Delay repay question

[skyhigh]

Hey guys, I was delayed on my journey today but I'm not sure if I'd qualify for delay repay. I was travelling from from Leeds to Harpenden and my booked itinerary was as follows:

Departs: Leeds at 12:15
Arrives: London Kings Cross at 14:28

Departs: London Kings Cross at 14:28 by Walk
Arrives: London St Pancras at 14:59 by Walk

Departs: London St Pancras at 15:04
Arrives: Harpenden at 15:31

The 12:15 from Leeds was delayed by 11 minutes according to RTT, arriving at 14:37. Having a large amount of luggage, being unfamiliar with the station and faffing around with the lifts at St Pancras I managed to take just slightly longer than the allotted connection time, arriving at the platform just in time to see the 15:10 train (running 4 mins late) leave. Due to disruption, the next train to Harpenden was the 15:14 train, which departed at around 15:35 and arrived into Harpenden at 16:02, making me 31 minutes late overall.

I'm wondering if they'd pay out or not based on me faffing around getting to St Pancras, if I'd been 30 seconds earlier I wouldn't have been delayed enough to claim. Is it worth trying anyway? If so, who would I send the claim to - Virgin EC or Thameslink?

Thanks in advance.

 

[najaB]

I'm wondering if they'd pay out or not based on me faffing around getting to St Pancras, if I'd been 30 seconds earlier I wouldn't have been delayed enough to claim. Is it worth trying anyway? If so, who would I send the claim to - Virgin EC or Thameslink?

You took as long as you took and I'm assuming you didn't take any longer than you needed to. The claim would go to EC as that is when the initial delay occurred.

 

[gray1404]

I would submit a claim. If it is reject it you can argue that if their train had been on time then you would not have missed the connection. The claim should go to East Coast - not Thameslink.

 

[Spurs]

Hang on - why is it allowing more than half an hour to get from Kings Cross to St. Pancras???

 

[bb21]

Because the official interchange time at King's Cross is 15 minutes, and the same for St Pancras. Add the two together, plus the walking interchange time of 1 minute between the two stations, you get the official interchange time of 31 minutes. That is the minimum connection you need to allow to have a valid itinerary.

www.brtimes.com has all the details you require.

 

[Hadders]

The official connection time between Kings Cross and St Pancras is 30 minutes according to the table in the NRT. There wouldn't be an earlier service from STP to Hardenden that would meet the connection time.

 

[skyhigh]

Thanks for the advice, I definitely took the shortest amount of time I could to make the connection - I'm only entitled to £9 so I'm not exactly missing out on much if my claim is rejected, I've got nothing to lose so I'll send it off to Virgin EC and see what they say.

 

[greatkingrat]

Your train arrived at 14:37, allowing for the 31 minutes connection time, that means you should have been at St Pancras by 15:08, in time to catch the 1510 to Harpenden (particularly as that was 4 late anyway).

So it seems you were only delayed by more than 30 minutes because you took more than the allotted connection time, which is hardly VTECs fault. I would be surprised if they paid out anything.

 

[Starmill]

It does seem a bit unlikely that you didn't make a 35 minute (accounting for delays) connection from Kings Cross to St Pancras (Thameslink).

Then again, I thought that 9 minutes would be enough time to get from platform 1 at Glasgow Central High Level to a low level train, with luggage, on a busy evening recently. I missed the train by seconds - but I do think it departed a minute early. However that wasn't really the same because I had arrived 17 minutes late, and the minimum connection time at Glasgow Central is 15 minutes.

 

[MikeWh]

It does seem a bit unlikely that you didn't make a 35 minute (accounting for delays) connection from Kings Cross to St Pancras (Thameslink).

At face value, yes, but let's examine the possibilities. The train arrived on platform 1. Was the passenger at the back of the train? Did they exit through the barriers at the front? How long does it take to negotiate crowds with luggage and walk the whole length of the train? When they exited Kings Cross, did they then walk along the main road to the front entrance of St Pancras? How long might they have had to wait at traffic signals on York Road? Then you have to negotiate more crowds as you walk the whole length of the old trainshed of St Pancras. Had a Eurostar just dumped another load of people with cases into that walkway? Finally you get to the main domestic circulating area, maybe you check the departure boards to see what platform you need? Then look around to work out where the entrance to A/B is. You find you need to use lifts, but it's two lots of lifts and the ones to the northbound Thameslink platform are quite a distance from the one from the concourse. Are you allowed to make a mistake and take the wrong lift to the southbound platform? How long do you have to wait for each lift?

I can well believe that this all might have taken more than 30 minutes for someone not used to the layout of the stations concerned.

 

[greatkingrat]

Yes, sometimes people may need more than the "official" connection time, however the point is that is not the fault of the TOC, so I don't see why they should be liable for any delay that was caused by the passenger, not the TOC.

 

[Starmill]

I agree it is absolutely a chance that 35 minutes is insufficient. I was merely pointing out that it seemed to be quite a low one. The TOCs apparently agree because they have set the interchange time at a level they think will be sufficient for everyone. None of the official interchange times can be perfect, but they're the best we have got to go on. If more interchange time is needed this can be specified at the time of booking, although it is not without some difficulty. Conventionally I don't think delay repay applies in this case.

That is not to say that they will not take the view that as you would have had enough connection time if their train had arrived on time - and it did not.They may see it that you are due some compensation as you had made an allowance for a slight increase over the minimum connection time which you didn't resultant benefit from. If all of your trains had been on time, would you still have missed the connection?