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
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