[x-posted to uk.transport.london]

On Nov 25, 9:22*pm, wrote:
Hi All,

I currently have a season ticket which includes a zone 2-5 travellcard
for London.

It's a bit unclear what you mean by that - however I note further down
that you say you're returning to Horsham, so I assume that what you
actually have is an outboundary Travelcard from Horsham to zones 2-6
(it's not possible for it to be issued to zones 2-5 though).


I will be wanting to travel through zone 1 soon.

What is the best/cheapest way to do this?

I did some Googling, but all I found was very old questions and no
answers.

I would want to cross london going from west to north and then from
north to south in the same day (crossing london by tube)so I presume
if I got a PAYG Oyster and touched in at Isleworth, out at Edgware, in
again and then perhaps at Victoria as I go through to board my train
to Horsham then I would be charged for a one day travelcard for zones
1 - 5? *Is this the cheapest, or is there a way to pay just for zone
1?

No, that wouldn't be a good idea as Oyster works on the basis that you
have to touch-in at the start of the journey and then touch-out at the
end - if you were to just touch-in at Victoria before boarding your
train to Horsham but then not touch-out somewhere in the London zonal
area that would constitute an unresolved journey and you'd be hit with
a maximum Oyster fare of up to £7.00 (I suspect from Victoria it
probably is £7, not sure though). So don't do that.

You have two alternatives...

(1) At the end of your day get any train from Victoria to Clapham
Junction (there are loads), alight at CJ and go and touch-out with
your Oyster card in order to finish that journey, before then catching
your train from CJ to Horsham. You can touch-out your Oyster at CJ
either by exiting through an automatic gate, or else by finding a
standalone Oyster validator - there are some on platform 2 (at least I
think there are - must admit I haven't been on that platform for a
little bit).

....or...

(2) I'm guessing that you'll be starting your cross-London journey at
Isleworth sometime after 9:30am on a weekday, right? In which case you
could buy a zones 1&2 off-peak Day Travelcard, which currently costs
£5.60 - as the name suggests, it covers zones 1&2 so in combination
with your season Travelcard you'll have zones 1-6 covered (it's worth
noting that there's no Day Travelcard available which covers just zone
1 - it has to be 1&2 - so you'll have zone 2 covered twice! but that's
just how it is).

The problem you'll likely encounter is actually buying a zones 1&2 Day
Travelcard - it won't be on offer from the self-service ticket
machines at Isleworth station (because Isleworth is in zone 4 and
ticket machines only sell tickets that start from that station), and
I'm pretty sure Isleworth doesn't have a ticket office that's open
even part time either so you won't be able to try there because it
doesn't exist.

So, you've a few options, such as trying to buy the z1&2 Day
Travelcard from Horsham before you leave in the morning - whilst I
think they should sell it to you if you ask, I can imagine they could
be a bit reticent about doing so given that (a) you're nowhere near
being in zones 1&2 and (b) it probably wouldn't yet be off-peak (i.e.
past 9.30), and (c) the booking clerk might not know how to do it/
might generally be bamboozled by your request.

Alternatively you could buy the z1&2 Day Travelcard in advance, e.g.
the day beforehand, when you're in London - again any Tube or rail
ticket office should be able to do this, though if they're not located
in zones 1 or 2 I suppose they might be difficult about doing it, I
dunno (though they *should* sell it to you).

You could also buy the Day Travelcard in advance from an online ticket
booking website for collection from any self-service ticket machine
(to do this I would search for an off-peak return journey from a zone
2 station, e.g. Clapham Junction, to a zone 1 station, e.g. Victoria,
which should bring up a z1&2 Day Travelcard as one of the ticket
options - though I see on TheTrainline based sites you only get
offered a z1-6 Day Travelcard, which is totally daft - however this
method does work on WebTIS/ East Coast though). You could collect this
at Horsham, Isleworth or any other 'TOD-enabled' station [1].

I hope that might help, though I fear it might all be as clear as mud
now!

-----
TOD stands for 'Ticket-on-Departure' (a fairly meaningless name), and
is the name of the system that allows one to collect pre-purchased
tickets from station ticket machines (and indeed station ticket
offices) - the full list of stations that are 'TOD-enabled' is he
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations_destinations/tods/