East Midlands Parkway to Blackfriars / Southwark

[Steveoh]

Hello

I've a ticked from East Midlands Parkway (EMD) to London Undergrnd Zones 1-2 (this is what the ticket says). The most convenient station for me is Blackfriars which is on the national rail network. It's an easy transition at St Pancras too. However I cannot get a fare to there and so have an underground / DLR add on and travel to Southwark instead.*

Is it valid to travel on the national rail with an Underground add on like this? I always thought it was a zonal ticket, IE any destination within Zone 1-2, but I've a feeling I read something recently on another thread that said this was invalid and travel was only permitted on the underground and DLR.

Hope my question makes sense.

* My work travel portal which I must use comes up with no fares to Blackfriars whereas BRFares does. I can however get a fare to zones 1-2 on my work portal but BRFares shows no fares available.

 

[Joe Paxton]

London Underground tickets are valid on the central Thameslink core between (I think) Kentish Town and Elephant & Castle/London Bridge *. For ticketing purposes that bit of the line through central London lives a double-life as a Tube line.

In other words your ticket is valid on Thameslink from St Pancras to Blackfriars. For what it's worth, you only need a ticket to 'London Undergrnd Zone 1'.

TfL used to have information online and in a booklet that explicitly spelt out where an LU paper ticket could be used on NR services, alas no longer.


(* or can an LU paper ticket now be used on Thameslink between West Hampstead Thameslink and points south now? It didn't used to be possible.)

 

[bb21]

London Underground tickets are valid on the central Thameslink core between (I think) Kentish Town and Elephant & Castle/London Bridge *. For ticketing purposes that bit of the line through central London lives a double-life as a Tube line.

Between West Hampstead and Elephant & Castle/London Bridge, but otherwise you are correct.

 

[Steveoh]

Ah I see thanks, I shall go that way tomorrow then. However I'm right in thinking that I can't use the overground to do a similar thing; Wapping via Highbury and Islington on the Victoria line.

I know there's a zone 1 ticket, but the "booking engine" that I have to use is so useless I can only have zone 1-2.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Ah I see thanks, I shall go that way tomorrow then. However I'm right in thinking that I can't use the overground to do a similar thing; Wapping via Highbury and Islington on the Victoria line.

I know there's a zone 1 ticket, but the "booking engine" that I have to use is so useless I can only have zone 1-2.

The journey to Wapping via H&I - where would that be starting from, Kings Cross St Pancras?

I think that a zones 1&2 Underground ticket is valid for that journey, yes.

I know that for the North London Line (Richmond-Stratford), sometime in the mid-noughties the rules changed so that LU tickets became valid along the whole NLL, as long as they covered the correct zones of course. I'm a bit hazy as to what degree this applies elsewhere on the London Overground network now, but I think the East London Line down to the two New Crosses also has a double-life as a Tube line (for ticketing purposes), likewise for the Euston DC line as far as Harrow & Wealdstone at least.

There are LU ticketing inter-availability rules on the lines out of Liverpool Street to Seven Sisters, Tottenham Hale and Walthamstow Central that long predate London Overground's takeover of the local routes out of LST, not sure if anything has changed since?

Re the booking engine only offering LU zones 1&2 - from East Mids Parkway it looks like the fares to LU zone 1 are the same as to LU zones 1&2 (checked using brfares, 0785 is the code for LU zone 1, 0790 the code for LU zones 1&2) - it's quite possible this situation is fairly common if not universal now? (I haven't checked.)