Service Reinstated

[Jurg]

Bit of a new one for me.

I completed my outbound journey this morning. My planned return journey was cancelled early this afternoon. I was informed of the cancellation by the Trainsplit app but didn't see the notification due to not looking at my phone.

The first I saw of the cancellation was when I arrived at the station approximately half an hour before my journey home. I saw on the screen at the station the train was cancelled so I would have to wait an hour, so I joined some friends in the pub.

An hour later I checked realtimetrains to make sure the later train was running before returning to the station. Bizarrely I noticed that my originally booked train was on its way. I checked my notifications which showed it as reinstated, though the notification came through after the departure time.



I made it home around an hour late. My question is, is a delay repay request likely to be successful?

 

[MrJeeves]

The reinstatement was made in live information systems at 17:37, and I can tell you that TrainSplit sent you the notification at 17:37:53 (but, of course, it takes time for your device to discover there are pending notifications and relay these to you!).

Given that the minimum connection time is 5 minutes at Leamington Spa, it could be argued that even if you had been at the station, you would not be able to make an official connection onto the reinstated service from the station concourse.

I'd throw the Delay Repay claim in to WMR/LNWR and see what they say. You might have to appeal your case a number of times to see it paid out, though.

 

[Adam Williams]

My view is that it's entirely unreasonable to expect any customers to be at the station in time for the original service after there's been a Darwin cancellation communicated to them.
They may have unavoidably changed their plans upon receiving that first notification to re-align with the next hourly service. This case is even more clear-cut as @MrJeeves suggests; the reinstatement was done at the very last minute, leaving less than the MCT. Can't expect anyone to be able to react in time to that.

I'd say it's not like NUCKLE to have an unreliable service, but I spent too many years living in Kenilworth to hold that view, even if it has gotten better since then

The rail industry would like Darwin to be seen as "a single source of truth"; well, they can pay out in accordance with that in my view.

 

[Jurg]

Thanks both, I've sent my claim to WMR and will let you know how I get on!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Mar 2025 ==

As expected my claim was denied, and I have appealed

 

[DavyCrocket]

I had a refusal recently from GTR. I was at Victoria and train due to delayed arrival was cancelled at calling the station I wanted when departing. There was another departing later. So I boarded that. It was refused as they claimed it had called at the station I needed, with a delay of 14 minutes. I don’t actually know of it did call or if their data they view was incorrect or not able to be understood.
What is frustrating. Is it’s not possible to explain their incorrect reason properly

 

[Jurg]

So I've received a response to my delay repay appeal at 16:42 today (Friday):

If you had to abandon your journey, unfortunately this is not something we can assess under delay repay as we are only able to assist when you are claiming for a delay to the running of your service. Therefore, we would request that you contact our Customer Relations who will be able to assist. Please use the phone number or link below:

At no point in any correspondence with them did I indicate that I abandoned my journey. I made it perfectly clear I got the service an hour after my planned departure and arrived at my destination over an hour late.

I tried to call them on the number they provided but, of course, I went into a queue and shortly after 5pm my call was forwarded to a voicemail box as the office closed for the weekend.

 

[transportphoto]

Reexplain this to them in writing. Ask that they provide a letter of deadlock if they fail to agree with you.