Yes, a lot of this will hinge on the ticket/s held. But I don’t think the OP was obliged to risk a delay to satisfy Northern regarding the taxi.
So how long do you wait for a taxi and risk missing the only train on which my ticket is valid when there is a perfectly viable way of getting the one Euston train? And for Northern it makes no financial sense. They would pay about £25 for the taxi plus another £75 refund on my ticket for arriving over an hour late vs £31 for the parking for three days. So I’m doing them a favour.
I had a ticket from my local station bought on here and an Advance Single SP to Euston bought on Avanti
But that's not true - if you miss the connection due to the fault of the railway, you are entitled to onwards travel whatever restrictions normally apply to your ticket.
Indeed, and if you waited for the taxi provided to get you there, it would have been very clear that it was the railway's fault.
And I would have arrived in London, judging by the fact that this train is now running 40 minutes late due to congestion around Rugby following signalling problems, I would have arrived almost two hours late with an hour’s onward journey from Euston. Why should I suffer that because their taxi turned up quarter of an hour late?
Probably, not that I told them what type of ticket I had and they didn’t ask. Just that I would have to park for three days
So out of curiosity, if a train had run but was late enough that it was likely you would have missed your connection, would you have done the same thing, and asked for several days car parking cost? Because whether it's a train, bus, or taxi, the railway provided a service for you to use, albeit one which you judged would have missed your connection, so decided to make your own arrangements (which I suspect was in part because you didn't realise your ticket would have been honoured on a subsequent train to London).
So let’s take your hypothetical and assume I was going to catch a flight or to the theatre or to an important meeting which I would miss if I had taken the subsequent train an hour later. What then? In law the rule of mitigation requires me to take reasonable steps to minimise my losses which I did.
But the road transport here was being provided by the train company because they cancelled his train.
BUT
Because their replacement transport was late. It is no different to the TOC paying for a rail replacement bus and that being late too. It's simply a case of "too bad" for Northern.
But was it late? He never gave them a chance to get him there on time. And in any case, he would have been entitled to onward travel, albeit with Delay Repay.
He doesn’t have to if it’s reasonable to suggest the car would be late and not make the connection at Preston.
He isn’t obliged to just suck up the delay. He’s actually likely minimised Northern’s liability to him by making his own way.
I gave them a chance and it was late. NR told me it would be there at 10 past and it arrived 15 mins late. NR said they would send me the confirmation details by email but it never arrived. So I had no certainty it was even booked, no contact details to call the taxi company and no time to wait while “all of our agents are busy” to speak to NR. The first I knew the taxi was for real was when the taxi company messaged me to say they had dispatched a taxi to me but by then I had run out of time to wait if I wanted to get my London train.
For what it is worth, I'd have done exactly the same. And I quite agree with you.
