Lumo Revenue Enforcement on Strike Day

[furlong]

It still isn’t an absolute obligation, and operators can and do decline ticket acceptance in various circumstances. That isn’t regarded as acceptable by certain posters on here, but it’s the reality.
It’s hardly unreasonable for Lumo to decline to carry someone in the OP’s situation where they could simply have joined a following LNER service.

Looks like some train companies might not yet have fully incorporated the current NRCoT and Advance ticket conditions into their procedures then. I think all that counts now is whether or not Lumo had the capacity to accommodate the affected passengers (something we haven't been told) - whether or not LNER could also do so should no longer be a relevant factor - every company is obliged to do its bit to help out if it can. Train companies should be embracing this change that makes things easier for passengers during disruption, not resisting it.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Interesting. Are they only valid on your TOCs services? What would you do if a block at a station run by another company asked to see them?

Thats what I've always wondered, to get through the gates in Edinburgh I need to show them to ScotRail staff and Northern at Leeds, GTR at Stevenage etc.

 

[Haywain]

Strangely enough my TOC specific travel documents quite cleary say should not be produced to a representative of any other Train Operating Company.

Which is a bit weird when it comes to getting through barriers operated by another TOC.

 

[43066]

Looks like some train companies might not yet have fully incorporated the current NRCoT and Advance ticket conditions into their procedures then. I think all that counts now is whether or not Lumo had the capacity to accommodate the affected passengers (something we haven't been told) - whether or not LNER could also do so should no longer be a relevant factor - every company is obliged to do its bit to help out if it can.

I think construing the current NRCoTs as meaning Lumo have an essentially absolute obligation to assist a passenger whose mid morning LNER service has been cancelled, and who could easily wait for a subsequent one, is a severe case of 2+2=6.

The intention is clearly that operators help where they can, but only where someone would otherwise be prevented from completing their journey, not merely inconvenienced. Even then, they are equally clearly left free not to do so in some circumstances. Capacity also isn’t specifically mentioned.

Train companies should be embracing this change that makes things easier for passengers during disruption, not resisting it.

Whether people agree with that statement or not, it is a value judgment which goes beyond the letter of what’s required.

 

[ainsworth74]

Looks like some train companies might not yet have fully incorporated the current NRCoT and Advance ticket conditions into their procedures then. I think all that counts now is whether or not Lumo had the capacity to accommodate the affected passengers (something we haven't been told) - whether or not LNER could also do so should no longer be a relevant factor - every company is obliged to do its bit to help out if it can. Train companies should be embracing this change that makes things easier for passengers during disruption, not resisting it.

You're treading over old ground here with @43066. They have their opinion on the legal position which is contrary to most other people on here. So far neither opinion has been, to my knowledge, tested in court so personally I've reached the stage of "agree to disagree" when it comes to this

 

[43066]

You're treading over old ground here with @43066.

The badly drafted NRCoTs are like a gift that keeps on giving .

 

[fandroid]

You're treading over old ground here with @43066. They have their opinion on the legal position which is contrary to most other people on here. So far neither opinion has been, to my knowledge, tested in court so personally I've reached the stage of "agree to disagree" when it comes to this

And to have any force in terms of precedent, the testing needs to be done at a judicial level higher than a magistrate's court, where just about every case around fares is heard.

As it is we're lumbered with the quasi-legal interpretations of various TOCs and their representatives.

 

[ModernRailways]

It still isn’t an absolute obligation, and operators can and do decline ticket acceptance in various circumstances. That isn’t regarded as acceptable by certain posters on here, but it’s the reality.

It’s hardly unreasonable for Lumo to decline to carry someone in the OP’s situation where they could simply have joined a following LNER service.

Isn't this precisely the point though? OP was given the option, leave the train at Doncaster, or pay for a new fare on Lumo. OP chose to leave at Doncaster, thus a permission to travel between Newcastle and Doncaster on the Lumo service was implied with no further penalty to be incurred. Upon reaching Kings Cross the OP was then issued with a penalty, in the form of a UFN, for a more expensive journey than had they of just remained on the Lumo service.

The more I look back over this it should be extremely simple for OP to appeal this and win, but the fact it has even reached this stage shows how little FCC (Lumo's revenue and customer service provider, along with Avanti WC, Hull Trains, and TPE), and Lumo in turn know about the railway and it's policies.

OP boarded the wrong service in error, they were given an option, remain on board and pay the fare or leave the train at the next calling point to join the correct service. They chose to leave the service to avoid further costs, but when reaching Kings Cross an overzealous Lumo staff member who decided that how it was dealt with previously was no longer suitable to them, that isn't something you can do. You can't imply travel is authorised and no further penalty then change your mind around 2 hours later when you suddenly spot them.

Ultimately, it would be quite simple for OP to present their LNER ticket for the journey and that they were stopped when leaving an LNER service. OP was given the option, pay for ticket to Kings Cross on Lumo, or be authorised travel as far as Doncaster, without penalty or further costs. This was also caused by information that was open to misinterpretion being provided by Trainsplit. If OP hasn't been issued with any additional paperwork and has only received the one letter that they have shared with us then it should be fairly open and shut.

 

[43066]

OP boarded the wrong service in error, they were given an option, remain on board and pay the fare or leave the train at the next calling point to join the correct service. They chose to leave the service to avoid further costs, but when reaching Kings Cross an overzealous Lumo staff member who decided that how it was dealt with previously was no longer suitable to them, that isn't something you can do. You can't imply travel is authorised and no further penalty then change your mind around 2 hours later when you suddenly spot them.

Perhaps, at least on the face of it.

Presumably the staff member had reason to believe they had traveled on the Lumo service after all. Otherwise - as I think was alluded to upthread - it’s odd that they were even recognised in a crowd who had just disembarked from an LNER train some time later and, if challenged, they could very easily have pointed to the train they had travelled on and shown their LNER ticket.

It just seems like a rather bizarre sequence of events.

 

[ModernRailways]

Presumably the staff member had reason to believe they had traveled on the Lumo service after all. Otherwise - as I think was alluded to upthread - it’s odd that they were even recognised in a crowd who had just disembarked from an LNER train some time later and, if challenged, they could very easily have pointed to the train they had travelled on and shown their LNER ticket.

It just seems like a rather bizarre sequence of events.

But if they believed they'd travelled on the Lumo service after all then this would be a NCL-KGX ticket and would be £62. This is a UFN for NCL-DON which makes it all a little more weird.

I agree there certainly seems to be a little more to this than OP may be letting us in on, for example, why was the Lumo staff member waiting for them and not gone for a break, book off, or various other things they could be doing. But we can only go off what they have told us, getting picked out may have just been extremely bad luck, or they have memorable / standout features.

 

[DanNCL]

You mean stopping people who have alighted from trains rather than physically preventing people alighting, don't you? If so, ticket checking is very often a shared task and revenue blocks at York are usually a joint operation among the various TOCs who operate there. At other stations the station operator is entitled to check tickets of all passengers regardless of which TOC's train they have arrived on.

Yes, checking people when they’ve alighted. Didn’t realise York had shared revenue responsibility, at every other LNER managed station I’ve only ever seen LNER doing revenue, apart from once at Darlington where Northern were checking only their own passengers.

Carlisle is managed by Avanti, although at the time it was Virgin. Unless a similar arrangement for revenue applied there I struggle to see any justification for TPE staff checking the tickets of Northern passengers at Carlisle.

It seems, from my outside perspective, that it’s a grey area which could do with more clarity in NRCOT. I wouldn’t do this myself, but I could understand why someone may be hesitant to show a TPE employee their ticket for an LNER train at a station that’s covered in LNER branding.

To go back to the topic of this thread, the consensus seems to be that Lumo had no right to be checking any tickets of passengers alighting from LNER at Kings Cross, regardless of any interactions that passenger may have had with Lumo earlier in the day?

 

[Adam Williams]

I think all that counts now is whether or not Lumo had the capacity to accommodate the affected passengers (something we haven't been told)

I think it's reasonable for me to post here that the retailer's understanding is that there were free seats available during OP's journey on Lumo's service.

 

[Haywain]

I think it's reasonable for me to post here that the retailer's understanding is that there were free seats available during OP's journey on Lumo's service.

More vacant than free, it would seem!

 

[John Palmer]

Presumably the staff member had reason to believe they had traveled on the Lumo service after all.

If that is your hypothesis then how do you account for the 111 minute interval between an assumed right time Kings Cross arrival of the Lumo train at 13:47 and the alleged issue of a UFN to the OP at that station's gateline timed at 15:38 according to the record of that UFN's issue as set out on its agent's reminder notice?

 

[furlong]

I think construing the current NRCoTs as meaning Lumo have an essentially absolute obligation to assist a passenger whose mid morning LNER service has been cancelled, and who could easily wait for a subsequent one, is a severe case of 2+2=6.

The Advance T&Cs appear to say the same thing, as does the TSA (with a threshold of an anticipated delay of more than an hour - which the times quoted in the last post suggest got exceeded).

The intention is clearly that operators help where they can, but only where someone would otherwise be prevented from completing their journey, not merely inconvenienced.

They are prevented in the sense that this type of ticket only has validity defined for the one specific train. It is explicitly not valid on any other service. Beyond that, they have to choose to rely on one of the various other contractual provisions to get them to their destination by some other means, such as 28.2, backed up by the TSA's Obligation to Carry. Under the old NRCoC there was some sequencing,of these provisions, but that's been dropped. It sounds like the Obligation to Carry might have kicked in anyway.

 

[43066]

If that is your hypothesis then how do you account for the 111 minute interval between an assumed right time Kings Cross arrival of the Lumo train at 13:47 and the alleged issue of a UFN to the OP at that station's gateline timed at 15:38 according to the record of that UFN's issue as set out on its agent's reminder notice?

No idea - and I don’t profess to have a hypothesis - it just seems odd. Plus the fact the train was known to make an unscheduled stop.

You could equally ask why that particular RPI was still hanging around the Kings Cross gate line two hours after their train had arrived (wouldn’t they have another working, or a break etc.), and why this individual was again picked out of the crowd several hours after the initial altercation.

 

[Deerfold]

No idea - and I don’t profess to have a hypothesis - it just seems odd. Plus the fact the train was known to make an unscheduled stop.

You could equally ask why that particular RPI was still hanging around the Kings Cross gate line two hours after their train had arrived (wouldn’t they have another working, or a break etc.), and why this individual was again picked out of the crowd several hours after the initial altercation.

Yes, people are asking that. And why that was a time to issue a UFN that hadn't been issued on the train.

 

[furlong]

If the Obligation to Carry does kick in as part of the licence agreement to operate its trains (I didn't manage to join up all the dots from what I could find in the public domain but it's hard to imagine a consistent alternative) then that eliminates any basis for issuing a UFN (which would rely on that same licence agreement).

 

[Western Sunset]

Trying to work out the timeline of all this:

• OP due to depart Newcastle by LNER at 1027 - train cancelled
• Next service for KX is 1E82 0924 Edin - KX (Lumo); due to dep 1055
• Next LNER dep is 1E11 1030 Edin - KX; due to dep 1158
• So for OP to travel by next LNER service, there would be a 1.5h wait at Newcastle
• OP catches Lumo and ejected at Doncaster c1205 - non-scheduled stop
• Next LNER service from Doncaster to KX after that is 1Y84 1202 York - KX. Dep Donny 1226 (1m early)
• Is this the train OP caught?
• Lumo arrives at KX 1347 (10m early) at plat 5. 1Y84 (if indeed the OP caught that one) arrives at KX 1421 (1m early) at adjoining plat 4.
• UFN issued 1538

Did OP catch a later service from Donny - KX? With these timings, some things don't really tie-up.

 

[Deerfold]

It may be pertinent to know if at 1538 the OP was still talking to the Lumo Revenue Officer or if that was after their interaction.

 

[AlterEgo]

It may be pertinent to know if at 1538 the OP was still talking to the Lumo Revenue Officer or if that was after their interaction.

It seems entirely likely the process was done remotely and not in real time, as it's some sort of email proforma. The OP doesn't mention being given a paper copy of it.

The whole episode seems highly irregular.

 

[Rugose]

As several queries have been raised about the timeline of events and other details, let me recap from my perspective to the best of my ability.

* I was due to depart Newcastle by LNER at 10.27. Train cancelled and it wasn't clear to me that there would be any other LNER trains on the day owing to the strike
* Next service to Kings Cross was a Lumo departure at 10.55. I boarded this train. It was busy but there were seats available
* Onboard, a Lumo revenue officer told me my ticket wasn't valid and I could pay an additional fare or leave the train at Doncaster. I was told an LNER train would follow within an hour
* Myself and two other passengers in similar circumstances alighted at Doncaster. We caught the next LNER train which arrived around half hour later (sorry, can't be precise)
* Arrived at Kings Cross (sorry, didn't look at the arrival time). The barrier on the platform I arrived on was open. However, on the other side of general concourse barriers I was stopped by BTP and the same Lumo officer I'd encountered on the earlier train. I was heading for the underground
* The Lumo officer took a photo of the emailed advice from TrainSplit which I'd been following and I gave her my name and address (I wasn't asked for email address)
* At no point was the fare Lumo wanted put to me, either verbally or in writing, either on the Lumo train or at Kings Cross
* On 30/03/2023 I received a "Reminder" that a LFN had been issued to me by an onboard Lumo Ambassador on 01/02/2023 at the time of 15:38. This must have been when I was at Kings Cross or possibly later.

Many thanks for all the advice to date. I will be appealing with a supporting letter from TrainSplit, who sold me the tickets.

 

[AlterEgo]

Do keep us posted, and good to hear TrainSplit are providing after sales support.

 

[AdamWW]

It seems entirely likely the process was done remotely and not in real time, as it's some sort of email proforma. The OP doesn't mention being given a paper copy of it.

It rather looks from the quote previously from the Lumo web site that they don't give out paper copies (they say that you need to give an emali address that you can access while travelling to show evidence to get through barriers etc....though they say that if you can't do that they will put a letter in the post, which isn't very helpful).

 

[glasgowniteowl]

I would just be a little careful how you word things, previously you were saying you were following the advice given by email and travelling on the next train and you didn't realise that there was a distinction on it not being valid on another operator, your latest post indicates you were unsure if another lner train that day which would seem to imply a slight knowledge of ticketing restrictions

During your conversation with the inspector on board the lumo was there any request for your details? (The other two passengers also may have declined details) If so and a refusal to provide them on board may have been the reason they were waiting later with btp later, again seems to have been quite poorly handled by the lumo staff

And lastly just take care as you don't have a "right of appeal" here that stops any clocks etc not paying now and instead appealing result in lumo going straight to court, may be worthwhile paying up and complaining to get the payment back to reduce the risk of a court case

 

[Western Sunset]

I wonder if the other two passengers who left the Lumo at Doncaster, were similarly met by the BTP at King's Cross? Stopping the Lumo at Doncaster (un-scheduled) seems a very unusual occurrence to me, entailing re-routing from the up fast to one of the platform lines.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder if the other two passengers who left the Lumo at Doncaster, were similarly met by the BTP at King's Cross? Stopping the Lumo at Doncaster (un-scheduled) seems a very unusual occurrence to me, entailing re-routing from the up fast to one of the platform lines.

It seems utterly bizarre to make a stop like that and not have the train met there by BTP because of e.g. an assault. If someone just hasn't paid and won't, you write up an MG11 there and then and submit for prosecution. You don't go putting stop orders in.

Mind you, Lumo being unprofessional does seem a bit of an ongoing theme.

 

[LowLevel]

It seems utterly bizarre to make a stop like that and not have the train met there by BTP because of e.g. an assault. If someone just hasn't paid and won't, you write up an MG11 there and then and submit for prosecution. You don't go putting stop orders in.

Mind you, Lumo being unprofessional does seem a bit of an ongoing theme.

It's a very odd set of circumstances. I'd not stop my train out of course for a fares issue unless there was serious violence or aggression accompanying it. Just putting in to Doncaster to drop some people off is bizarrely indulgent or the symptom of more to the story, as others have said. I don't actually think there is more to the story though - it does actually sound like someone has decided "we've got several people here who aren't paying up, let's stop and put them off".

What I do however suspect may be happening is a difference in understanding/viewpoint between the OP and the Lumo bod.

The OP as they have said thinks they were told to buy a new ticket or get off at Doncaster.

The Lumo bod presumably sees it as they're unwilling to buy a new ticket, so they're getting off at Doncaster - but doesn't agree that that has settled the matter of their being on the train in the first place and still wants their pound of flesh for that, so to speak, hence progressing matters at King's Cross.

Now if I was to say to someone "you need to get off and get the right train" I wouldn't think twice about it again if they did.

However if I was to tell someone they needed to pay, and they didn't co-operate in doing so, and then got off the train, and then I saw them later when I happened to be with a copper - I might choose to re-open the matter.

 

[Bluejays]

It's a very odd set of circumstances. I'd not stop my train out of course for a fares issue unless there was serious violence or aggression accompanying it. Just putting in to Doncaster to drop some people off is bizarrely indulgent or the symptom of more to the story, as others have said. I don't actually think there is more to the story though - it does actually sound like someone has decided "we've got several people here who aren't paying up, let's stop and put them off".

What I do however suspect may be happening is a difference in understanding/viewpoint between the OP and the Lumo bod.

The OP as they have said thinks they were told to buy a new ticket or get off at Doncaster.

The Lumo bod presumably sees it as they're unwilling to buy a new ticket, so they're getting off at Doncaster - but doesn't agree that that has settled the matter of their being on the train in the first place and still wants their pound of flesh for that, so to speak, hence progressing matters at King's Cross.

Now if I was to say to someone "you need to get off and get the right train" I wouldn't think twice about it again if they did.

However if I was to tell someone they needed to pay, and they didn't co-operate in doing so, and then got off the train, and then I saw them later when I happened to be with a copper - I might choose to re-open the matter.

Totally agree, although it would also require an issue with Lumo control or culture. If I asked my driver or control to stop out of course to drop someone off over tickets I'd expect to be told where to go. Would be interesting to know who else at Lumo agreed to the Doncaster stop

 

[Rugose]

I would just be a little careful how you word things, previously you were saying you were following the advice given by email and travelling on the next train and you didn't realise that there was a distinction on it not being valid on another operator, your latest post indicates you were unsure if another lner train that day which would seem to imply a slight knowledge of ticketing restrictions

Good point. That addition to my last post was intended to meet the observation of another Forum member that a later LNER train was available to me. My point meant to convey that I didn't know what later trains were available. It was a strike day; I knew my scheduled LNER train had been cancelled and the next available departure was at 10.55.

During your conversation with the inspector on board the lumo was there any request for your details? (The other two passengers also may have declined details) If so and a refusal to provide them on board may have been the reason they were waiting later with btp later, again seems to have been quite poorly handled by the lumo staff

After I'd shown my tickets to the Lumo revenue protection officer and pointed out my train had been cancelled, verbal communication quickly became strained. The Lumo line was that I was travelling without paying; I owed her company money; the fare I'd paid LNER wasn't going to reach Lumo; they weren't on strike, etc. The officer wasn't interested in looking at the ticket vender's email on my phone, whose advice I explained I was following. Later, the officer returned and said everyone else has paid except you. I was asked for my details but in the context of the exchange I thought bank details were meant. I said I'd already paid a fare. It felt like bullying (which probably made me more stubborn than was wise). The officer later came back and said I had the option of leaving the train at Doncaster, which I agreed I would do. I spoke to the two other older passengers who also got off at Doncaster; they said they had witnessed some younger passengers being pressured into paying on the train.

And lastly just take care as you don't have a "right of appeal" here that stops any clocks etc not paying now and instead appealing result in lumo going straight to court, may be worthwhile paying up and complaining to get the payment back to reduce the risk of a court case

Sage advice. I noticed there didn't seem to be a "right of appeal". I'll have to calculate how much of a hit my pension can take!