LNER ‘false’ arrival times to avoid Delay Repay?

[Falcon1200]

In the end, as you say they're both attempts to avoid delay repay.

Public arrival times being later than WTT times have been a thing for a long time, well before anyone thought of Delay Repay!

 

[redreni]

Indeed they may feel that way but they are not actually any different.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? And if I ask you the same question again, but this time tell you that you owe me £50 for every one minute you are late every day, would your answer change?

Yes, but then again, if it's a sum of money for every 30 minutes I am late, I doubt I'd feel the need to cook the books so that I only have to pay if I am 32 or 33 minutes late.

 

[OscarH]

I've had the same problem at Littlehampton a number of years back - all the trains arrived 2 minutes early, so while I was quite obviously 30 minutes late to any human it gets classed as 28 so the 15 band for delay repay

I know it's not delay repay specifically they're doing it for, but the fact they're doing it to circumvent other accountability stats is just as bad

 

[Haywain]

Yes, but then again, if it's a sum of money for every 30 minutes I am late, I doubt I'd feel the need to cook the books so that I only have to pay if I am 32 or 33 minutes late.

You wouldn't be slightly generous with the time you need so as to protect yourself against paying out? I find that difficult to believe.

 

[blimmo]

Scrap DR15 and decrease the thresholds for the other delays by 3 mins. Would solve this problem immediately.

 

[tomsy47]

It is frustrating that on services with a 30min clock-face timetable, if a train is cancelled and you catch the next one 30min later, then you're running 30min late. Yes, the various working timetable allowances mean the train might arrive a minute early, but then the previous service would likely have had the same allowances too.

 

[redreni]

You wouldn't be slightly generous with the time you need so as to protect yourself against paying out? I find that difficult to believe.

Not when I have 29 and three quarter minutes to play with to begin with, but that's where getting ready in the morning and running a railway are different.

Discrepancies between the public facing and the actual timetable are very much things I would play with if I was running a railway company, if I were allowed to get away with it. On the other hand, if I were regulating or scrutinising a publicly subsidised industry I would not allow such discrepancies to exist. They are only there to deceive various people about the extent of delays. Accurate measurement of delays is a basic prerequisite of understanding, maintaining or improving punctuality.

After I moved to South East London, Southeastern introduced considerable new padding on its arrival times into London Bridge and Cannon Street, which of course lengthens the timetabled journey time and therefore negatively impacts property prices in the places that now have a slower journey time in the fictional version of the timetable, even though the actual timetable hasn't changed. It may be a fun game for somebody in an office somewhere, but it's not something that ought to be allowed. The public-facing timetables arrival and departure times for London Bridge were particularly ridiculous as trains would leave London Bridge early, and would need to do so in order to arrive at Cannon Street on time according to the working timetable. And If a train arrived on time (as opposed to early) at Cannon Street according to the public timetable, there wouldn't be enough time to turn it around in time for the next service on the diagram.

If the government had intended delay repay to kick in at 18 or 33 minutes, it would have made those thresholds part of TOCs' franchises or management contracts.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I continued with the 13:10 option, and was told that because the train arrived a minute early, I was not entitled to any compensation.

No, you were told that your delay was only 29 minutes. Your cancelled train was due in on the public timetable (which is what the railway promises) at 1453 and you arrived at 1522.

It's worth noting that the train you took actually arrived one minute late compared to the WTT, at 1522 instead of 1521.

I get that a 29 minute delay is frustrating.

To check, I decided to then select the 13:40 option, which verified a 64 minute delay and asked for my bank details to refund the entire ticket price. It is possible that a refund for the 13:40 would later be denied, but all indications suggest otherwise.

I genuinely can't believe LNER offered that as an option. They allow you to travel +/- 2 hours but I don't see that that means you can deliberately take a later train and claim for more delay. But if LNER's website is offering that as an option, who knows.

 

[D1537]

Public arrival times being later than WTT times have been a thing for a long time, well before anyone thought of Delay Repay!

Indeed, but their primary function now is to reduce Delay Repay, which explains why very long-distance services (with higher fares) are more likely to have their schedules padded.

Although actually, as far as I can see, the December 2025 LNER timetable has reduced that padding, not increased it, so ...

 

[mmh]

Indeed, but their primary function now is to reduce Delay Repay,

I would doubt this. Delay repay will be a pretty insignificant amount of money. Significant sometimes to the individual, and insignificant to The Railway.

 

[Tetchytyke]

They are only there to deceive various people about the extent of delays.

My understanding (and happy to be corrected here) is that the WTT works off block times, I've read before that this is why the data on RealTimeTrains will sometimes show a train has arrived before it has. There may well be 1-2 minutes difference between the time the train enters the platform at Kings Cross compared to the time the train has come to a complete stop and the doors have been released.

If any of this was nefarious they'd put a bigger buffer in than two minutes.

 

[jfollows]

I would doubt this. Delay repay will be a pretty insignificant amount of money. Significant sometimes to the individual, and insignificant to The Railway.

Absolutely.
They’re more interested in meeting targets such as “90 and 2” stated by Northern (see RAIL 1067) - 90% of all trains arriving within 3 minutes of the scheduled arrival time at the destination (and under 2% of services cancelled) so it’s especially important to insert padding before the final arrival to make this target easier to achieve. As I said above, BR did it, it’s nothing new. Although Northern don't do it as much as some.

 

[em81]

I feel the final station arrival time relates as much to punctuality figures as Delay Repay claims. On a number of lines the second to last station is an interchange station too, Manchester Oxford Road and Stockport being good examples.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

It is frustrating that on services with a 30min clock-face timetable, if a train is cancelled and you catch the next one 30min later, then you're running 30min late. Yes, the various working timetable allowances mean the train might arrive a minute early, but then the previous service would likely have had the same allowances too.

I agree. However, I would also usually prefer my train to arrive slightly ahead of schedule, then to be sat outside the station until the platform is available.

 

[gray1404]

If the OP continued to a further destination using National Rail services after arriving in London they may, depending on the specifics, be entitled to delay repay after all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

It is a very frustrating issue. There is a 1 minute allowance made for arrival times of trains into my local station and this can affect my delay repay entitlements. It is frustrating when you know you've been running 30 minutes late all along the line but then my station is only 29 minutes. Then the following stations on the same service it can be back to 30 but then as early as 4 minutes into the terminus of the train.

 

[xotGD]

When you have an official +10 connection according to the working timetable, but only a +9 according to the public timetable, journey times are inflated by 30 minutes according to journey planners, even when the connection is easily made; P1 to P0 at Leeds, for example.

And of course, if you miss the +9 due to a late arrival there is no delay repay entitlement.

 

[em81]

When you have an official +10 connection according to the working timetable, but only a +9 according to the public timetable, journey times are inflated by 30 minutes according to journey planners, even when the connection is easily made; P1 to P0 at Leeds, for example.

And of course, if you miss the +9 due to a late arrival there is no delay repay entitlement.

On that point, journey planners sometimes advise you to do silly things based on minimum connection times. For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure, not Oxford Road with a shorter minimum connection time.

 

[AdamWW]

It is frustrating that on services with a 30min clock-face timetable, if a train is cancelled and you catch the next one 30min later, then you're running 30min late. Yes, the various working timetable allowances mean the train might arrive a minute early, but then the previous service would likely have had the same allowances too.

Quite.

If you miss a connection onto a train running a clockface timetable and get a train half an hour later your delay by any common sense definition is 30 minutes.

Now I know that's not how it works....but I've yet to find a TOC with the honesty to explicitly point out this consequence of how they do the calculation in their FAQs.

It seems a little unreasonable that someone getting off a stop before the terminus gets Delay Repay when anyone going that extra stop doesn't.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

On that point, journey planners sometimes advise you to do silly things based on minimum connection times. For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure, not Oxford Road with a shorter minimum connection time.

And indeed they get tripped up by padding too - I've seen planners tell people to get off a train at Haymarket and change for Edinburgh onto a train that doesn't terminate there and therefore isn't padded.

 

[mmh]

On that point, journey planners sometimes advise you to do silly things based on minimum connection times. For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure, not Oxford Road with a shorter minimum connection time.

I may be missing something, but I can't think of any scenario where this is silly.

 

[em81]

And indeed they get tripped up by padding too - I've seen planners tell people to get off a train at Haymarket and change for Edinburgh onto a train that doesn't terminate there and therefore isn't padded.

For some reason the other day Google Maps told me to alight a Metrolink tram at Exchange Square and walk to the rail platforms at Manchester Victoria. I checked for engineering work and there wasn't any. Google Maps even showed the tram as continuing to Crumpsall, calling at Victoria.

I walk quickly but I'm surprised Google Maps thought I could walk faster than the tram.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

I may be missing something, but I can't think of any scenario where this is silly.

When I said "For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure," I meant that's what you should do, rather than following the journey planner's suggestion of changing at Oxford Road.

 

[mmh]

When I said "For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure," I meant that's what you should do, rather than following the journey planner's suggestion of changing at Oxford Road.

Ah, my apologies!

 

[GWVillager]

It is frustrating that on services with a 30min clock-face timetable, if a train is cancelled and you catch the next one 30min later, then you're running 30min late. Yes, the various working timetable allowances mean the train might arrive a minute early, but then the previous service would likely have had the same allowances too.

You've summed it up well.

It's worth noting that the train you took actually arrived one minute late compared to the WTT, at 1522 instead of 1521.

I noted this in the original post.

I genuinely can't believe LNER offered that as an option. They allow you to travel +/- 2 hours but I don't see that that means you can deliberately take a later train and claim for more delay. But if LNER's website is offering that as an option, who knows.

I provided the screenshot, and it carries onto filling out bank details. I shan't progress any further as I was not actually on that train, of course, but it is definitely offered.

If the OP continued to a further destination using National Rail services after arriving in London they may, depending on the specifics, be entitled to delay repay after all.

I was nominally bound for Haydons Road but, maddeningly, the Thameslink train running half an hour behind my planned one actually arrived there a couple of minutes early too, giving a 28 minute delay! The matter affected me much more than this in reality, though, as I was splitting my ticket at Haydons Road to continue to Hereford via Basingstoke. This is a valid routing but an unconventional one, which I chose in order to pick up a parcel from a friend who lives in Basingstoke. Having to catch the 13:10 from Leeds meant I could no longer travel to Basingstoke via Haydons Road if I were to be on time, and instead had to purchase a new ticket from Waterloo to Woking (as well as the Tube fare across London). As far as I understand it, this is not something eligible for any compensation.

 

[Watershed]

I was nominally bound for Haydons Road but, maddeningly, the Thameslink train running half an hour behind my planned one actually arrived there a couple of minutes early too, giving a 28 minute delay! The matter affected me much more than this in reality, though, as I was splitting my ticket at Haydons Road to continue to Hereford via Basingstoke.

Had you already bought your ticket(s) to Haydons Road or to Hereford before the delay to the LNER train became apparent? If so, you should include this in your delay repair claim.

For future reference, it's always worth mentioning all the trains you intended to take that day when you're making a thread here. Sometimes seemingly small details can make a big difference.

This is a valid routing but an unconventional one, which I chose in order to pick up a parcel from a friend who lives in Basingstoke.

There is no requirement for your overall journey to follow a permitted route from your origin to your destination when you're using split tickets; indeed, the reason you're splitting might be in order to allow you to travel via a route that wouldn't be permitted on a through ticket.

Having to catch the 13:10 from Leeds meant I could no longer travel to Basingstoke via Haydons Road if I were to be on time, and instead had to purchase a new ticket from Waterloo to Woking (as well as the Tube fare across London). As far as I understand it, this is not something eligible for any compensation.

Delay Repay is always based on your planned itinerary's arrival time, versus your actual arrival time. It doesn't matter whether your planned itinerary included a detour that meant it was slower than the fastest possible journey; the arrival time of your planned itinerary is still what counts.

Unfortunately I don't think you can claim anything for not being able to stop off en-route, e.g. when changing chains. Your Delay Repay claim would still be based on the time you reached Hereford versus your planned arrival time. If there was no delay to that, then I think you are better off claiming for the delay to London.

 

[em81]

On the last point, it's the same with airline connections. I booked flights which had a 6 hour stopover at Zurich and had hoped to briefly visit the city. However, my flight to Zurich was significantly delayed and I didn't feel it was worth trying to get into the city centre. As my second flight arrived roughly on time I wasn't entitled to any compensation, and didn't try to claim any for missing the Zurich visit.

 

[louis97]

My understanding (and happy to be corrected here) is that the WTT works off block times, I've read before that this is why the data on RealTimeTrains will sometimes show a train has arrived before it has. There may well be 1-2 minutes difference between the time the train enters the platform at Kings Cross compared to the time the train has come to a complete stop and the doors have been released.

The WTT and the running times used to make it are based off the actual times the trains are expected to start/stop/pass not the time they enter or leave a "block".

The times you see on RTT in most cases is not the time the train has entered or left a block but a calculated value based off those times. An offset is applied to adjust that time to reflect an approximate time the train has started or stopped at the location in question. As a result of this, you see this approximate time for arrivals when the train enters the block in question.

If RTT is showing a train has arrived before it has, either the offset is wrong (either because the infrastructure has changed since it was last calculated, or an oversight), or the train in question did not perform as per an average train entering that block. If you do ever notice anywhere which is consistently wrong, please do let us know so we can fix it. The email address is on the website.

 

[Merle Haggard]

'Waiting at Wellingborough for a St Pancras train the platform display screen changes to 'Arrived' before the train comes into sight
Similarly, on a Euston bound LNr train & using RTT/OTT to look at the schedule on a. laptop an 'arrival' time at Wolverton was shown some distance before the station had been reached.

These are just examples that I particularly remember, and I've only taken a laptop on a train twice.

 

[Haywain]

If RTT is showing a train has arrived before it has, either the offset is wrong (either because the infrastructure has changed since it was last calculated, or an oversight), or the train in question did not perform as per an average train entering that block.

I suspect that modern driving techniques, being a lot more cautious than in the past, play a large part in this.

 

[robbeech]

When you have an official +10 connection according to the working timetable, but only a +9 according to the public timetable, journey times are inflated by 30 minutes according to journey planners, even when the connection is easily made; P1 to P0 at Leeds, for example.

And of course, if you miss the +9 due to a late arrival there is no delay repay entitlement.

And no assistance if it’s the last train of the day, annoying as some of those last train of the day journey times can mean setting off home an hour earlier if you don’t want to take the risk.

On that point, journey planners sometimes advise you to do silly things based on minimum connection times. For example, if you're on the Liverpool to Norwich train and changing to a Manchester Airport train, change at Piccadilly for a same platform departure, not Oxford Road with a shorter minimum connection time.

There’s a few instances where a Lincoln Leeds / Huddersfield (might be a Sunday I can’t remember) journey will tell you to swap at Sheffield as there’s a train that leaves 7 minutes after arrival but your original one leaves 8 minutes after.

 

[louis97]

I suspect that modern driving techniques, being a lot more cautious than in the past, play a large part in this.

We can factor this into most offsets, RTT only shows in the quarter of a minute, and if the line speed is low anyway you get less variance between trains too. It only really becomes an issue where signal sections are long and/or where there are lots of conflicting movements nearby. Temporary/Emergency speed restrictions of course also impact offsets too. The challenge is keeping them up-to-date!