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Delay Repay when the train is cancelled in advance

matt_g_uk

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31 Mar 2023
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Cambridgeshire
Here’s my scenario: before leaving home, I check the status of the train I mean to catch and it shows as cancelled. Therefore I don’t travel to the station and instead get the next train. I have an extra 30 minutes at home.

Am I eligible for delay repay?
 
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matt_g_uk

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Joined
31 Mar 2023
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Cambridgeshire
Even if I only buy the ticket when I get to the station? What if I normally travel with KeyGo so there is no ticket until I tap in?
 

Bletchleyite

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In order to be eligible for a delay repay, you ought to have a valid ticket before the delay is announced.

This has always been what is suggested, but I can't see anything in the NRCoT or elsewhere stating it to be the case, and I've certainly had one paid where the ticket was purchased after the delay was notified (but before departure time of the cancelled train from a TVM, which was evidence I was actually at the station and not trying it on).
 
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sprunt

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22 Jul 2017
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I don't see why it should be necessary to have bought the ticket before the train is cancelled. If I plan to catch the 12.00, buying a ticket at the station but then it's cancelled so I do the same with the 12.30 I've still been delayed by half an hour.
 

yorkie

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Here’s my scenario: before leaving home, I check the status of the train I mean to catch and it shows as cancelled. Therefore I don’t travel to the station and instead get the next train. I have an extra 30 minutes at home.

Am I eligible for delay repay?
Providing you already bought your ticket before the delay was known, and providing there wasn't some unadvertised additional transport available at the station - which would have avoided a qualifying delay - that wasn't knowable to you from afar, then yes.
 

island

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I don't see why it should be necessary to have bought the ticket before the train is cancelled. If I plan to catch the 12.00, buying a ticket at the station but then it's cancelled so I do the same with the 12.30 I've still been delayed by half an hour.
DelayRepay is a form of compensation paid by the train company for its failure to perform the contract entered into. If you do not have a ticket you do not have a contract. If you buy a ticket after you know or ought to have known about the delay, then the existence of the delay is implied into the contract.

All that being said, they'll probably pay out anyway.
 

Kilopylae

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Providing you already bought your ticket before the delay was known, and providing there wasn't some unadvertised additional transport available at the station - which would have avoided a qualifying delay - that wasn't knowable to you from afar, then yes.
Is this so? If I'm sitting in the pub around the corner from the station with an Advance ticket, and I see that my train is an hour late so I stay for another drink, is it really true that I can't claim Delay Repay because there was an RRB I knew nothing about?
 

yorkie

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Is this so? If I'm sitting in the pub around the corner from the station with an Advance ticket, and I see that my train is an hour late so I stay for another drink, is it really true that I can't claim Delay Repay because there was an RRB I knew nothing about?
If an additional service runs (which could be an additional stop, which - as with buses - may not always appear on online systems) and is advertised to everyone at the station, but you chose not to be at the station, then generally speaking you could expect to find the claim rejected on the basis that a service was provided.

Certainly the historic situation - before a reliance on online information - would have been to stick around at the station if you wanted to minimise a delay, but these days there is an expectation of being able to see information remotely from the station, but I am not sure if there is a right to argue that you can exclusively rely on such information.

If you took all reasonable efforts to establish if an alternative option was available and if the train operator didn't provide any such information of any alternatives, except to passengers at the station, then you would have a reasonable grounds to dispute any such decision, but I am not sure that either party could definitively point to any particular rule that would indisputably settle such an argument either way.
 

Bletchleyite

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A good example of this is when (with irritating regularity) one of the Marston Vale 150s conks out. WMT tend to have a minibus on standby so it can be brought in at little notice (I bet Northern passengers would give their eye teeth for that :) ), and so such journeys normally get covered by bus, particularly if it will be out for more than one round trip. However very rarely is this bus entered in the timetable systems so you'd only know about it by being at the station and seeing it sat outside.

Having said that, such a Delay Repay claim would probably succeed, as there'd be nothing in the automated systems that check them to say there is a bus. It won't be processed by someone who knows.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Even if I only buy the ticket when I get to the station? What if I normally travel with KeyGo so there is no ticket until I tap in?

This is a bit of an issue with that "rule" (which appears not to be actually written anywhere, though I think it was in "charter compensation" days). It seems unlikely that no cancellation claims would ever be paid out for people using Oyster/contactless (because you'd not touch in before most cancellations).
 

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