Delay Repay

[Brian Griffin]

I have been offered only 50% for a 1 hour delay for Thursday 25th July by XC. I was due on the 15.09 from Oxford, getting off at York.
This train, and around 5 others were cancelled. I was told by GWR staff that no trains were heading towards York, Newcastle or Edinburgh. I was due in Nottingham the following day, so booked a hotel in Nottingham. I travelled to Birmingham on a Manchester train, due to the cancellations I had to stand until Birmingham International.
At New Street, trains to York etc. were shown as cancelled. There was an XC train going towards Derby, expected to be delayed due to problems in the area. I didn't catch this as it was very full and at least 45 degrees, I literally went on and off. This train departed.
At 17.39 this train, after departure was reinstated to go to York and beyond. I caught a few slow trains and arrived in Nottingham at 8pm.
Apparently 2 other trains were reinstated, the first would surely have been full and standing which I would have not taken. The other would have arrived after 2 hours.
Customers services deny any trains were cancelled, and apparently have no knowledge of checking reinstatement times, which I did on another site. Basically I am unhappy with the 50% delay repay which doesn't cover the hotel, and very unhappy at being misinformed about the facts from customer services. Should I go Transport Focus, the Ombudsmen, or small claims? Thanks.

 

[Hadders]

I think in the first instance you need to escalate this with XC. I'd write a concise email setting out exactly what happened stating what trains you intended to catch and the trains you actually caught in tabular fashion to demonstrate the delay to your journey. If you were unable to board due to overcrowding then state this clearly.

I don't think you can expect reimbursement of hotel costs unless you had agreed this with XC.

 

[221129]

What was the ticket type? Also by the looks of it they are arguing that you chose to delay your journey by (reasonably IMO) not getting the first available trains.

 

[AlterEgo]

I have been offered only 50% for a 1 hour delay for Thursday 25th July by XC. I was due on the 15.09 from Oxford, getting off at York.
This train, and around 5 others were cancelled. I was told by GWR staff that no trains were heading towards York, Newcastle or Edinburgh. I was due in Nottingham the following day, so booked a hotel in Nottingham. I travelled to Birmingham on a Manchester train, due to the cancellations I had to stand until Birmingham International.
At New Street, trains to York etc. were shown as cancelled. There was an XC train going towards Derby, expected to be delayed due to problems in the area. I didn't catch this as it was very full and at least 45 degrees, I literally went on and off. This train departed.
At 17.39 this train, after departure was reinstated to go to York and beyond. I caught a few slow trains and arrived in Nottingham at 8pm.
Apparently 2 other trains were reinstated, the first would surely have been full and standing which I would have not taken. The other would have arrived after 2 hours.
Customers services deny any trains were cancelled, and apparently have no knowledge of checking reinstatement times, which I did on another site. Basically I am unhappy with the 50% delay repay which doesn't cover the hotel, and very unhappy at being misinformed about the facts from customer services. Should I go Transport Focus, the Ombudsmen, or small claims? Thanks.

Have you called XC on the phone? What was your ticket type?

 

[Brian Griffin]

My ticket was standard open return with a reservation. I believe I can clearly provide evidence that when I booked my hotel all trains had been cancelled and had yet to be reinstated. Am I really expected just to stay where I am to wait, or hop on trains in the general direction? I will call them this afternoon.

 

[Brian Griffin]

What was the ticket type? Also by the looks of it they are arguing that you chose to delay your journey by (reasonably IMO) not getting the first available trains.

The first available train that would have been announced would have been around 90 minutes after my arrival at New Street, this was not listed when I left for Nottingham.

 

[Hadders]

Dis you seek advice from staff at New Street?

I really don’t think you can expect reimbursement for your hotel. From what I can see you were at Birmingham around 17:30 wanting to get to York but decided instead to travel to Nottingham as that’s where you had business the following day. There were trains operating to York, albeit a severely disrupted service by the looks of things.

Ordinarily if you’d continued to York then delay repay would be applicable, and you could probably demonstrate a delay of over 2 hours if there were consecutive cancellations and trains too full to board.

The matter is complicated by you choosing to travel to Nottingham instead as you then need to look at the delay was to your journey to Nottingham.

 

[hkstudent]

You should have requested an accommodation at Oxford by GWR staff instead of arranging by yourself, as stranded passengers are entitled to accommodation or taxi (very unlikely for such distance) to York.

You should have travelled to York first (no matter how late it is), and go for your planned journey from York to Nottingham later if you wished to claim full delay repay.

 

[Brian Griffin]

I have now been offered 100% delay repay.
Which I am happy with. I was offered no advice from GWR other than unfortunately no trains are going beyond Birmingham towards Edinburgh and Newcastle, tough luck. The communication at New Street was also poor. XC cancelled 6 trains starting from Reading, Southampton etc. And appear to think that saying we advised no one to travel is a get out clause, for those whose homes are in the north how do we get home? Who pays for hotels in Southampton when local TOC operated stations aren't interested?
Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Brian Griffin]

My XC train has been cancelled, as usual the local TOC employees are not interested, three have said it's nothing to with them.

 

[Hadders]

You will need to post more details if you wish is to assist.