Cross-operator ticket acceptance announced (excluding East Midlands Railway, OAOs) when services are cancelled

[Adam Williams]

But the proportion of inconvenience for me (and I'm sure many others) is mostly about delays, not cancellations. Mostly when they are serious delays or when they miss a connection etc

Does the government not want the same general flexibility to apply to delays (or at least delays that are over a certain period of time)?

I agree (and pointed out in the very first post!)

 

[WesternLancer]

I agree (and pointed out in the very first post!)

point well made - my apols

But to go back to that post - even a delay which does not involve a change of trains but where there are multiple operators on the route - eg Sheffield to Manchester - you arrive expecting to get an EMR service but find it's delayed by a fair bit and thus it makes sense to get on with your journey either with TPE or Northern to minimise your delay

 

[JamesT]

point well made - my apols

But to go back to that post - even a delay which does not involve a change of trains but where there are multiple operators on the route - eg Sheffield to Manchester - you arrive expecting to get an EMR service but find it's delayed by a fair bit and thus it makes sense to get on with your journey either with TPE or Northern to minimise your delay

Wouldn't that tend to destroy the use of the operator-specific tickets in order to apportion capacity? If everyone can just pile onto the next train because there have been delays?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wouldn't that tend to destroy the use of the operator-specific tickets in order to apportion capacity? If everyone can just pile onto the next train because there have been delays?

Operator specific tickets aren't to apportion capacity and don't do that. Train specific tickets are, but it's unfair to expect passengers to wait long periods because of them - the basis on which they are sold is a punctual train, not a late one.

 

[WesternLancer]

Wouldn't that tend to destroy the use of the operator-specific tickets in order to apportion capacity? If everyone can just pile onto the next train because there have been delays?

soon Operator specific tickets will be irrelevant tho surely - when the operator for everyone is GBR (aprt from open access operators of course) - tho perhaps route brands might remain.

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

Operator specific tickets aren't to apportion capacity and don't do that. Train specific tickets are, but it's unfair to expect passengers to wait long periods because of them - the basis on which they are sold is a punctual train, not a late one.

Yes, point well made
Obviously when a long train gets delayed and the next service pulls in with say bust 2 or 3 carriages then inevitable problems would arise - but as you say passengers wont want to put up with being barred from them in delay scenarios any more then they would be in cancellation situations.

 

[JamesT]

Operator specific tickets aren't to apportion capacity and don't do that. Train specific tickets are, but it's unfair to expect passengers to wait long periods because of them - the basis on which they are sold is a punctual train, not a late one.

Taking the standard WCML example, aren’t LNR/WMR tickets there to use that capacity instead of the Avanti?

 

[redreni]

Taking the standard WCML example, aren’t LNR/WMR tickets there to use that capacity instead of the Avanti?

Do you need walk-up fares for that, though?

Advances on flows like London to Birmingham or London to Crewe can be priced to make the slower trains cheaper, in exactly the same way as Advances for the Avanti London to Glasgow stopper are generally cheaper than the London to Glasgow express for journeys like London-Preston.

 

[Egg Centric]

You don't need many people to do it for it to be an issue. Years ago a retailer offered truly bonkers itineraries alongside £5 tickets like Southampton to Portsmouth via Inverness. And people of course took advantage! Now those journeys wouldn't have been made otherwise but it isn't an argument to let it just occur because oh well, the railway got a fiver more than nothing and it was just enthusiasts.

(It was fun while it lasted!)

Can 100% confirm I'd be on this like a shot if there was no requirement to be reasonable, and know plenty of others - if just as usernames on this site if nothing else - who would as well.

An LNER MK4 set has, what, 82 first class seats now? And there's one of them a day on the Newcastle route.

You only need 10 people in the whole country who want to see Durham Cathedral out of a Mk4 and that's 12.5% of first class capacity taken (at a minimum).

The reasonable route rule really is necessary. And I don't actually understand the opposition to it anyway? So long as reasonable is given a wide latitude - and this can be communicated through training - why would we want to allow completely unreasonable routes? I'd even say it's fine to take into account the motivations and intent of the passenger.

 

[modernrail]

Can 100% confirm I'd be on this like a shot if there was no requirement to be reasonable, and know plenty of others - if just as usernames on this site if nothing else - who would as well.

An LNER MK4 set has, what, 82 first class seats now? And there's one of them a day on the Newcastle route.

You only need 10 people in the whole country who want to see Durham Cathedral out of a Mk4 and that's 12.5% of first class capacity taken (at a minimum).

The reasonable route rule really is necessary. And I don't actually understand the opposition to it anyway? So long as reasonable is given a wide latitude - and this can be communicated through training - why would we want to allow completely unreasonable routes? I'd even say it's fine to take into account the motivations and intent of the passenger.

I think that’s the point. The tendency of some to want to overly legalise the definition of reasonable is the important bit. It just needs to be common sense.

As for enthusiasts tempted to take advantage, I wouldn’t say that is great form. It is important that the passenger is as reasonable as they expect the railway to be.

 

[Egg Centric]

I think that’s the point. The tendency of some to want to overly legalise the definition of reasonable is the important bit. It just needs to be common sense.

As for enthusiasts tempted to take advantage, I wouldn’t say that is great form. It is important that the passenger is as reasonable as they expect the railway to be.

I agree, fwiw. Unfortunately, the overly legalistic and rules based and frankly inhuman interpretation of the railway (and I can extend this to many other corporate things) means passengers can't expect it to be reasonable, so why should they be?

It is possible that this may not be rectifiable, but if it is the change will have to come from the railway first because there's no realistic way for it to come from the passengers.

 

[redreni]

I am quite happy to be reasonable when diverting following a cancellation.

I would be prepared to be reasonable at all times if that were the rule for determining what routes passengers may take in normal circumstances, but it isn't so I will follow the railway's definition of a permitted route all the way to its most absurd conclusions if necessary.

Back to the topic of cancelled trains and routeing, however, I'm really not sure why anyone asking questions is assumed to be hostile to the concept of a "look, just be reasonable and on you go" rule. I'm certainly not. I'm just sceptical of making the public-facing rule relatively nebulous and then briefing staff on a completely different rule.

 

[TUC]

I recognise it is well before this forum existed, but are there any other records (such as in rail magazines) of disputes over the definition of 'reasonable route' when this concept previously was applied?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Taking the standard WCML example, aren’t LNR/WMR tickets there to use that capacity instead of the Avanti?

They're more about price differentiation to grow the overall market by there being a low cost option that competes primarily with coaches and your mate's old banger. LNR (and LM before them) have often struggled for capacity, not had loads spare to fill.

 

[modernrail]

They're more about price differentiation to grow the overall market by there being a low cost option that competes primarily with coaches and your mate's old banger. LNR (and LM before them) have often struggled for capacity, not had loads spare to fill.

And boy is it proof that the demand is there! I wonder what what would happen if the equivalent service existed on the East Coast.

The more I think about it the more the omission on delays is very annoying. It really does need an equivalent rule and I am sticking by my 15 minutes idea. If the railway hasn’t delivered your train to your platform within 15 minutes of advertised time - or if it is already advertised to be 15 or more minutes late, you should be able to jump on another train. We are only talking about advance and operator specific tickets in any case so on a lot of routes passengers mostly use other ticket types. 15 minutes is fair because that is the sort of timescale that starts to cause people genuine problems in terms of getting to meetings, times events etc.

 

[py_megapixel]

15 minutes is fair because that is the sort of timescale that starts to cause people genuine problems in terms of getting to meetings, times events etc.

That only makes sense if it's based on the arrival time, not the departure time as you suggest.

A long distance train could potentially make up a 15 min delay over the course of its journey and arrive on time.

Meanwhile a 5 min delay to a single train could result in a delay of an hour or more if a connection is missed.

I fully agree though that there's a need for a solution here. Entirely predictably there is now a thread about someone who, faced with a delay of over 2 hours because they missed a connection and two different TOCs refused to help them, ended up purchasing a new ticket and will now have to argue about claiming this back. An unacceptable state of affairs that will only put people off rail travel.

 

[modernrail]

That only makes sense if it's based on the arrival time, not the departure time as you suggest.

A long distance train could potentially make up a 15 min delay over the course of its journey and arrive on time.

Meanwhile a 5 min delay to a single train could result in a delay of an hour or more if a connection is missed.

I fully agree though that there's a need for a solution here. Entirely predictably there is now a thread about someone who, faced with a delay of over 2 hours because they missed a connection and two different TOCs refused to help them, ended up purchasing a new ticket and will now have to argue about claiming this back. An unacceptable state of affairs that will only put people off rail travel.

Unless somebody invests workable crystal balls that doesn’t work.

15 minutes at the departure point is the sensible cut off. It is rare a train makes up that sort of delay and more often you start to miss connections/get caught behind other trains etc and so the delay increases. That sort of delay is also where the railway thinks it’s okay to terminate short of destination or skip stops and so I absolutely should be able to take immediate defensive action to prevent an even bigger headache. I usually find anything over 10 minutes seems to trip into difficult to recover territory. Also, it is not about this being an exact science. It is about saying, here is a point in time when a passenger is entitled to have lost confidence that their booked train is going to perform is function of getting them somewhere for a particular time, and so they can use alternatives.

There might be times when you say, actually I will wait for that one. If you prefer delay repay because you are not in a rush. If things are generally up the spout etc and so you think at least I might get a seat on that one when it turns up. However, I cannot bare being late for meetings and I really do think it is reasonable to be able to make a decision at that point.

To be fair, most guards get this anyway. There has been the occasional guard who has tried to lecture when I have caught another train and I have quite quickly lectured back that I couldn’t care less which company is involved, the railway has made me late despite me handing over a small fortune for the pleasure and I appreciate their efforts in helping me undo that as much as possible in the circumstances.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And boy is it proof that the demand is there! I wonder what what would happen if the equivalent service existed on the East Coast.

The more I think about it the more the omission on delays is very annoying. It really does need an equivalent rule and I am sticking by my 15 minutes idea. If the railway hasn’t delivered your train to your platform within 15 minutes of advertised time - or if it is already advertised to be 15 or more minutes late, you should be able to jump on another train. We are only talking about advance and operator specific tickets in any case so on a lot of routes passengers mostly use other ticket types. 15 minutes is fair because that is the sort of timescale that starts to cause people genuine problems in terms of getting to meetings, times events etc.

The biggest issue by far is that a missed connection isn't treated the same as a cancellation. Delays are a step further though I don't disagree with you.

 

[tomoufc]

Sorry but can we keep this thread to discussing this particular announcement, rather than speculative discussion about what kind of announcement we would have preferred?

 

[Adam Williams]

I think it's valid to point out glaring omissions in government policy.

 

[LowLevel]

And boy is it proof that the demand is there! I wonder what what would happen if the equivalent service existed on the East Coast.

The more I think about it the more the omission on delays is very annoying. It really does need an equivalent rule and I am sticking by my 15 minutes idea. If the railway hasn’t delivered your train to your platform within 15 minutes of advertised time - or if it is already advertised to be 15 or more minutes late, you should be able to jump on another train. We are only talking about advance and operator specific tickets in any case so on a lot of routes passengers mostly use other ticket types. 15 minutes is fair because that is the sort of timescale that starts to cause people genuine problems in terms of getting to meetings, times events etc.

The mentality to get past is that there is generally a way for the passenger to sort it out by paying for a more expensive ticket that gives that leeway.

"Why should I let someone with a Northern Only ticket use my train, if I help them out they will keep buying Northern Only tickets and the very existence of those tickets annoys the hell out of me because it causes me aggro during ticket checks".

Personally I stopped giving a toss around the 2018 disaster and I don't think I've charged anyone for an Operator Only ticket indiscretion since.

Make it a cohesive network again (which they are working towards, with baby steps) and I suspect you'll see resistance at all levels start to drop, even if there are still ticket demarkations between Intercity and Regional etc.

The DB system of converting a discount ticket into an anytime after a reasonable delay seems by far the best outcome to me.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The DB system of converting a discount ticket into an anytime after a reasonable delay seems by far the best outcome to me.

The overall attitude needs to be "we have screwed someone over who paid to be carried from A to B departing at X and arriving at Y in good faith, so what's the least we can do to get them as close to that as possible". Not snarkiness, pettiness and jobsworthiness that sadly pervades the railway management who decide this kind of stuff (and some but mercifully not all on the ground staff e.g. the notorious Avanti Euston gateline).

 

[py_megapixel]

"Why should I let someone with a Northern Only ticket use my train, if I help them out they will keep buying Northern Only tickets

God forbid we encourage any passengers to continue paying to travel on the railway in the future!

and the very existence of those tickets annoys the hell out of me because it causes me aggro during ticket checks".

To some extent I agree with this. If enforcing a particular restriction is causing too much aggro then it just needs to be abolished. The railway shouldn't design systems that place staff in conflict with passengers as a matter of course!

But given guards have the discretion not to enforce this sort of thing, why would they choose to if this bothers them?

 

[LowLevel]

The overall attitude needs to be "we have screwed someone over who paid to be carried from A to B departing at X and arriving at Y in good faith, so what's the least we can do to get them as close to that as possible". Not snarkiness, pettiness and jobsworthiness that sadly pervades the railway management who decide this kind of stuff (and some but mercifully not all on the ground staff e.g. the notorious Avanti Euston gateline).

Well indeed. And when it comes to individual train loading I've never felt the need to consult anyway. I'm paid a decent salary to be the company representative on board a train. Even before the current agreements started if the station supervisor came up to me and said "X Y Z is cancelled, can we put them on yours?" the answer would always be yes. I suspect some controllers (not many though) would be irritated I've not consulted them about formal ticket acceptance, but who cares?

 

[Djgr]

The overall attitude needs to be "we have screwed someone over who paid to be carried from A to B departing at X and arriving at Y in good faith, so what's the least we can do to get them as close to that as possible". Not snarkiness, pettiness and jobsworthiness that sadly pervades the railway management who decide this kind of stuff (and some but mercifully not all on the ground staff e.g. the notorious Avanti Euston gateline).

Oh yes indeed. Why is this so hard? Is it training? Recruitment?

 

[modernrail]

I think it's valid to point out glaring omissions in government policy.

Yes on this occasion it is all very interlinked.

I like the DB concept. That really does it seem to be in spirit of how it should be.

So in the UK is could be, if your train is delayed by 15 minutes or cancelled, your whatever it is ticket converts into a get on the next train if you want to ticket.

Who within a nationalised railway would actually have a problem with that? Yes, it will cause some trains to be busier that otherwise but they often would be anyway where ticket acceptance had been arranged and the passengers subject to a busier train will also one day be able to limit problems with their journey when faced with disruption - so it is all very equitable.

Then the focus should be on exactly where it needs to be - the railway driving out delays and cancellations at every possible step, rather than bothering passengers it has inconvenienced.

 

[WesternLancer]

I think it's valid to point out glaring omissions in government policy.

I agree - the govt span the announcement in it's release as a significant benefit for passengers (implicit or explicit being that this will flow from their GBR / nationalisation plans)

I've not checked the reporting stats for percentages of
a) cancelled services
b) Services delayed by over 15 mins
c) Services delayed by over 30 mins

But I bet (a) is very small compared with b & c

Thus if this benefit to use other operators services only applies in the event of cancellations it won't benefit the majority of passengers affected by the various sorts of disruption and delays - and thus the announcement will not achieve it's objectives in the eyes of the general travelling public - which the govt themselves highlight in regular critical statements about the system they inherited (or would inherit when they talked about it prior to the election) about the railways being fragmented and how this does not deliver for passengers

 

[embers25]

So today the policy has already flopped as services are all cancelled between Reading and Oxford but XC are not saying you can use any LNER train, just LNER London to Doncaster....which is just not true as any LNER is fair game with a Reading to York route Not via London ticket for example, including a non-stop Kings Cross to York one.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So today the policy has already flopped as services are all cancelled between Reading and Oxford but XC are not saying you can use any LNER train, just LNER London to Doncaster....which is just not true as any LNER is fair game with a Reading to York route Not via London ticket for example, including a non-stop Kings Cross to York one.

Generally acceptance was about what those on TOC specific Advances can do, obviously those with walk ups have more validity and can use that in any way they wish.

However, under the new policy any LNER (with a departure time from the point of cancellation +/- 2hrs) is fair game on any ticket in my view. There is no obligation, express or implied, to switch back to XC once that is possible, unlike before.

 

[Djgr]

So today the policy has already flopped as services are all cancelled between Reading and Oxford but XC are not saying you can use any LNER train, just LNER London to Doncaster....which is just not true as any LNER is fair game with a Reading to York route Not via London ticket for example, including a non-stop Kings Cross to York one.

I don't think that it is a requirement that the TOC needs to say anything before a passenger can make use of their rights.

Although a glance at the disruption on the National Rail app suggests that the spirit of the new policy is essentially there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think that it is a requirement that the TOC needs to say anything before a passenger can make use of their rights.

Correct. Their train simply needs to be cancelled, which means that either the station they are intending to board at or the station they are intending to alight at (or both) will not be served by the intended train, or it won't run at all.