Reinstatement of cancelled service

[MontyP]

I am currently on the 1730 Glasgow-Euston Avanti service which, when I checked on the National Rail app at 1655 (just before leaving my office), was showing as cancelled. I decided to walk down to the station anyway, and lo and behold, the service had been reinstated.

What would my position be if, having seen the cancellation, I had decided to stay in the office for another hour before catching the 1840? Would my Advance ticket still be valid? Would the onboard guard know that the 1730 had been cancelled (even if only temporarily)?

 

[Watershed]

The rules don't specifically address this scenario - presumably it is thought to be too unlikely to cover, even though it does arise from time to time during disruption.

Based on general principles of consumer and contract law, I would have said that the passenger would be entitled to take the next available service, and indeed also claim Delay Repay, even if their cancelled train were to later be reinstated.

Ideally they would have some form of evidence that the train was shown as cancelled, e.g. a screenshot of a live departure board, but this data does exist in various industry systems. For example, those TOCs that use JourneyCheck would typically show "XX:XX Y to Z service has been reinstated", which clearly illustrates that the train was at one point cancelled.

People can't be expected to continuously check the status of their train after having seen it showing as cancelled, and many stations simply don't have room for everyone to turn up "on time" and wait an hour (or more, as in this case) for the next train.

So in essence, if anyone were to be charged for a new ticket or denied Delay Repay, I think they would have a reasonable argument for appealing that.

 

[embers25]

Gwr regularly cancel afternoon and evening trains from London to Exeter on a Sunday morning and then reinstate them during the day. I'm sure many people are caught out by this.

 

[Haywain]

What would my position be if, having seen the cancellation, I had decided to stay in the office for another hour before catching the 1840? Would my Advance ticket still be valid? Would the onboard guard know that the 1730 had been cancelled (even if only temporarily)?

I think the challenge there is that sometimes a journey is shown as cancelled when only one train, and not the first one, is actually cancelled. There may be a gray area but I don't think it's one where much can be done to make it less gray.

 

[The exile]

Coincidentally something similar happened to me yesterday - connecting train at Filton AW shown running 14 minutes late - meaning gap now long enough to get to shop and back. Still showing as 14 late when leaving the shop - get back 7 minutes before that “14 late” to find said train pulling out. Yes, entirely my fault, but does grate when we are told when we are told how important it is to check your journey before travelling!