Can you give an example of another case, not related to these changes, where the validity of a Travelcard, or a combination of Travelcards (not involving any non-TfL tickets), is different on National Rail services from London Underground services?
If you are simply "proving by assertion" your interpretation of these new Conditions, I would suggest such a question would need to be addressed to ATOC, unless by "TOC employee" in your profile you mean "ATOC employee", or in absence of such an interpretation a Court in the event of a prosecution being brought.
The Conditions of Carriage for National Rail notes that it only applies to services on National Rail services, and that on LUL services, or any other services for that matter, their own Conditions of Carriage apply. The TfL Conditions of Carriage notes that the Conditions of Carriage applies to it's own services and that the NRCoC (soon NRCoT) apply to National Rail services. It doesn't matter if there is or is not a difference between the two, the expectation can only be that the Conditions of Carriage apply to each service type as appropriate.
To suggest that this is wrong and somehow different to any other multimodal ticket is somewhat strange and, in my opinion, unrealistic.
Though this, depending on the interpretation of "another ticket", may mean it is no longer possible to construct an "outboundary Travelcard season ticket" by combining the PTE season with another season....
"Ticket" is a defined term in the NRCoT which means any physical or electronic document or record which entitles a passenger to make a journey on the National Rail Network between the stations or within the zones indicated by one or more of the operators listed in Appendix A (there are further notes on how it is displayed or carried). If the PTE product allows travel on a National Rail service it is considered, by the NRCoT, to be a "Ticket". A season ticket would also be a "Ticket".
.... In particular I don't think the issue with combining adjacent Travelcards is intentional, I think whoever wrote it didn't consider the unique issues posed by TfL ticketing and the fact that the zone boundaries aren't stations but rather are arbitrary points between them (it would make things an awful lot easier if they were)....
I would agree with that, but whilst it may not be intentional, it is there.
....Depends whether "another ticket" simply means "a ticket that is not the first one", or means "a ticket that is not one of these listed types". That seems unclear.
I think it has to be the former as it is not specifically the latter. The latter might also work against multiple Travelcards.
Unless the Travelcard Agreement was also updated in the same way, I think that particular aspect of this change has no validity.....
Given the briefing says there is little change, I don't think it is intentional, but I can't deny what is in the NRCoT, the particulars of the Travelcard agreement do not seem to be in the contract between traveller and TOC, but rather between ATOC and TfL.
My reading of the new condition 14.2 is that a Zones 1 - 3 travelcard and a Zone 4-6 to Rugby travelcard would still be allowed.
The new condition 14.2 says "....If you are using a Season Ticket, daily Zonal Ticket, or another area based ticket such as a concessionary pass, ranger or rover in conjunction with another Ticket and the last station at which one Ticket is valid and the first station that the other Ticket is valid are the same, then the train does not
need to call at that station for your combination to be valid...."
This says nothing about what happens if the last station at which one Ticket is valid and the first station that the other Ticket is valid are different....
You are reading 14.2 in isolation, read 14.1 first, it starts with "Unless shown below". If 14.2 does not apply, and we safely assume 14.3 and 14.4 do not also, 14.1 does. Both 14.1 and 14.2 require the tickets to meet at a station.
My earlier example was from Victoria to Sutton with a Zones 1-2 travelcard and a single from boundary Zone 2 to Sutton....
A boundary zone ticket with a Travelcard is not using two tickets, it is one ticket and an extension of it, it does not need to conform to NRCoC Condition 19 or NRCoT Condition 14.
....This is essentially the same situation, and it would be rather perverse if some outboundary journeys like this were allowed, and other were not allowed, depending on whether there happens to be a station en-route in both zones....
I don't think it is the intention, but it is what it says.
....I realise others may disagree with me, but if members of this forum have disagreements, how can we expect that railway staff and managers will apply the rules in a fair and consistent manner.
Apparently ATOC doesn't believe there to be much difference between old and new, so maybe there wasn't intended to be, but then those making the rules don't see things from the frontline very often.