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I am considering a possible journey from Farringdon to Penge West during peak hours, and return to West Hampstead Thameslink off-peak.
If I load a 1-2 Travelcard into my Oyster card with National Railcard discount and take such journey, as I have read that the extension fare is charged on the scale applicable for the through journey, does that mean that I will be charged for a 3-4 fare on the much more expensive National Rail scale, even if the extension is solely on the London Overground network? Is there no way I can avoid the expensive fare if I travel on a through London Bridge – Penge West train?
Hi Michael,
You’ll need to break the journey at New Cross Gate and touch out and back in again. That way the extension will be a London Overground charged one, and the National Rail bit will be covered by the travelcard.
Getting back onto the same train won’t be possible if I have to touch out and in.
Is there really no way to obtain the much cheaper TfL fare in the southbound direction, or in the northbound direction if the first northbound arriving train is a Southern train, without waiting for the next train?
Also, does it take much longer if I travel through Whitechapel instead of London Bridge coming from Farringdon, or change at Canada Water going back to West Hampstead? By touching the pink reader at these stations the fare will become on the TfL scale.
If the whole journey you are making includes NR elements, then any extension fare will be at the NR scale, even if the extension is not on NR services. If there was another way I’d tell you.
As for using Whitechapel or Canada Water rather than London Bridge, I don’t know but it may well be a similar time. There are more ELL trains at Penge West than Southern and you have extra services joining at Sydenham. My best advice is to try it out.
Hi Mike,
Is the extension fare always calculated as “the fares for the zones not covered by the Travelcard, on the same scale applicable to the whole through journey” within zone 1-9? Is it the same outside zone 1-9 as well?
For example, my card has National Railcard discount and a 1-2 Travelcard loaded, if I make a journey from Victoria to Gatwick Airport on a Southern service, will I be charged £4.80, which is the fare from Wandsworth Common to Gatwick Airport? If my through journey is Oxford Circus to Gatwick Airport, will the extension fare become £6.10 instead (the same as a Tooting Bec to Gatwick Airport, which is a zone 3-14 mixed mode fare)?
If I make a through journey across zone 1-2, but with both ends outside zone 1-2, will two extension fares (or the through fare if less), or just one be charged? For example, if my journey is Cricklewood to Streatham (zones 3-2-1-2-3), will I be charged £2.15 for the through journey, or just £1.65 as a single extension fare?
Hi Michael,
Easy one first. As you only ever pay for each zone once, a 3-2-1-2-3 journey will only have one extension fare.
Now for some history. In the early days extension fares were easy. They literally were just the normal single fares for the zones covered at the same scale as the overall journey. Then contactless came along and extension fares became more dynamic depending on the amount of journeys made and the zones covered. If you made more than just a single return journey then it was likely that you’d hit a cap and have a couple of extension fares. It was still usually just the single fares for the zones covered, remembering that extra bits like Shenfield, Hertford East etc were still in zones, numbered 10-12.
The game changer was the extension to Gatwick utilising zones 13 and 14. GTR/DfT expected commuters to pay pretty much the same fares as they did on paper, but the bonkers cheap single fares between East Croydon (5) and Gatwick meant that contactless users were capped at zones 1-4 with cheap extension fares, undercutting the expected overall fares by a significant margin. The result was that contactless extension fares were allowed to be set at different levels.
Also introduced at the time of the Gatwick extension was the concept of mixed mode fares avoiding zone 1 being different to just the National Rail element. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what extension will be charged for Gatwick to Oxford Circus with a zone 1-2 travelcard. It might be like the Victoria fare, or it could be the Tooting Bec fare. If you try it out then please do let me know. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise at this point.
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