Zone extension tickets

[davews]

I know this has been discussed already...
Yesterday I had a lovely walk starting from Gordon Hill and across the M25 to Cheshunt. The plan was to carry on and end up at Gordon Hill but I found access to the New River was blocked off for work. I managed to find my way down to Theobalds Grove Overground.

I had my zone 1-6 Travelcard from Martins Heron but was aware Theobolds Grove was beyond zone 6 - though there were no signs at the station to say it was actually in zone 7. I went to the chap at the ticket office to ask for an extension ticket, couldn't hear a word he was saying through his screen. Eventually he just opened the barrier and waved me through. Turkey Street the next stop was in zone 6 anyway so I had no issues.

What do others do in this situation. I could of course just used contactless and tapped out at Seven Sisters where I changed to the Victoria - but I decided to change there on the spot having found there were severe delays on the Central Line which made going right to Liverpool St not a good idea. And being a London Overground station rather than Network Rail the chap probably didn't know much about zone extension fares.

Whatever, had a great walk.

 

[Watershed]

London Overground is part of the National Rail network, as is the Elizabeth line. However, TfL certainly do their best to convince people otherwise, and that includes providing inadequate training to their staff on National Rail products.

The most appropriate ticket here would have been a Theobalds Grove to Boundary Zone 6 ticket, which would have been available from the ticket office - if the member of staff knew what to search for. Alternatively, a Theobalds Grove to Turkey Street ticket would have cost the same and provided essentially the same validity.

 

[Hadders]

In my experience, while London Overground stations retain ticket offices, they aren’t really used by anyone to purchase tickets and consequently many of the staff working in them have become un-knowledgeable.

You have to be very specific about exactly what it is you want, in your case a ‘ticket to Boundary Zone 6’ or ‘a ticket to Turkey Street’ rather than saying ‘an extension ticket please’.

It’s probably best to just buy the ticket from the ticket machine, to be honest.