Northern/TPE/EMR/LNER acceptance during disruption

[yorkie]

Delays and cancellations

Northern | Buy Cheap Train Tickets and Check Train Times

www.northernrailway.co.uk

If your train is cancelled and you still wish to travel to your planned destination, you don't have to buy a new ticket to travel that day. You can:

• Board any Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), East Midlands Railway (EMR) or LNER train that's heading in the same direction (within 2 hours)..

Let's say my journey is from Shipley to York (Northern Only); if the Shipley to York train is cancelled, then I can take the next available Shipley to York train, and if I've missed my onward train from Leeds to York, my understanding is that I am allowed to take TPE from Leeds to York.

What if the Shipley to Leeds train isn't cancelled, but is so late, that it may as well be cancelled, because it's later than the next available train from Shipley to Leeds, which results in a missed connection from Leeds? Does the fact the train was really late, mean that the customer has reduced rights, even if the effect is the same?

What if I am travelling on a day when the direct Northern trains between Leeds and York are cancelled, with only TPE providing services from Leeds to York via Church Fenton (other than the extremely long, overtaken Northern journeys via Harrogate, which typically do not appear on journey planners as it's such a slow route)? Does this count as a pre-cancellation, and therefore Northern Only tickets are valid for travel via Church Fenton on TPE? Or do Northern Only ticket holders have to travel via Harrogate?

What if the stopping services between Leeds and York (calling Cross Gates, Garforth, East Garforth, Micklefield) are running, but are operated by TPE, instead of Northern? Can these trains be taken with Northern Only tickets?

 

[Iskra]

I think it’s time to just massively simplify things and implement a policy whereby anything ‘reasonable’ is valid in terms of routeing/ticketing and leave it at that. It could save a lot of time, money, bad PR and compensation payouts and make things clearer for all. The benefits would outweigh anything lost to handful of individuals who abuse such a policy.

 

[jamiearmley]

For the record - on the recent occasions when transpennine express have operated the Leeds to York main line stopping services instead of Northern, "Northern only" tickets have been valid on these services.

This was a published 'type of easement but not an easement in the sense you and I understand' if you will - specifically in place to release units to allow Northern to strengthen the Calder Valley line whilst the Diggle route was closed.

Although I agree with all of the questions that you have postulated above, I can tell you that when transpennine express operates a service on behalf of Northern, 'Northern only' tickets are valid on that service.

My concern now is that if you, someone who I deem to be an expert in these matters, is not aware of this - than the public will also not be aware. And they are the people that matter.

Hopefully somebody higher up at Northern will read this and realise communication needs to improve.

 

[dodecahedron67]

Let's say my journey is from Shipley to York (Northern Only); if the Shipley to York train is cancelled, then I can take the next available Shipley to York train, and if I've missed my onward train from Leeds to York, my understanding is that I am allowed to take TPE from Leeds to York.

What if the Shipley to Leeds train isn't cancelled, but is so late, that it may as well be cancelled, because it's later than the next available train from Shipley to Leeds, which results in a missed connection from Leeds? Does the fact the train was really late, mean that the customer has reduced rights, even if the effect is the same?

What if I am travelling on a day when the direct Northern trains between Leeds and York are cancelled, with only TPE providing services from Leeds to York via Church Fenton (other than the extremely long, overtaken Northern journeys via Harrogate, which typically do not appear on journey planners as it's such a slow route)? Does this count as a pre-cancellation, and therefore Northern Only tickets are valid for travel via Church Fenton on TPE? Or do Northern Only ticket holders have to travel via Harrogate?

What if the stopping services between Leeds and York (calling Cross Gates, Garforth, East Garforth, Micklefield) are running, but are operated by TPE, instead of Northern? Can these trains be taken with Northern Only tickets?

Yes
No, via HGT or the RRBs only
Yes

As we have discussed elsewhere. Further to this I will happily enforce all of the above

 

[saismee]

How do these affect staff travel? What happens if somebody is travelling on EMR with free staff leisure travel and their train is cancelled? Would they be entitled to travel on LNER/TPE/Northern or would they (more likely) have to cancel their journey?

 

[psmith2023]

Trying to figureing this out so at Nottingham if a northern service towards Sheffield is cancelled are the Liverpool service towards Sheffield or the robin hood towards Worksop to a connection the next Northern service

 

[KN94]

How do these affect staff travel? What happens if somebody is travelling on EMR with free staff leisure travel and their train is cancelled? Would they be entitled to travel on LNER/TPE/Northern or would they (more likely) have to cancel their journey?

Just explain to the Conductor.
Whenever it happens to me, I usually get about three words in before they tell me to get on.

Trying to figureing this out so at Nottingham if a northern service towards Sheffield is cancelled are the Liverpool service towards Sheffield or the robin hood towards Worksop to a connection the next Northern service

The next direct train to Sheffield, so in the example above, the EMR to Liverpool.

 

[AY1975]

What if you're on a Northern free ticket or Northern newspaper offer £10 day ticket or £17.50 weekend ticket?

 

[Starmill]

What if you're on a Northern free ticket or Northern newspaper offer £10 day ticket or £17.50 weekend ticket?

Same as any other Northern Only ticket.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jun 2025 ==

How do these affect staff travel? What happens if somebody is travelling on EMR with free staff leisure travel and their train is cancelled? Would they be entitled to travel on LNER/TPE/Northern or would they (more likely) have to cancel their journey?

Same as any other tickets valid only on the relevant operators.

 

[yorkie]

What if you're on a Northern free ticket or Northern newspaper offer £10 day ticket or £17.50 weekend ticket?

That makes no difference; any operator specific ticket which is normally only valid on the relevant operator becomes valid on the alternative named operators when the specified cicumstances apply.

 

[Starmill]

Does this count as a pre-cancellation, and therefore Northern Only tickets are valid for travel via Church Fenton on TPE? Or do Northern Only ticket holders have to travel via Harrogate?

If the customer bought their tickets before any of the following happened, then there can be no possibility of doubt that policy applies:

• withdrawn (you can see this in Trust or the open data marked CAN)
• amended not to call at the relevant station(s) (in this case if you queried Trust or open data the train would have simply vanished)
• P-coded
• cancelled

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jun 2025 ==

For the record - on the recent occasions when transpennine express have operated the Leeds to York main line stopping services instead of Northern, "Northern only" tickets have been valid on these services.

I believe that it is a condition of running the strengthened Manchester - Leeds Northern services that TransPennine Express accepts Northern only tickets on their replacement stopping services between Leeds and York.

 

[yorkie]

I believe that it is a condition of running the strengthened Manchester - Leeds Northern services that TransPennine Express accepts Northern only tickets on their replacement stopping services between Leeds and York.

Does anyone know if there are any other occasions when this is planned to happen?

Also, is there any way of encoding an electronic easement to allow Northern tickets to be valid according to online systems? Sadly, I don't see any easy way to achieve this with the data spec as currently written.

 

[KN94]

Does anyone know if there are any other occasions when this is planned to happen?

Also, is there any way of encoding an electronic easement to allow Northern tickets to be valid according to online systems? Sadly, I don't see any easy way to achieve this with the data spec as currently written.

I'm sure it will, but off the top of my head, I can't remember when the next instance will be. It wasn't just because of the Eye of the Needle (Mirfield) block, as that has happened since, but more the sheer volume that took place across the Easter weekend.

Regarding the ticket acceptance, as far as I understood it, it wasn't a 'condition' that TPE accepted Northern-only tickets, more that it was the right thing to do.
Probably easier to leave everything on the ticketing side of things the same and have TPE accept Northern-only than changing the system to remove Northern-only tickets for such a short period of time.

 

[LowLevel]

The EMR brief to staff waffles on at length that it is *only* for train cancellations not delays, missed connections, overcrowding etc etc etc - rather than spinning it as a positive it seems to be something to be tolerated, defending the position of the Control as the arbiter for when ticket acceptance is otherwise acceptable, whereas I've just ignored all that and done what seems to be right to me for years as the one getting it in the neck from already inconvenienced people at the front line.

If anything it seems to have become more hostile of late with Sheffield screens now having "x not valid" below each departure.

A minority of guards might have a bee in their bonnet about it but I can't imagine it is many.

 

[alm37]

I missed a Northern connection to Selby at Halifax/Bradford/Leeds on a Northern only £10 day ranger on Wednesday thanks to a 15 minute delay on the Chester to Leeds train, and asked both the information desk at Leeds and the guard on the next TPE to Hull if they would accept my ticket as far as Selby. The information desk was very clear that TPE would not let me board. The guard explained that they had been accepting Northern tickets in the event of a delay to or cancellation of a preceding Northern service, but very recently they had been instructed only to accept Northern tickets in the event of a cancellation.

The Northern train crew seemed much more interested in encouraging passengers to claim delay repay than to enable a cross platform connection to be made at Bradford which on this occasion would have caused at most a 30 second hold on the Halifax to Hull train, for me and a few others.

How nice it would be to have a joined up railway.

 

[Killingworth]

The devil is in the details

Try to rely on timetable N23 published on Northern's website and displayed at stations and you'll see an hourly stopping service between Manchester and Sheffield on Sundays; https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/travel/timetables

Try to book and 1 in 3 is missing. They won't count as cancellations, but they do if you wanted to use them. But TPE and EMR don't stop at the intermediate stations on Sundays so it's all academic anyway! Last Sunday none ran so it was all bus replacements.

 

[Starmill]

Does anyone know if there are any other occasions when this is planned to happen?

Also, is there any way of encoding an electronic easement to allow Northern tickets to be valid according to online systems? Sadly, I don't see any easy way to achieve this with the data spec as currently written.

Yes it will definitely be happening again. I don't have the information to hand I'm afraid but I might be able to find it if someone doesn't get there before me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jun 2025 ==

The EMR brief to staff waffles on at length that it is *only* for train cancellations not delays, missed connections, overcrowding etc etc etc - rather than spinning it as a positive it seems to be something to be tolerated, defending the position of the Control as the arbiter for when ticket acceptance is otherwise acceptable, whereas I've just ignored all that and done what seems to be right to me for years as the one getting it in the neck from already inconvenienced people at the front line.

If anything it seems to have become more hostile of late with Sheffield screens now having "x not valid" below each departure.

A minority of guards might have a bee in their bonnet about it but I can't imagine it is many.

It does come with the (small) benefit that if you're asked by people with EMR Advance tickets for your own service which is cancelled, they can now be advised of the right to use Northern or TPE, or to wait for the next EMR, at their own choice. Previously this of course required a check of the messages about ticket acceptance, or an appropriate caveat to get permission to board from the other conductor.

 

[yorkie]

I missed a Northern connection to Selby at Halifax/Bradford/Leeds on a Northern only £10 day ranger on Wednesday thanks to a 15 minute delay on the Chester to Leeds train, and asked both the information desk at Leeds and the guard on the next TPE to Hull if they would accept my ticket as far as Selby. The information desk was very clear that TPE would not let me board. The guard explained that they had been accepting Northern tickets in the event of a delay to or cancellation of a preceding Northern service, but very recently they had been instructed only to accept Northern tickets in the event of a cancellation.

Thanks for confirming how absurd the situation is; it's not well thought out. I suspect the people responsible are car-drivers rather than regular rail users.

The Northern train crew seemed much more interested in encouraging passengers to claim delay repay than to enable a cross platform connection to be made at Bradford which on this occasion would have caused at most a 30 second hold on the Halifax to Hull train, for me and a few others.

How nice it would be to have a joined up railway.

Indeed. It's absurd, but very predictable for this country.

 

[dodecahedron67]

I am all for the abolition of Operator-specific tickets, but until then I will enforce them. If people want the flexibility, they have the non-restricted tickets available.

Especially on day rangers/rovers tied to a TOC, you've literally bought a ticket ONLY valid on a TOC for a discounted amount. You're not entitled to travel outside the validity of that ranger...

IMO there is nothing unreasonable about refusing to accept other TOC tickets in small delays - obviously if we're talking about 1h+ or CSL2 then acceptance should be a given, but if the next valid train is 15/30mins...

 

[Watershed]

IMO there is nothing unreasonable about refusing to accept other TOC tickets in small delays - obviously if we're talking about 1h+ or CSL2 then acceptance should be a given, but if the next valid train is 15/30mins...

So it's reasonable to prevent people from mitigating delays during disruption - even though that may cause someone to be late for school/work etc. - thus damaging the industry's tarnished reputation further, and likely increasing its Delay Repay liability?

Given that all of this can be avoided at literally no cost to the taxpayer, simply by accepting tickets on another TOC also owned by the taxpayer, I'm afraid I must disagree with you. I see it as an unacceptable waste of taxpayers' money and resources.

People accept TOC restrictions based on the advertised timetable. When there is disruption - which amounts to the rail industry not upholding its end of the bargain - it is churlish to strictly hold the passenger to their end of the bargain.

 

[LowLevel]

So it's reasonable to prevent people from mitigating delays during disruption - even though that may cause someone to be late for school/work etc. - thus damaging the industry's tarnished reputation further, and likely increasing its Delay Repay liability?

Given that all of this can be avoided at literally no cost to the taxpayer, simply by accepting tickets on another TOC also owned by the taxpayer, I'm afraid I must disagree with you. I see it as an unacceptable waste of taxpayers' money and resources.

People accept TOC restrictions based on the advertised timetable. When there is disruption - which amounts to the rail industry not upholding its end of the bargain - it is churlish to strictly hold the passenger to their end of the bargain.

When it went into different pots I'd have disagreed to some extent but now the revenue is revenue going to the same box it seems an utter waste of time, particularly given the tiny difference in fares that is usually the case - even more so given people in my experience often pick "off peak/anytime day return" or whatever tickets assuming flexibility without noticing the small different in fares and the "Northern Only" (for example) small print - and the fact you have to go a little out of your way to display and read the full list of fares rather than just accepting the "cheapest" option with a click.

Taking the mick with booking advances for 6 hours time for the cheapest train in the list is of course a bit of a different thing.

My day is made no more productive trying to argue this point with someone for 10 minutes to get another fare out of them than it would be getting through the rest of the train instead and dealing with something more serious.

 

[jamiearmley]

When it went into different pots I'd have disagreed to some extent but now the revenue is revenue going to the same box it seems an utter waste of time, particularly given the tiny difference in fares that is usually the case - even more so given people in my experience often pick "off peak/anytime day return" or whatever tickets assuming flexibility without noticing the small different in fares and the "Northern Only" (for example) small print - and the fact you have to go a little out of your way to display and read the full list of fares rather than just accepting the "cheapest" option with a click.

Taking the mick with booking advances for 6 hours time for the cheapest train in the list is of course a bit of a different thing.

My day is made no more productive trying to argue this point with someone for 10 minutes to get another fare out of them than it would be getting through the rest of the train instead and dealing with something more serious.

Agreed, especially as some of these 'Northern Only' fares are disingenuous at best.

Take a Leeds to Manchester standard day return. Used to be routed 'Via Hebden Bridge'. Thus, you could do a change of route excess if off route. And it made sense : slower route, cheaper ticket.

Now routed 'Northern Only'. Supposedly, you cannot excess away a TOC restriction.

I've called bull**** on this since day one, and since my machine will happily excess away a TOC restriction I'm able to apply both common sense and fairness to proceedings.

Too much of the revenue structure is designed by people who have no clue at all about human behaviour, no clue about dealing with the public, and no clue whatsoever about the long term effects on staff engagement and productivity when having to deal constantly with the ridiculous.

It's only getting worse as well. Some of the new things in the pipeline have left me speechless. (Which is by way of being a calendar event).

 

[alm37]

IMO there is nothing unreasonable about refusing to accept other TOC tickets in small delays - obviously if we're talking about 1h+ or CSL2 then acceptance should be a given, but if the next valid train is 15/30mins...

The personal example I gave above was for a connection onto a Leeds to Hull service, where Northern and TPE each run an hourly service, one broadly on the hour and one broadly on the half hour. The effect of TPE refusing to accept a Northern only ticket in the event of disruption was a 1hr+ delay for me. I’m glad you agree it should have been reasonable for TPE to have let me board in that circumstance, but unfortunately since my previous train was merely delayed and not cancelled that is no longer their policy.

Of course Northern could have helped this passenger and others to make the connection by not letting a train depart until the incoming train had arrived, by waiting a mere 30 seconds….

 

[Wallsendmag]

Agreed, especially as some of these 'Northern Only' fares are disingenuous at best.

Take a Leeds to Manchester standard day return. Used to be routed 'Via Hebden Bridge'. Thus, you could do a change of route excess if off route. And it made sense : slower route, cheaper ticket.

Now routed 'Northern Only'. Supposedly, you cannot excess away a TOC restriction.

I've called bull**** on this since day one, and since my machine will happily excess away a TOC restriction I'm able to apply both common sense and fairness to proceedings.

Too much of the revenue structure is designed by people who have no clue at all about human behaviour, no clue about dealing with the public, and no clue whatsoever about the long term effects on staff engagement and productivity when having to deal constantly with the ridiculous.

It's only getting worse as well. Some of the new things in the pipeline have left me speechless. (Which is by way of being a calendar event).

You can do various things with various TIS , doesn't mean that it's allowed.

 

[jamiearmley]

You can do various things with various TIS , doesn't mean that it's allowed.

Clearly stated that it isn't allowed in my original post.

Also, as you know well, on my train, (as long as I meet the legal and contractual obligations to the passenger), I may exercise my discretion in the passengers favour in any way I choose.

The issue is that it should be allowed, just like any other ticket.

The problem is that it isn't.

The fault lies with the "guiding mind" of the industry.