again
-JR
One other observation in relation to what you said:
If the reason why Oakleigh Park-Canary Wharf is the NR only fare is because there’s a valid Oakleigh Park-Abbey Wood NR only route, then why is the NR only fare also the case when going from say, Mill Hill Broadway-Abbey Wood, where a NR only route seems improbable (without OSIs or a lot of changes)?
Please do a National Rail journey search for Mill Hill Broadway to Abbey Wood on Monday (there are engineering works complicating it this weekend). You will find direct trains that take 1hr 4min and options with a single change at Farringdon which take 1hr or 1hr 1min. No OSI is required at Farringdon.
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