Delay Repay - when?

[Jocques]

Apologies if it's in the wrong place, and has to be moved.

With Delay Repay, when does a train count as having arrived at a station?

I travelled from Rhyl to Manchester Piccadilly yesterday, with a change at Crewe, by Virgin. An off-peak return. I was supposed to leave at 9.58 and arrive at 11.46. However, the first train was delayed by over half an hour and consequently we missed the connection by a few minutes. As the trains are every hour, the new ETA was 12.46. We dallied outside the station for a few minutes and when the train actually stopped in the station, both the clock on the platform and my watch (and my phone) said 12.48.

Virgin have said it arrived at 12.45, a whole minute before the ETA (how convenient, as it would make it 59 minutes late...). Is this something they often do? Is there anywhere impartial that records train arrivals?

 

[rdwarr]

There are sites such as Realtime Trains and OpenTraintimes that do this. The former would appear to agree with Virgin though:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P58485/2019/09/14

 

[Jocques]

There are sites such as Realtime Trains and OpenTraintimes that do this. The former would appear to agree with Virgin though:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P58485/2019/09/14

Thank you, so I see. They're classing it as arrived at a time when it waited outside the station, before moving to the platform...surely this doesn't count as 'arrived'?! I'd have thought arriving means when passengers can actually disembark,not from the time you can physically see the station.

 

[yorkie]

Thank you, so I see. They're classing it as arrived at a time when it waited outside the station, before moving to the platform...surely this doesn't count as 'arrived'?! I'd have thought arriving means when passengers can actually disembark,not from the time you can physically see the station.

They love to do this yes. They know most people will give up, so it saves them money overall.

I therefore recommend challenging them. If they still won't budge, take it to the Ombudsman.

 

[Jocques]

They love to do this yes. They know most people will give up, so it saves them money overall.

I therefore recommend challenging them. If they still won't budge, take it to the Ombudsman.

Thank you, I'll look into it. It's only about £7 or so, so not a fortune, but it's the principle. Highly convenient that it was the only early one when every other VT service I travelled on yesterday was late...!

 

[100andthirty]

The "real time" systems show arrival times that are, in fact, estimates based on the time the train occupied the last track circuit on the way into the station, plus an allowance for the train's braking time to a stop. I don't know whether they allow for door release time and I am confident that they don't allow for customers to disembark (if that was necessary for you to see the station clock). Then there's the challenge of ensuring that the clock Virgin are using for their systems and your phone and the station clock were synchronised - of course they aren't! On any measurement system there is a tolerance and therefore an element of uncertainty. In any customer facing organisation such uncertainty should favour the customer. So, as Yorkie said....challenge!

 

[Jocques]

The "real time" systems show arrival times that are, in fact, estimates based on the time the train occupied the last track circuit on the way into the station, plus an allowance for the train's braking time to a stop. I don't know whether they allow for door release time and I am confident that they don't allow for customers to disembark (if that was necessary for you to see the station clock). Then there's the challenge of ensuring that the clock Virgin are using for their systems and your phone and the station clock were synchronised - of course they aren't! On any measurement system there is a tolerance and therefore an element of uncertainty. In any customer facing organisation such uncertainty should favour the customer. So, as Yorkie said....challenge!

Of course, I completely understand it'll be tricky to ensure everyone is in sync it was three minutes late when we physically came to a halt, I saw the clock through the window. It just seemed jolly convenient how it was apparently exactly a minute early, that's all. I shall challenge and see what happens!

 

[Bertie the bus]

You can see how railway arrival and real arrival times differ at various stations. At Liverpool South Parkway for example trains arriving from the Crewe and Warrington direction show as having arrived on the departure screens before the train is even in sight.

It isn't a deliberate fiddle to con people out of delay repay but just how the railway works, which in this instance isn't very well.