write in regard to the serious disruption which occurred on your journey on the East Coast Main Line on Monday 21 October. It is my understanding that you were travelling with East Coast at the time of the disruption. I would of course firstly like to offer you my sincere apologies for the problems you experienced and the obvious inconvenience this caused to you.
On the day you travelled, the East Coast Main Line suffered significant delays as a result of overhead line damage in the Tallington area, just north of Peterborough. This resulted in all lines having to be stopped, with services due to pass through the affected area being significantly delayed while the problem was assessed. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the problem, specialist engineers had to be brought in to rectify the issue and it was quickly realised that the majority of the repair work could only be completed through the night. As you will appreciate, safety is always the number one priority at East Coast, particularly when working with such a high voltage power supply, and it is something that will never be compromised. Unfortunately therefore throughout the day a high number of services had to be cancelled or suffered extenuating delays while alternative routes could be implemented.
The teams at both East Coast and Network Rail worked extremely hard to rectify the problems as quickly as possible. However, as you will understand, in a situation such as this a large number of the issues are out of our control while a full assessment of the situation and repairs needed can be carried out.
A full review of the day will of course be carried out with Network Rail to understand what lessons can be learned and what can be done differently should a similar unpredicted situation occur in the future. Included in this review is the issue of communication, both to and from our frontline staff, and from our Customer Relations team.
Under the East Coast Passenger's Charter you are entitled to appropriate compensation for your delay. In order to make a claim, the relevant form can be completed or downloaded on our website at
www.eastcoast.co.uk and forwarded to the address indicated. I also appreciate you may have had additional expenses as a result of your delayed journey and I am more than happy to reimburse you for these. Please forward the appropriate receipts to the address below, with details of the train on which you travelled, and I will ensure the appropriate refund is forwarded to you. East Coast refunds are now made by direct bank transfer so in order for me to process this quickly please can you forward your bank sort code and account number to me and I will arrange for a BACs transfer to be made. Alternatively the documents and bank details can be forwarded by email to <<removed>>
In addition, as a gesture of goodwill, I would like to offer you a complimentary return ticket in your equivalent class of travel, for use anywhere on the East Coast network. The ticket is valid for 12 months from the date of this email, and when you have decided on your journey details, please again forward your request to the address above and the necessary travel documents will be issued to you. Alternatively you may wish to email your request to the email address above.
Once again, thank you for your understanding of the unfortunate incidents which occurred on Monday, and I very much hope this goes some way to restoring your faith in East Coast.
