Had to use another TOC because last Northern train of the day cancelled - would my ticket have been allowed?

Galactic142 · Tuesday at 19:56

Hi - I've got a question that's been intriguing me about a recent journey and was sure that someone on here might have a definitive answer about it.

What happens if you have a 'this TOC only' ticket but they cancel the last train so you have to use another TOC? I needed to travel to Preston a week or so ago and I had to change at Lancaster and get a train to Preston from there. My ticket from Lancaster was an advance single for the 22.46 Northern service to Preston and was marked 'Northern Trains only'. The 22.46 was cancelled, however it was also the last train from Lancaster that night (with any TOC).

When I got into Lancaster I saw it was cancelled. There were only 3 departures to Preston left that night - an Avanti, a TPE and the cancelled 22.46. My ticket wouldn't be valid for either the Avanti or TPE but I was now in a situation where I would not have been able to complete my journey with my current ticket. I decided to be safe and bought an advance for the TPE whilst still at Lancaster, but I'm curious to know what the policy would be on ticket acceptance in this case? If I had got on the TPE/Avanti without a new ticket then I'd have been travelling on a train that was a) earlier and b) with the wrong TOC - and explaining that the last Northern train of the day down to Preston had been cancelled so I'd had no choice would have been a complicated story - but it would also have been my only possible way of completing my journey.

On a related point - I've submitted a delay repay claim because I couldn't complete my journey on that ticket (obviously I did complete my journey, but I'd had to pay for a new ticket in order to do so). Given the northern train never reached Preston, I would have assumed that this would qualify for a full refund. Northern have refunded me half, which suggests that they calculated that I completed my journey by boarding the TPE - something which I couldn't have done on the Northern ticket. Does the delay repay service take into account that there are trains which your ticket doesn't allow you to catch? Or does it just calculate the quickest possible journey you could have taken as if you had an 'any train, any time' ticket?

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_toommm_ · Tuesday at 19:58

What to do if your train is cancelled
If your train is cancelled and you still wish to travel to your planned destination, you don't have to buy a new ticket to travel that day. You can:

Board any Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), East Midlands Railway (EMR), West Midlands Trains, London Northwestern or LNER train that's heading in the same direction (within 2 hours)
(Southeastern, South Western Railway, c2c, Greater Anglia, Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express services are also included in this policy for onward connections)

Claim a full refund from your point of purchase (if you no longer wish to travel)

Delays and cancellations

Northern | Buy Cheap Train Tickets and Check Train Times

www.northernrailway.co.uk

tram21 · Tuesday at 20:00

_toommm_ said:
What to do if your train is cancelled
If your train is cancelled and you still wish to travel to your planned destination, you don't have to buy a new ticket to travel that day. You can:

Board any Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), East Midlands Railway (EMR), West Midlands Trains, London Northwestern or LNER train that's heading in the same direction (within 2 hours)
(Southeastern, South Western Railway, c2c, Greater Anglia, Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express services are also included in this policy for onward connections)

Claim a full refund from your point of purchase (if you no longer wish to travel)

Is this for Northern services only?

Kite159 · Tuesday at 20:04

tram21 said:
Is this for Northern services only?

For all the operators which are nationised. EMR are included between Liverpool & Sheffield/Nottingham only I believe

NormalPerson7 · Tuesday at 21:05

Per the industry agreement among government-owned operators referred to in post #2 above, you would have been able to board the TPE service with your original ticket. There was no need to purchase a new ticket.

I do note that on every Monday-Saturday in the last three weeks the 2326 Northern service from Lancaster to Preston has run, so the 2246 was not, in fact, the last Northern train.

I also don't think any Delay Repay is due, as you weren't actually delayed against your final expected arrival time of 2310. I suspect Northern have given you 50% on the basis of you boarding the 2326 and arriving around 32 minutes late.

For future reference, The National Rail Conditions of Travel, available here https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/nrcot/ provide that

28.2 Where disruption prevents you from completing the journey for which your Ticket is valid and is being used, any Train Company will, where it reasonably can, provide you with alternative means of travel to your destination, or if necessary, provide overnight accommodation for you.

As such, in the event you are stranded, any train operator (including Avanti) should accept your ticket or provide you with a taxi. In this case, you were not stranded as the last Northern train was at 2326.

I would always suggest asking for advice from station staff before purchasing a new ticket. You could also try speaking to the conductor of any train you wish to board, as they are likely to show discretion where your train has been cancelled.

Galactic142 · Tuesday at 21:33

Thanks - that's really useful to know about that industry agreement. It would be good if that were better communicated to passengers though, because just looking at the ticket you'd assume that I'd have had to wait for another Northern. You hear of too many cases of people travelling on the wrong trains with the wrong tickets that I'm always somewhat paranoid about my ticket being valid on any other train if my booked train is cancelled.

I didn't know about the 2326, but that might be because I got into Lancaster around 2140 (on the Northern service before the 2246 which terminated at Lancaster) so perhaps it wasn't showing on the boards yet as it was 2h away?

As regards the delay repay, I used the 'donate it to charity' option so I've not gained anything out of this - the way I looked at it was that my train was cancelled so effectively I had been delayed (but that was because I didn't know I could have still used the Northern ticket). I considered consulting with station staff but the ticket office was shut and they were all busy over on the far platform talking to each other for most of the time I was on the station.

Watershed · Tuesday at 22:22

Galactic142 said:
Hi - I've got a question that's been intriguing me about a recent journey and was sure that someone on here might have a definitive answer about it.

What happens if you have a 'this TOC only' ticket but they cancel the last train so you have to use another TOC? I needed to travel to Preston a week or so ago and I had to change at Lancaster and get a train to Preston from there. My ticket from Lancaster was an advance single for the 22.46 Northern service to Preston and was marked 'Northern Trains only'. The 22.46 was cancelled, however it was also the last train from Lancaster that night (with any TOC).

When I got into Lancaster I saw it was cancelled. There were only 3 departures to Preston left that night - an Avanti, a TPE and the cancelled 22.46. My ticket wouldn't be valid for either the Avanti or TPE but I was now in a situation where I would not have been able to complete my journey with my current ticket. I decided to be safe and bought an advance for the TPE whilst still at Lancaster, but I'm curious to know what the policy would be on ticket acceptance in this case? If I had got on the TPE/Avanti without a new ticket then I'd have been travelling on a train that was a) earlier and b) with the wrong TOC - and explaining that the last Northern train of the day down to Preston had been cancelled so I'd had no choice would have been a complicated story - but it would also have been my only possible way of completing my journey.

On a related point - I've submitted a delay repay claim because I couldn't complete my journey on that ticket (obviously I did complete my journey, but I'd had to pay for a new ticket in order to do so). Given the northern train never reached Preston, I would have assumed that this would qualify for a full refund. Northern have refunded me half, which suggests that they calculated that I completed my journey by boarding the TPE - something which I couldn't have done on the Northern ticket. Does the delay repay service take into account that there are trains which your ticket doesn't allow you to catch? Or does it just calculate the quickest possible journey you could have taken as if you had an 'any train, any time' ticket?

It's very unfortunate that you didn't speak to station staff or ask for advice (e.g. here!) before buying a new ticket. You didn't need to buy a new ticket, and there are very few circumstances where doing so will work to your favour.

Firstly, as others have mentioned, there is automatic ticket acceptance between all DfT operators (which includes Northern and TPE) in the event of a train being cancelled. Note that this only applies to cancellations, not delays or missed connection - an arbitrary exclusion but important to know. This automatic ticket acceptance builds on top of the general rule that you can take the 2 trains before or afterwards, meaning you can take the 2 DfT operated trains before or afterwards (or the 2 either side run by the original operator, which might be more convenient in some situations).

So you didn't need to buy a new ticket at all as your Northern ticket would have been valid on TPE. That's probably what it would have said on the Northern website if you had looked there - obviously I'm not saying you're to blame for not doing so, but for future reference it's always worth checking the operator's website to see if there's useful advice in the case of disruption.

Secondly, even if you're in a situation where the alternative train you want to take isn't covered by ticket acceptance, it's worth knowing about condition 28.2 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT). This requires any operator that is in a position to help you, to do so if you would otherwise be stranded. That wasn't the case here as there's a later 23:26 Northern train. But if that train didn't exist or was also cancelled, then even without the ticket acceptance, TPE would essentially have been obliged to accept your ticket as they were running a train that could get you to your destination. Now this is a little fuzzier in that it doesn't explicitly say you are entitled to jump onboard another train. But if you were penalised in any way (e.g. made to buy a new ticket or worse) then I think it's a pretty reasonable argument/defence to fall back on - that any ticketing issue would only arise if they were themselves in breach of their obligation tp assist you under the NRCoT.

In terms of what you have done, it is worth noting that Delay Repay only applies if you have actually travelled and experienced a delay. It does not provide compensation for leaving early to avoid a delay - arguably it should, but it doesn't. I don't know how Northern have calculated the delay as only being sufficient to get 50% of your ticket in compensation (equivalent to a 30-59 minute delay) but in any case, you shouldn't have claimed for that as you weren't delayed. Instead you should either have contacted whichever retailer you used to buy your Northern Advance and requested a refund on the basis that you didn't use it because of disruption. Alternatively you could have contacted Northern (as the operator at 'fault') to ask them to reimburse the cost of the TPE Advance on the basis that you didn't actually need to buy it, and only bought it because of a misunderstanding of the rules for disruption.

I think it is still worth contacting Northern to explain that you misunderstood what to do and so you want to cancel/reverse your Delay Repay claim and instead ask them to reimburse the cost of the unnecessary TPE Advance. They might refuse but I think there's a decent chance they would pay at least something.

Galactic142 · Thursday at 16:44

Watershed said:
It's very unfortunate that you didn't speak to station staff or ask for advice (e.g. here!) before buying a new ticket. You didn't need to buy a new ticket, and there are very few circumstances where doing so will work to your favour.

Firstly, as others have mentioned, there is automatic ticket acceptance between all DfT operators (which includes Northern and TPE) in the event of a train being cancelled. Note that this only applies to cancellations, not delays or missed connection - an arbitrary exclusion but important to know. This automatic ticket acceptance builds on top of the general rule that you can take the 2 trains before or afterwards, meaning you can take the 2 DfT operated trains before or afterwards (or the 2 either side run by the original operator, which might be more convenient in some situations).

So you didn't need to buy a new ticket at all as your Northern ticket would have been valid on TPE. That's probably what it would have said on the Northern website if you had looked there - obviously I'm not saying you're to blame for not doing so, but for future reference it's always worth checking the operator's website to see if there's useful advice in the case of disruption.

Secondly, even if you're in a situation where the alternative train you want to take isn't covered by ticket acceptance, it's worth knowing about condition 28.2 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT). This requires any operator that is in a position to help you, to do so if you would otherwise be stranded. That wasn't the case here as there's a later 23:26 Northern train. But if that train didn't exist or was also cancelled, then even without the ticket acceptance, TPE would essentially have been obliged to accept your ticket as they were running a train that could get you to your destination. Now this is a little fuzzier in that it doesn't explicitly say you are entitled to jump onboard another train. But if you were penalised in any way (e.g. made to buy a new ticket or worse) then I think it's a pretty reasonable argument/defence to fall back on - that any ticketing issue would only arise if they were themselves in breach of their obligation tp assist you under the NRCoT.

In terms of what you have done, it is worth noting that Delay Repay only applies if you have actually travelled and experienced a delay. It does not provide compensation for leaving early to avoid a delay - arguably it should, but it doesn't. I don't know how Northern have calculated the delay as only being sufficient to get 50% of your ticket in compensation (equivalent to a 30-59 minute delay) but in any case, you shouldn't have claimed for that as you weren't delayed. Instead you should either have contacted whichever retailer you used to buy your Northern Advance and requested a refund on the basis that you didn't use it because of disruption. Alternatively you could have contacted Northern (as the operator at 'fault') to ask them to reimburse the cost of the TPE Advance on the basis that you didn't actually need to buy it, and only bought it because of a misunderstanding of the rules for disruption.

I think it is still worth contacting Northern to explain that you misunderstood what to do and so you want to cancel/reverse your Delay Repay claim and instead ask them to reimburse the cost of the unnecessary TPE Advance. They might refuse but I think there's a decent chance they would pay at least something.

Thanks very much for explaining this - that's really useful to know for the future.

I've contacted Northern and they told me that the delay repay was for the delay to my train arriving into Lancaster (from Barrow) and that I can get the Lancaster-Preston leg of the journey refunded. I had two split-tickets (Barrow-Lancaster, Lancaster-Preston), but as I had bought them as one journey I filed the delay repay claim for the whole journey. The Barrow train only got in 2 mins late so I can't understand why the person at Northern thought the delay repay was for that train only. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon and I can sort this out.

Had to use another TOC because last Northern train of the day cancelled - would my ticket have been allowed?

Galactic142

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_toommm_

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What to do if your train is cancelled

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tram21

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What to do if your train is cancelled

Kite159

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Galactic142

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Watershed

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Galactic142

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Had to use another TOC because last Northern train of the day cancelled - would my ticket have been allowed?

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