Delay Repay complications 08/12/25

[Undaunted]

I'd be very grateful for a little bit of advice from the experts here on a tricky delay repay claim for yesterday.

My wife booked a Sherborne - East Croydon ticket using 'split my fare' travelling up on the 08.35 from Sherborne and returning at 15.30 from East Croydon, which connected with the 15.50 Waterloo - Yeovil Jn (15:57 from Clapham Junction). E-tickets were, all off-peak day returns (splitting at Gillingham, Salisbury and Basingstoke).

No problem on the outward journey.

Having completed her business in East Croydon in good time, instead of returning home early, she opted to go to Balham and have lunch with our son who lives there. She left East Croydon at around 13.00 and paused her journey at Balham, departing at around 15.15 in order to be in good time for the 15.57 to Sherborne (as per her itinerary). That train would normally have got into Sherborne at 18.06.

She arrived at Clapham Junction to find the south western side of the railway at a stand following an 'incident' in the Wimbledon area. She was advised by a member of staff on platform 9 that West of England services would be starting from Basingstoke for the foreseeable future, and she should travel to Basingstoke via Reading. When she eventually reached Basingstoke at 18.25, she found that SWR were now starting trains from Waterloo again, and she eventually boarded the 17:53 from Waterloo to Yeovil Pen Mill, running 55 minutes late (departing Basingstoke at 19.33). She reached Sherborne at 21.04, just under 3 hours late when compared with the scheduled arrival time of the 15.57 from Clapham (18.06).

So now for the complicated bit. At the start of her return journey she scanned her first ticket (CYD-BSK) at East Croydon at around 13.00 and scanned it again on arrival at Balham. The gate didn't open, and a member of staff let her through when she said she was breaking her journey. On her return, she scanned her ticket to get through the barriers at Balham, again they did not open and a member of staff let her through.

Her collection of e-tickets were never scanned again. So my key question is, will the two failed scans at Balham have registered on the system? It is the only railway-related proof that she has that she did not travel back from East Croydon to Clapham at 13.00 and then on to Sherborne on the 13:27

Even if the two scans at Balham registered, submitting the claim presents difficulties. If we say she started her journey at East Croydon at 13.00, the system will assume she went straight home and nothing is payable as she would have cleared Clapham long before the issue arose. But if we put in a 'false' departure time of 15.30 from East Croydon (which is actually what her itinerary shows), the ticket scan at 13.00 will presumably be flagged and the claim rejected (even rendering her vulnerable to a suggestion that some type of fraud was being attempted to take advantage of the disruption of yesterday afternoon). And before someone suggests using the actual Balham departure time, SWR's delay-replay on-line form will not accept it. If your journey is supposed to start at East Croydon, it will require an East Croydon departure time. Is this one of those cases where we have to go through the process of submission and rejection before we get to make the case to a person rather than a machine?

Apologies for the length of the email. Thank you for reading it, and any help would be appreciated.

 

[jfollows]

There is no requirement to scan a ticket. I haven’t got my mind around the rest of your post, but scanning or not scanning shouldn’t come into it. If a barrier is open, walking through without scanning is fine. If someone lets you through a barrier, similarly.
The only time it’s required is if the alternative is jumping over or pushing through a closed barrier, which I don’t think to be the case here.

 

[Watershed]

I'd be very grateful for a little bit of advice from the experts here on a tricky delay repay claim for yesterday.

My wife booked a Sherborne - East Croydon ticket using 'split my fare' travelling up on the 08.35 from Sherborne and returning at 15.30 from East Croydon, which connected with the 15.50 Waterloo - Yeovil Jn (15:57 from Clapham Junction). E-tickets were, all off-peak day returns (splitting at Gillingham, Salisbury and Basingstoke).

No problem on the outward journey.

Having completed her business in East Croydon in good time, instead of returning home early, she opted to go to Balham and have lunch with our son who lives there. She left East Croydon at around 13.00 and paused her journey at Balham, departing at around 15.15 in order to be in good time for the 15.57 to Sherborne (as per her itinerary). That train would normally have got into Sherborne at 18.06.

She arrived at Clapham Junction to find the south western side of the railway at a stand following an 'incident' in the Wimbledon area. She was advised by a member of staff on platform 9 that West of England services would be starting from Basingstoke for the foreseeable future, and she should travel to Basingstoke via Reading. When she eventually reached Basingstoke at 18.25, she found that SWR were now starting trains from Waterloo again, and she eventually boarded the 17:53 from Waterloo to Yeovil Pen Mill, running 55 minutes late (departing Basingstoke at 19.33). She reached Sherborne at 21.04, just under 3 hours late when compared with the scheduled arrival time of the 15.57 from Clapham (18.06).

So now for the complicated bit. At the start of her return journey she scanned her first ticket (CYD-BSK) at East Croydon at around 13.00 and scanned it again on arrival at Balham. The gate didn't open, and a member of staff let her through when she said she was breaking her journey. On her return, she scanned her ticket to get through the barriers at Balham, again they did not open and a member of staff let her through.

Her collection of e-tickets were never scanned again. So my key question is, will the two failed scans at Balham have registered on the system? It is the only railway-related proof that she has that she did not travel back from East Croydon to Clapham at 13.00 and then on to Sherborne on the 13:27

Even if the two scans at Balham registered, submitting the claim presents difficulties. If we say she started her journey at East Croydon at 13.00, the system will assume she went straight home and nothing is payable as she would have cleared Clapham long before the issue arose. But if we put in a 'false' departure time of 15.30 from East Croydon (which is actually what her itinerary shows), the ticket scan at 13.00 will presumably be flagged and the claim rejected (even rendering her vulnerable to a suggestion that some type of fraud was being attempted to take advantage of the disruption of yesterday afternoon). And before someone suggests using the actual Balham departure time, SWR's delay-replay on-line form will not accept it. If your journey is supposed to start at East Croydon, it will require an East Croydon departure time. Is this one of those cases where we have to go through the process of submission and rejection before we get to make the case to a person rather than a machine?

Apologies for the length of the email. Thank you for reading it, and any help would be appreciated.

Failed scans are recorded just the same as successful ones, so they would be able to see that the journey was broken at Balham.

You can simply submit it as a claim from Balham to Gillingham, departing at the time she left Balham. Is there a reason the system won't allow that?

 

[Undaunted]

There is no requirement to scan a ticket. I haven’t got my mind around the rest of your post, but scanning or not scanning shouldn’t come into it. If a barrier is open, walking through without scanning is fine. If someone lets you through a barrier, similarly.
The only time it’s required is if the alternative is jumping over or pushing through a closed barrier, which I don’t think to be the case here.

Thanks very much for your reply. In this particular case, scanning is potentially a good thing as it would enable my wife to prove that she broke her journey at Balham and ended up being affected by the problems at Wimbledon. One of my concerns is that because the barriers didn't open when she scanned her ticket (twice) at Balham, the break of journey was not registered on 'the system'.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Dec 2025 ==

Failed scans are recorded just the same as successful ones, so they would be able to see that the journey was broken at Balham.

You can simply submit it as a claim from Balham to Gillingham, departing at the time she left Balham. Is there a reason the system won't allow that?

That's good news about failed scans and will probably help with the appeals process. Thank you.

With regards to using the Balham departure time for a Balham-Gillingham claim, previous experience suggests that SWR's system looks for a departure station that aligns with the ticket you have purchased.

On a previous occasion, both of us were in possession of Sherborne-Balham return tickets, but were dropped off at Clapham for the return journey which was subsequently delayed long enough to make a claim. The delay repay form did not accept a Clapham-Sherborne claim for a Balham to Sherborne journey. On that occasion, because the Balham to Clapham part of the ticket was unused, we were able to 'invent' a Balham departure time that was compatible with catching the train we actually travelled on from Clapham. In this case, my wife can't do that because she scanned her ticket at East Croydon on her way to Balham.

 

[Watershed]

I wouldn't invent anything: simply tell them exactly what happened. You are claiming from Balham because that's where (the relevant part of) the journey started. There is no requirement for the origin station on the claim to be the same as the origin station on the ticket, no matter what SWR may wrongly claim.

 

[blimmo]

Are you entering East Croydon as the start of her journey on the form? You should enter Balham here: submitting tickets from East Croydon is fine, the tickets just have to be valid for the journey not match the origin station exactly.

 

[Undaunted]

I wouldn't invent anything: simply tell them exactly what happened. You are claiming from Balham because that's where (the relevant part of) the journey started. There is no requirement for the origin station on the claim to be the same as the origin station on the ticket, no matter what SWR may wrongly claim.

Thanks again. The problem in the past has been a complete lack of free-form entry options and once you are asked what ticket you hold the next question will relate to your departure time from the origin station of that ticket. I'll give it another go.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Dec 2025 ==

Are you entering East Croydon as the start of her journey on the form? You should enter Balham here: submitting tickets from East Croydon is fine, the tickets just have to be valid for the journey not match the origin station exactly.

Thanks very much. That's an interesting thought. I will see if I can encourage the SWR delay repay form to focus on Balham rather than East Croydon as the start of the relevant part of the journey.

 

[tram21]

I think you are overthinking the system. Scans are registered, but afaik it doesn't really record a journey history that is too easy to access. They are unlikely to over-analyse the scans, and will accept what you put on the form.

 

[Undaunted]

I think you are overthinking the system. Scans are registered, but afaik it doesn't really record a journey history that is too easy to access. They are unlikely to over-analyse the scans, and will accept what you put on the form.

Thanks for the observation! It is a personal failing to try not only to see possible problems, but also to try to deal with them all in advance (in other words, second-guessing and dealing with objections). Over-thinking and over-complicating. I may be a bit too old to improve though...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Dec 2025 ==

Huge thanks to the four of you who replied. I have just spent the last half hour negotiating the SWR delay repay system and cursing split ticketing for the amount of information that had to be input. And it crashed twice and threw me out, but in the end I was able to submit my claim. The ability to focus on the part of the overall journey that I wanted to be considered, irrespective of the ticket held, was a turning point (thanks @blimmo), as was the knowledge that scans are registered, even if the ticket gates don't let you in or out (thanks @Watershed).

And my wife will have all of you to thank if she gets her compensation, and if I stop conducting a comprehensive risk assessment of every domestic activity in the future...

 

[tram21]

Thanks for the observation! It is a personal failing to try not only to see possible problems, but also to try to deal with them all in advance (in other words, second-guessing and dealing with objections). Over-thinking and over-complicating. I may be a bit too old to improve though...

It's okay! Don't worry, I do that too! I do hope you get a successful outcome here with SWR and get your compensation you are due!

 

[Snow1964]

Should claim for actual journey (Balham -Sherborne) and enter start time (as actually happened) to connect into the train at Clapham.

The part cancellation of intended train is reason for delay. Ultimately if a partial re-route to get around a blockage happened it doesn't really make any difference, as final arrival time is the threshold.

No one can be expected to guess if waiting for a line to reopened will be quicker than an alternative route, and it may change at any time during the alternative.

Just upload the tickets and itinerary and see what happens initially

 

[Undaunted]

Should claim for actual journey (Balham -Sherborne) and enter start time (as actually happened) to connect into the train at Clapham.

Thanks for the response. This is exactly what seems to have worked, at least as far as getting the claim submitted goes. I think I have finally got my head around claiming for the part of a journey where the delay was encountered and ensuring that you have a ticket that at least encompasses that part of the journey (it doesn't have to exactly match it).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Dec 2025 ==

It's okay! Don't worry, I do that too! I do hope you get a successful outcome here with SWR and get your compensation you are due!

It's nice to know it's not just me! I could always be relied upon at work to provide lots of input to risk assessments; stopping me was the problem...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Dec 2025 ==

Just a quick note to say that the claim was submitted on Tuesday and paid today. Thank you all for your help; I think that I’m now at last beginning to understand the delay repay system.

I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with my post and for the clarity of your advice. My wife owes you all a drink.