Does 'Thameslink Only' apply if the train I want to take is cancelled?

[Persephone]

Hi all,

I'm looking to travel from Gatwick to Brighton with a super off-peak 'Thameslink Only' ticket. I know there's already some discussion on whether the 'Thameslink Only' route can actually apply given how GTR is organised, and I'm really interested in knowing whether I could dispute a penalty fare applied in that case, especially after nationalisation.

My main question is whether I can grab the next Southern train for that route if the Thameslink train I wanted to take is cancelled. This morning it looked like several Thameslink trains in a row were cancelled, but there was seemingly nothing on the Thameslink website to say I could use an alternative Southern train instead. (I ended up not travelling – I get a bit stressed at the thought of having to argue with revenue protection in full view of everyone...)

 

[OneOfThe48]

Its explained on their website, but yes you can use a Southern or Gatwick Express train within two hours either side of your planned but cancelled Thameslink service

https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/help-and-support/refunds-and-changing-your-ticket

If your train has been cancelled and you still want to travel​

If your train has been cancelled and you still want to travel, you can use any publicly owned operator’s service via any reasonable route at no extra cost to complete your journey, up to two hours before or two hours after the cancelled service.

For example:

• If you are in Havant or Hastings travelling to London with a ticket routed ‘via Haywards Heath’ and your intended train is cancelled, you can use your ticket on any Southern, South Western Railway or Southeastern service via any reasonable route within two hours of your intended train to complete your journey.
• If you are in Brighton or Cambridge and travelling to London with a ‘Thameslink Only’ or ‘Greater Anglia Only’ ticket and your intended train is cancelled, you can use your ticket on any Thameslink, Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern or Greater Anglia service via any reasonable route within two hours of your intended train to complete your journey.

The publicly owned operators in this area are: Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, South Western Railway, Southeastern, London North Eastern Railway, Greater Anglia, C2C and London Northwestern

If your train has been cancelled and you do not want to travel, you can find information below on how to obtain a refund for your ticket.

 

[yorkie]

You can use another DfT owned operators service during disruption to your journey.

You can, in any case, without any disruption contractually and legally take any service operated by Greater Thameslink (formerly Govia Thameslink), although the company generally* doesn't want to admit that it's constituent brands are just that: brands.

This train company (aka 'operator') pretends, under certain circumstances, that it consists of multiple companies ('operators').

In this case, although they are claiming that the Southern / GX are separate operators, they are grating you permission to use these fictitious 'operators', when a cancellation occurs, even though you'd be contractually entitled to take them anyway, as it's all one operator.

How nice of them to grant you this permissions you already have (!)

* They do admit it sometimes; see:

GTR admits to operating their four brands

GTR sent ...Govia Thameslink Railway Limited - which operates four brands: Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express - will transfer to a new company, Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited (TSGNL). Although the legal operator is changing, you'll continue to see the same...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Persephone]

You can use another DfT owned operators service during disruption to your journey.

You can, in any case, without any disruption contractually and legally take any service operated by Greater Thameslink (formerly Govia Thameslink), although the company generally* doesn't want to admit that it's constituent brands are just that: brands.

This train company (aka 'operator') pretends, under certain circumstances, that it consists of multiple companies ('operators').

In this case, although they are claiming that the Southern / GX are separate operators, they are grating you permission to use these fictitious 'operators', when a cancellation occurs, even though you'd be contractually entitled to take them anyway, as it's all one operator.

How nice of them to grant you this permissions you already have (!)

* They do admit it sometimes; see:

GTR admits to operating their four brands

GTR sent ...Govia Thameslink Railway Limited - which operates four brands: Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express - will transfer to a new company, Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited (TSGNL). Although the legal operator is changing, you'll continue to see the same...

www.railforums.co.uk

Ah, that's interesting. So another example – say I want to go from Gatwick to Dover Priory. It's much cheaper to connect via Redhill, and on weekdays it takes about the same amount of time as going to St Pancras and taking Southeastern High Speed.

If one of the trains from Gatwick -> Redhill -> Tonbridge -> Dover gets cancelled, could I then instead go Gatwick -> St Pancras, then board the high-speed line to Dover? Is there something on a website or some terms I could show the staff at the barriers/on the train saying that I'm allowed to do that?

 

[Gareth1990]

You can use another DfT owned operators service during disruption to your journey.

You can, in any case, without any disruption contractually and legally take any service operated by Greater Thameslink (formerly Govia Thameslink), although the company generally* doesn't want to admit that it's constituent brands are just that: brands.

This train company (aka 'operator') pretends, under certain circumstances, that it consists of multiple companies ('operators').

In this case, although they are claiming that the Southern / GX are separate operators, they are grating you permission to use these fictitious 'operators', when a cancellation occurs, even though you'd be contractually entitled to take them anyway, as it's all one operator.

How nice of them to grant you this permissions you already have (!)

* They do admit it sometimes; see:

GTR admits to operating their four brands

GTR sent ...Govia Thameslink Railway Limited - which operates four brands: Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express - will transfer to a new company, Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited (TSGNL). Although the legal operator is changing, you'll continue to see the same...

www.railforums.co.uk

Surely now GTR is publicly owned the argument that the three are separate companies becomes even weaker, how are they going to maintain their position when all three are brought under GBR?

 

[Jan Mayen]

Surely now GTR is publicly owned the argument that the three are separate companies becomes even weaker, how are they going to maintain their position when all three are brought under GBR?

I suspect they will either change the wording of the terms and conditions so that they can sell tickets by brand rather than company, or withdraw the cheaper fares.
Or both.

 

[yorkie]

I suspect they will either change the wording of the terms and conditions so that they can sell tickets by brand rather than company...

As discussed in previous threads, brand restrictions are not permitted under the Ticketing Settlement Agreement (TSA), which is a legal document that cannot be overriden by "terms and conditions".

or withdraw the cheaper fares.
Or both.

It was stated many years ago that fares would be "harmonised"; 10 years ago @319321 posted a link to the 'Competition in passenger rail services in Great Britain - A policy document':

The new franchise removed on-rail competition between First Capital Connect and Southern including between London and Gatwick Airport, Three Bridges, Haywards Heath and Brighton. However, we were told by the DfT that a deliberate decision was taken to have only one operator running through the Thameslink cross-London section during the Thameslink upgrade programme in order to reduce the risk to the delivery of the project. We were also told that the new franchise is designed in such a way that it could be split again in the future following the completion of the upgrade work.

3.56 In terms of the impact on fares, we note that, following the award of the new combined franchise, cheaper fares offered by Thameslink (the operator replacing First Capital Connect) will rise over time to harmonise with Southerns fares.

3.57 Which? noted that Thameslink offered a LondonBrighton off-peak ticket at £17.10 against £26.70 on Southern and that the cheaper fare may be lost after harmonisation.160 An annual season ticket between Brighton and London cost £4,304 after the cheaper dedicated £3,640 season ticket was withdrawn, while from Three Bridges to London, the cheapest season ticket was £3,392 per year, an increase of £436 on the dedicated fare.
160 Which? (March 2015), Trains Satisfaction Survey, Save money on your route.

3.58 The DfT told us that, notwithstanding the impact on fares, the legacy of multiple competing operators on the Brighton main line resulted in an inefficient timetable and poor performance. However, ORR told us that performance had declined since the franchises were combined although it is not clear the extent to which this is due to the upgrade works at London Bridge station.161 The DfT also suggested that the historical fare structure was complex and, in some respects, confusing. We consider the relationship between on-rail competition and operational performance and ticketing complexity in detail in Chapter 5.

And here are some articles which date back to the creation of the GTR franchise:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/tran...ares-set-to-rise-664-in-new-deal-9733309.html

Shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh said cheaper Thameslink-only tickets from Brighton to London, currently offered by First Capital Connect, will be phased out.

And she claimed that the cost of some day fares could rise by up to 74 per cent as FCC and Southern services are merged under the new Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern “super franchise” which started this week.

Currently, commuters from Sussex can buy a FCC season ticket which has restricted access to trains which take longer to get to the capital but is cheaper.

Labour said eliminating the fare was part of the franchise arrangements....

https://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/huge-fare-rises-because-of-franchise-merger-labour

Transport Minister Claire Perry said: “When we move from two operators to one on the line, as part of a better franchise deal providing new trains and better services, fares will be gradually equalised. This will be carefully managed to ensure commuters travelling on the discounted First Capital Connect-only fare do not face sharp fare rises.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...le/619795/chris-gibb-report-southern-rail.pdf

I understand that the fares strategy under the GTR franchise has been to freeze the “any route”
tickets and wait for the cheaper “Thameslink only” fares to “catch up”, with the objective of
harmonisation

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/sep/15/tsgn-rail-passengers-stealth-fare-rises-labour

The new franchise means First Capital Connect (FCC) and Southern services are merging. Labour said on Monday that where two existing franchises compete – for example, Brighton to London where FCC and Southern both operate – eliminating the cheaper fare is a condition of the new franchise. Labour said it had received confirmation that the cheaper FCC fares will be phased out, but "ministers have failed to state when and how that will happen"

Much harmonisation has taken place already, but curiously the process appears to have stalled in recent years. The reason for this is unclear. This has created a situation in which unlawful overcharging has taken place, and continues to take place.

I suspect the reason is because the cheaper fares cannot be withdrawn without creating a huge political crisis, as the negativity around that would be huge.

It is often claimed that the lower price fares would automatically be withdrawn, only leaving the higher priced fares; there is certainly a risk of that, and I am sure the DfT would love to do that, but politically I don't think it is viable.

Indeed GTR has tried to argue that the counterfactual to their unlawful fares is that fares would only rise, but the reality is that when the "harmonisation" of fares happened around Redhill, leading to the "Redhill hump" of higher fares from Redhill to London, this was politically unacceptable, which led to the lowering of those fares a few years later, as documented here:

Fare Fares - A Redhill Hump update - Reigate, Redhill & District Rail Users Association

It may come as little surprise to passengers who use stations from Merstham, Redhill, Reigate, Nutfield, Earlswood, Salfrods and Horley that there were no reductions to train ticket pricing during the annual inflation connected rail fares hike. Why would we expect them to go down? Well – as...

www.rrdrua.org.uk

Well – as promised in parliament by then minister Jo Johnson the local phenomenon we know as the ‘Redhill Hump’ would be tackled before the end of GTRs current contract to run our railway in 2021.

The ‘Redhill Hump’ is a rail fare issue where the price of a train ticket into London rises sharply as you leave Coulsdon South before going down again at Gatwick and beyond. The same can be said for relative journeys from nearby stations into London – for many years, for example, our advice has been to purchase a ticket from Dorking to London rather than Reigate or Redhill as it was significantly cheaper.

REDHILL RAIL FARES LEVELLED

I warmly welcomed news from the Department for Transport that, after six years of lobbying by myself and the Reigate and Redhill District Rail Users Association (RRD

www.blunt4reigate.com

GTR, with the agreement of the Department, has frozen or reduced anomalous fares from Reigate, Redhill, Earlswood, Salfords, and Horley. On certain fares such as the weekly travelcard from Salfords to London, this will mean a reduction in price of more than £10 per week compared to today.

GTR doesn't like to admit that it was forced to flatten the Redhill hump by the lowering of fares, just as much as GTR doesn't like to admit that they are one train operator running multiple route brands.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Where I wrote 'change the wording of the terms and conditions' please cross that out and write 'getting the law changed' or some such phrase, which can happen. Hello pubs being allowed to open until God knows when, thanks to legislation being rushed through on Friday.

 

[yorkie]

Where I wrote 'change the wording of the terms and conditions' please cross that out and write 'getting the law changed' or some such phrase, which can happen. Hello pubs being allowed to open until God knows when, thanks to legislation being rushed through on Friday.

If it was as easy as rushing something through, I am sure they would have rushed it through at some point in the ~18 years since GX ceased to be a separate TOC!

 

[Sonic1234]

Surely now GTR is publicly owned the argument that the three are separate companies becomes even weaker, how are they going to maintain their position when all three are brought under GBR?

Possibly by making it enforceable.

GBR (Southern) and GBR (Thameslink) are, as I understand, set to be different divisions of GBR. The management of each division won't want revenue ending up in the other pot.

 

[A S Leib]

You can use another DfT owned operators service during disruption to your journey.

Including LNER in case of Thameslink cancellations at Peterborough?

 

[OneOfThe48]

Including LNER in case of Thameslink cancellations at Peterborough?

Yes, see the explanation on the Thameslink website that I shared in the second post in this thread.

Its explained on their website, but yes you can use a Southern or Gatwick Express train within two hours either side of your planned but cancelled Thameslink service

https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/help-and-support/refunds-and-changing-your-ticket