Delayed booked train (Advance) *could have* missed connection but allowed on earlier train, subsequently delayed on 2nd operator, delay repay?

[trainophile]

Here's the scenario: On Tuesday 6th October we arrived at Hereford station to find our booked 09:02 was running late, and it subsequently arrived at Newport at 10:09. However we'd been permitted to board the (also late running) 08:44, which got us to Newport in plenty of time for our onward booked 10:13 to Exeter St Davids. The minimum connection time at Newport is 5 minutes, so theoretically not long enough to connect (albeit cross platform) off the 09:02 onto the GWR, although I can't imagine anyone not managing it in 4 minutes, but that's by the by.

We were then subsequently delayed/terminated at Bristol Temple Meads due to a "person hit by train" , which turned out to delay everything southbound by a couple of hours. We eventually squeezed onto the 13:45 XC to Newton Abbot (there was a 12:45 but is was unboardable as totally rammed, understandably after such a long delay), and arrived in Paignton exactly two hours later than our original itinerary. We were assuming ticket acceptance on the XC due to the major disruption and nobody questioned us.

Our tickets were Advances from Hereford to Exeter and Off Peak Singles from Exeter to Paignton.
Journey was HFD-NWP
NWP-BRI arriving 10:52
BRI-NTA departing 13:45 arriving 15:08
NTA-PGN departing 15:26 arriving 15:42

I don't like to claim at all in the circumstances but it did rather mess up the start of our break, so I was about to claim from GWR as it was on their leg that the significant delay occurred, but I'm now wondering whether they will tell me to claim from TfW even though they were not responsible for our delay. Should I put a claim in to GWR and see what happens?

 

[Watershed]

I would suggest claiming from GWR on the basis that you did actually make the booked connection and so the delay to your booked TfW service was not material to your journey.

However I'd expect this to be ping-ponged between the two of them regardless of who you claim from.

 

[Belperpete]

Just a reminder that when you claim Delay Repay, you give your intended itinerary and how long you were delayed. You don't give any information about how you actually got to your destination, as they consider that to be irrelevant. So whoever you submit your claim to, won't have a clue that you were permitted to board an earlier train, and so that won't be taken into account in their decision. So if you submit your claim to GWR, I would fully expect them, when they finally get around to considering your claim, to say that TfW was responsible. You might as well avoid the delay, and claim straight from TfW.

But whoever you submit your claim to, don't allow it to turn into a long-drawn-out game of ping-pong. As soon as anyone says that it is the other who is liable, immediately appeal that decision. That means they have to reconsider it immediately, rather than sitting on their hands until the other operator eventually throws it back at them. As they should have forwarded your claim onto the other operator, that way you get both considering it in parallel.

Remember that the industry doesn't care how you actually got to your destination in deciding who is liable. It is the first operator that the industry considers to have materially affected your journey. That would appear to be TfW. Admittedly that was mitigated by you being able to catch the XC train, but they will likely see anything subsequent or consequent to the initial cause as irrelevant. In these kind of cases, if you try to insist on the one that you consider to be to blame to pay up, then you will likely waste a lot of time, and may even end up with nothing. The important thing is that you get ONE of them to pay up, as quickly as possible.

 

[Starmill]

Although it's clearly incorrect if you didn't miss a connection, as clearly no delay can possibly be said to exist at that stage of a journey, it's often easier to get the operator responsible for the least proximate cause, by which I mean the one that occurred the furtherest back in time from when your ticket expired, to pay out. This makes absolutely no sense as a matter of the contractual right to be paid money for the inconvenience of a delay, and in law you would usually look for the opposite, that is, the most proximate cause, if the precedence were not defined by any other part of the contract or statute. However, it is something people often experience more success with. Your right is of course to be paid by someone, and promptly.

As is correctly noted above, and is usually noted when this question is asked, from the perspective of the consumer it generally doesn't make much of a difference who pays out. The time when it may make a big difference would be if the least proximate operator had an unusually restrictive reimbursement ratio, such as London Overground, rather than a typical industry one. For delays under thirty minutes you find more outliers who consider the amount due to be £0. In these circumstances, it sounds like none of this applies however, and in any case you experienced a very lengthy delay.

 

[trainophile]

Thank you for your thoughts. I've put a claim in to GWR on the basis that they cannot deny there was a huge amount of disruption that day, and will see what transpires.

 

[Belperpete]

Thank you for your thoughts. I've put a claim in to GWR on the basis that they cannot deny there was a huge amount of disruption that day, and will see what transpires.

While GWR may not be able to deny that there was huge disruption to their services that day, that is irrelevant to who is liable. As Starmill says, it is the FIRST to cause material disruption who is liable, even if another operator subsequently causes far more serious delay. However, you have thrown the dice, let's see how it rolls.

Good luck, just remember not to allow it to degenerate into a protracted game of ping-pong if GWR pass the buck to TfW.

One further piece of advice, in cases where there may be significant delays in getting a decision, it is worth keeping records of both your original itinerary and records of the affected train running, while they are still available on-line. Such things become more difficult to obtain after the 28 day cutoff.

 

[trainophile]

While GWR may not be able to deny that there was huge disruption to their services that day, that is irrelevant to who is liable. As Starmill says, it is the FIRST to cause material disruption who is liable, even if another operator subsequently causes far more serious delay. However, you have thrown the dice, let's see how it rolls.

Good luck, just remember not to allow it to degenerate into a protracted game of ping-pong if GWR pass the buck to TfW.

One further piece of advice, in cases where there may be significant delays in getting a decision, it is worth keeping records of both your original itinerary and records of the affected train running, while they are still available on-line. Such things become more difficult to obtain after the 28 day cutoff.

What format of records do you suggest? Screenshots of RTT pages? I get that it would be my word against theirs after a period, but the scheduled full journey details I entered on the claim form should be verifiable for longer than they remain accessible on RTT.

I can imagine some eyebrows being raised at TfW at the implication that 4 minutes was not long enough to change from platform 2 to 3 at Newport. The 5 minutes MCT would be based on enough time to change from 1 or 2 to 4 (or vice versa), which could be challenging if the lift was out of action and you had large luggage or a wheelchair/pram. These MCT timings can be a bit unrealistic depending on the station layout.

 

[mmh]

I can imagine some eyebrows being raised at TfW at the implication that 4 minutes was not long enough to change from platform 2 to 3 at Newport. The 5 minutes MCT would be based on enough time to change from 1 or 2 to 4 (or vice versa)

Nobody will be looking at platform numbers. All that's happening is the earliest time to your destination, honouring MCTs at any change, is being worked out and compared to the scheduled time. That's from computer data which has no knowledge of station layouts nor opinion on what a passenger "could" do.

 

[Belperpete]

What format of records do you suggest? Screenshots of RTT pages? I get that it would be my word against theirs after a period, but the scheduled full journey details I entered on the claim form should be verifiable for longer than they remain accessible on RTT.

You need to be prepared for them rejecting your claim saying something like "We cannot find a valid itinerary for your journey", "we cannot find a matching service", etc. I have not infrequently had claims rejected, that have been pending for a long time, with these kinds of excuses. I am convinced that some manual claims handlers in some TOCs send these responses just to clear the backlog and make the claims go away. Disproving such statements can be difficult once the information has dropped off the likes of RTT.

I do print to pdf of the relevant pages, but whatever is easiest for you.

 

[trainophile]

Oh thanks. That's disconcerting, surely most claims are an open and shut case, although grated there might be an issue of liability with the one I'm claiming for.

I don't have a printer, but will screenshot the RTT pages, of course they will probably say that RTT is unofficial!

 

[mmh]

I really don't understand why there's a tendency on this forum to overthink delay repay. In this case I would expect just submitting the TFW form would result in a complete refund.

 

[trainophile]

I really don't understand why there's a tendency on this forum to overthink delay repay. In this case I would expect just submitting the TFW form would result in a complete refund.

But TfW didn't cause my delay.

 

[mmh]

But TfW didn't cause my delay.

Your initial TFW train was over an hour late. I would recommend stopping overthinking this and just submitting the claim on their website. They'll probably give you the whole fare back.

 

[AlterEgo]

Just stick the claim in and stop thinking too much about it. If they think someone else is liable they have to forward it on.

 

[trainophile]

Well for one thing the delayed TfW train that we were told to get arrived in Hereford even later than the one we were booked on should have arrived, which was later still, so anyone with any sense would have got that one when it arrived. Only someone very silly would let that one go and insist on waiting for the booked one, thus pretty much ensuring they wouldn't make their connection. There was no issue with the guard, thankfully most TfW guards would rather someone got on their way, rather than stick strictly to the rules in this sort of situation.

08:44 HFD-NWP arrived HFD 09:09, arrived NWP 10:06
Booked 09:02 HFD-NWP arrived HFD 09:21, arrived NWP 10:09

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 19:10 ==

Just stick the claim in and stop thinking too much about it. If they think someone else is liable they have to forward it on.

Thank you. I'm sorry it got long-winded! I will report back.