Delay Repay where Part Cancellation Reinstated After Departure

I had an Avanti journey booked from Preston to Birmingham International. Before departure, my train was showing as part-cancelled and due to run direct from Stafford to Rugby, missing out the West Midlands stops.

As I had an Avanti-only ticket, I decided to wait at Preston for the next via Birmingham Avanti service an hour later. Had I boarded the original train, I would have had to get off at Stafford and wait there for that same train anyway.

However, after the original service had departed Preston, the West Midlands stops were reinstated, and it ultimately ran to Birmingham International as normal.

Would I still have a valid Delay Repay claim based on the information available when I had to make the decision at Preston? Or does the fact that my booked service was subsequently reinstated mean Avanti would consider the delay to be my choice and reject the claim?

I would say that you do have a case to claim but it may be hard to do so because the records will state that the train ran. Do you have evidence from the time of departure with the stops showing cancelled e.g. a screenshot showing the time and the cancellations from an accredited app that uses Darwin for its data source (not Realtime Trains) or from the passenger information display at Preston*? You may find that works.

However in terms of "not being late" it would probably have made more sense to go as far as possible on that train in case things changed (as they did) and change at Stafford had the train not run via Birmingham even if that did mean waiting there an hour.

* This may be hard as I believe they're all destination only or scrolling there.

@jamietw. Welcome to the forum. What was the date and departure time of the train you were booked on from Preston?

Thanks both - thankfully Avanti sent me an email to say the train was cancelled and then when it was reinstated so I have evidence of the partial cancellation. @Mcr Warrior - it was the 1618 on Tuesday (18/8).

For the benefit of others, it was cancelled via the West Mids from 15:47 until 17:40 when the calls were reinstated.

Cancelled:

Reinstated:

As per the site above which @MrJeeves has handily linked (and built!), clearly the train was not scheduled to stop at your destination at the time you were due to board it. You can't be expected to second-guess that and as such I'd say you have a claim.

Let us know if Avanti reject it.

Quick update - Avanti have calculated delay repay based on the late running of the reinstated service. Have submitted an appeal.

Watershed said:

As per the site above which @MrJeeves has handily linked (and built!), clearly the train was not scheduled to stop at your destination at the time you were due to board it. You can't be expected to second-guess that and as such I'd say you have a claim.

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But you can be expected to travel as far as you can on that train, and then attempt to catch a connecting service from there. So for example, had the train been shown as terminating at New Street, a reasonable course of action would be to get the train to New Street and then make a connection there, not wait at Preston for the next through service. That sounds like unreasonably delaying yourself to me.

Belperpete said:

But you can be expected to travel as far as you can on that train, and then attempt to catch a connecting service from there. So for example, had the train been shown as terminating at New Street, the reasonable course of action would be to get the train to New Street and then make a connection there, not wait at Preston for the next through service. That sounds like unreasonably delaying yourself to me.

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With an Avanti only walk-up ticket there isn't another opportunity were the train to be going up the Trent instead of via Brum. The next Avanti from Stafford to Brum is the next hourly one that would come from Preston.

Stafford station is not a great place to wait, so waiting in Preston doesn't seem unreasonable.

Belperpete said:

But you can be expected to travel as far as you can on that train, and then attempt to catch a connecting service from there. So for example, had the train been shown as terminating at New Street, a reasonable course of action would be to get the train to New Street and then make a connection there, not wait at Preston for the next through service. That sounds like unreasonably delaying yourself to me.

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There are no other Avanti services from Stafford (or wherever) to Birmingham. It's just the hourly Glasgow/Edinburgh to London via Birmingham service. So assuming they held an "Avanti only" Advance ticket, there would have be no other valid journey opportunities allowing the OP to get to Birmingham any sooner by changing at a later station.

The advice given would undoubtedly have been to wait for the next train in any case.

jamietw said:

Quick update - Avanti have calculated delay repay based on the late running of the reinstated service. Have submitted an appeal.

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It's possible they use automation to do the initial claim, so it may not have been seen by a human yet.