Train ticket journey cancelled advice

[SammyJ]

I had a Bathgate - Manchester ticket yesterday, but the train I was meant to connect with at Haymarket was cancelled (06:16) which meant i had to get a taxi to Edinburgh Gateway station to have any sort of joy of getting my train at Haymarket (train to Warrington was at 6:57, and the next service from Bathgate would have got me in at 7:07)

Question is do I have any leg to stand on regarding the cancelled part in terms of a refund etc or will it be seen as I managed to complete the journey.

For reference the tickets were

£29.00 Bathgate to Warrington
£4.00 Warrington to Manchester.

Then I paid £17 for a taxi to Edinburgh Gateway and £4.40 to Haymarket.

 

[Watershed]

There's no clear right to a refund of the unused portion of your ticket or any taxi/additional ticket expenses in these circumstances - the rail industry's position would be that you should accept the delay and claim Delay Repay instead.

The rail industry evidently expects people to plan to take a train much earlier than necessary, if they have any time critical commitments where they are going. It's really unsatisfactory to be honest.

You could contact ScotRail's customer services and ask them to reimburse your additional taxi and train fare at least, but I wouldn't hold out high expectations of them agreeing to do so.

 

[SammyJ]

From my side of things, had I missed 6:57, the next service to Warrington was 8:57 (I would have panicked at that moment)

I did manage to get hold of a helpdesk for Virgin Train Ticketing App who asked me to put in a request for a refund, then providing Scotrail said the train was cancelled, they can escalate their side, but couldn’t provide any sort of value that would be refunded.

I don’t want to kick up a fuss and the Bathgate - Haymarket part of the journey is only £3 for example.

 

[redreni]

You've saved them £33 in delay repay. In a sane world they would take that into account and refund your taxi fare and additional train fare. They don't have to, though. No harm in asking.

 

[yorkie]

From my side of things, had I missed 6:57, the next service to Warrington was 8:57 (I would have panicked at that moment)

There was an earlier connection by changing at Preston, but would still have been heavily delayed; you would have got 100% Delay Repay based on the entire cost of your journey, if it was a Single ticket (or combination of Singles; 50% for a Return/combination of Returns).

My advice in future, if either your arrival time is crucial and/or you are keen to avoid a prolonged wait, or any other reason why you are very keen to make a particular connection, would be to obtain an itinerary with additional interchange time.

See this post for instructions on how to do that:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/do-i-need-to-buy-off-peak-return-tickets.291281/#post-7439693

It sounds like you require a bit more interchange time, so the best thing to do is to specify this when booking.

You can set advanced options by clicking the cog:

View attachment 187005

specify your desired change station and, choose "change at" and then add extra minutes (which are added to the minimum interchange time)

View attachment 187004



If you want to search times quickly without fares, you may first want to give www.fastjp.com a try; once you know your desired advanced options, you can specify this on the forum's site.

 

[davp]

I was on the Avanti service that should have left Haymarket at 0657 (9M50) yesterday. It looks like the 0616 from Bathgate might have run in the end but terminated short at Edinburgh Park - I was on the train ahead. ScotRail had a line update for cancellations to services from Bathgate to Edinburgh until 0800 but I’m not sure when they put that out. The failed train causing the problems was 2H41 that arrived at Haymarket P4 at 0613 (headed away from Edinburgh).

The train you were booked on (1M81) left Edinburgh on time and was stuck behind 2H41. It reversed back to Edinburgh sometime after 0630 and finally left just ahead of 9M50. It was held at Carlisle where it was overtaken by 9M50 but there was no announcement to that effect and you wouldn’t have chanced crossing over to catch it. It looks like everyone was decanted onto the service behind at Preston so you‘d have been at least an hour late if you had been able to catch it.

If you had been able to travel on the 0616 you would have been stranded at Edinburgh Park. I don’t know how long that service was held there before it was terminated. I have a suspicion it was used as the rescue for 2H41 otherwise I don’t understand why it didn‘t continue to Edinburgh (there was a 1Z99 appearing shortly after at Haymarket West on Traksy that looks like it went onto 2H41).

You did well to catch 9M50. I was already at Edinburgh by the time the problems started. The messaging onboard 9M50 was that the overhead lines had come down (which wasn’t the case) so who knows what others were being told.