On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:29:03 -0000, Abigail Brady wrote:

There seem to be a number of routes where you can legally ride with
PAYG but stations on those routes where it seems you can't legally get
on or off! Where the hell is the logic in that?

Gating, probably. On 'one', for example, you could travel between
Seven Sisters &
Liverpool Street - both of which are gated, but not get out at the
intermediate stops - which
are not gated. PAYG can't work without oyster readers. Existing
gates had to be upgraded
to Oyster to allow Oyster travelcards to continue to work - as were
gatelines which were shared LUL
/national rail, but installing entirely new equipment is another
matter...

It's nothing to do with that. It's because the TOCs don't want to
allow PAYG, except where forced to by ticket interavailability
agreements. Equipment could easily be installed if 'one' allowed it
(see City Thameslink, Drayton Park, Essex Road). IIRC Ken offered to
pay for Oyster equipment at every station in Z1-6, but the TOCs still
refused.

So, for example, you can't use PAYG on NR for a journey from Greenford
to Ealing Broadway, even though both stations have gates and Oyster
readers (which are even PAYG-enabled).