Cross acceptance of tickets between branches

Can a LIRR ticket be used on a different branch than it's indicated for so long as the journey is within the same fare zones?

We're visiting my sidter-in-law in Southampton on the Montauk and bought r/t tickets at Penn. We didn't realise there's no return train today (Sunday) until after 4pm, and we'd like to get back sooner. There's a westbound train at just after 1pm from Riverhead on the Ronkonkoma branch. Both stations appear to be fare zone 14 so can we use our tickets from Riverhead instead of Southampton?

Thanks!

Yes it will be accepted. The zone is the only thing that matters.

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

I hope you didn't have to learn this the hard way, but there's no weekend service east of Ronkonkoma from after Thanksgiving through the end of April.

Amtrak7 wrote:I hope you didn't have to learn this the hard way, but there's no weekend service east of Ronkonkoma from after Thanksgiving through the end of April.

Yeah, thankfully I checked and double-checked the timetables and spotted that (Note 12), so we ended up getting s-i-l to drive us to Speonk where we caught the 2.05pm to Babylon.

I do this often since I use both the Main Line and the Babylon line from the same zone. The ticket collector may ask if you are on the right train if your destination isn't served by that train, but that's only to make sure that a mistake hasn't been made, not to give anyone a hard time. If I am not going where my ticket says I am going, I always make sure to declare that up front so that I don't get punched through by mistake.

Andrew Saucci wrote:I do this often since I use both the Main Line and the Babylon line from the same zone. The ticket collector may ask if you are on the right train if your destination isn't served by that train, but that's only to make sure that a mistake hasn't been made, not to give anyone a hard time. If I am not going where my ticket says I am going, I always make sure to declare that up front so that I don't get punched through by mistake.

Agreed (telling the conductor beforehand), especially if you're riding a well-traveled weekend run heading to Atlantic Terminal with a Penn Station ticket - I've had both boxes punched at once on occasion.