London fare zones London fare zones Rail service fares in Greater London and the surrounding area are calculated in accordance with the London fare zones system managed by Transport for London. Within London, all London Underground, National Rail, London Overground, TfL Rail and Docklands Light Railway stations are assigned to nine fare zones. Fare zone 1 covers the central area and fare zones 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 form concentric rings around it. Some National Rail stations and all Transport for London served stations outside Greater London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey are either included in fare zones
Timeline of the London Underground of the network. Station names shown are current names; many stations have previously had different names. Timeline of the London Underground The transport system now known as the London Underground began in 1863 with the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway. Over the next forty years, the early sub-surface lines reached out from the urban centre of the capital into the surrounding rural margins, leading to the development of new commuter suburbs. At the turn of the nineteenth century, new technology—including electric locomotives and improvements to the tunnelling shield—enabled new companies to construct a series of "tube" lines deeper