Southeastern Delay Repay Refused

[cav1975]

I would appreciate some advice.

I had the misfortune to be a passenger on the 1748 Gravesend to Charing Cross train on 28th June when it struck and killed someone at Erith.

I was stuck on the train for over an hour and a half while ambulance, police, fire, network rail and southeastern officials attended the incident.

Eventually the train moved and I got off at Abbey Wood where I had to get a bus and then a train arriving at Charing Cross at 2102 - a delay of 2 hours and 21 minutes.

I have two letters from Southeastern delay repay advising me that my delay was less than 30 minutes and that delay repay does not apply. They are basing this on saying that their records show that the train was cancelled and I should have caught the next train.

Who should I turn to next?

Thanks in advance

 

[MikeWh]

I would appreciate some advice.

I had the misfortune to be a passenger on the 1748 Gravesend to Charing Cross train on 28th June when it struck and killed someone at Erith.

I was stuck on the train for over an hour and a half while ambulance, police, fire, network rail and southeastern officials attended the incident.

Eventually the train moved and I got off at Abbey Wood where I had to get a bus and then a train arriving at Charing Cross at 2102 - a delay of 2 hours and 21 minutes.

I have two letters from Southeastern delay repay advising me that my delay was less than 30 minutes and that delay repay does not apply. They are basing this on saying that their records show that the train was cancelled and I should have caught the next train.

Who should I turn to next?

Thanks in advance

If you want to try Southeastern one more time then simply point out that the train was only cancelled after the incident and that it was impossible to change your plans to get the next train from Gravesend. If that fails then contact London Travel Watch. You can probably go straight to LTW if you wish. Take a printout of this page asap because I'm not sure how much longer it will be available.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Did you write to them explaining this, or did you just use the online form? If the latter just write back to them explaining that you were a passenger on that train.

 

[cav1975]

Thank you both. I had previously written and called to explain that I was a passenger on the train involved in the incident, but the second letter merely informed me that that train had been cancelled and that my delay was therefore 17 minutes.

Anyway I decided to give them one more chance, as MikeWh advised, and called them this afternoon.

During the call they have accepted to pay and advised me that the cheque will come soon.

My experience does make me wonder how many legitimate claims are refused as a result of inadequate investigations.

 

[AlterEgo]

Thank you both. I had previously written and called to explain that I was a passenger on the train involved in the incident, but the second letter merely informed me that that train had been cancelled and that my delay was therefore 17 minutes.

Anyway I decided to give them one more chance, as MikeWh advised, and called them this afternoon.

During the call they have accepted to pay and advised me that the cheque will come soon.

My experience does make me wonder how many legitimate claims are refused as a result of inadequate investigations.

Very poor by SE.

It should be wholly obvious that a passenger on an incident train - where that train is involved in a fatality - is going to be delayed by a very significant amount.

It's sheer laziness and boneheadedness on the part of the staff member processing the claim, who pops the journey into a CRM program which states the delay.

A pox on them.

 

[Kite159]

Very poor by SE.

It should be wholly obvious that a passenger on an incident train - where that train is involved in a fatality - is going to be delayed by a very significant amount.

It's sheer laziness and boneheadedness on the part of the staff member processing the claim, who pops the journey into a CRM program which states the delay.

A pox on them.

That assuming it is a member of staff who processes the claim, I wouldn't be surprised if some part of the system is processed automatically by the computer with a manual check of a certain percentage.

 

[AlterEgo]

That assuming it is a member of staff who processes the claim, I wouldn't be surprised if some part of the system is processed automatically by the computer with a manual check of a certain percentage.

It's the same system across all TOCs. Staff do process each form. It's basically data entry. I used to do it!

 

[Paul Kelly]

If the Realtimetrains screenshot is to believed, the error occurred when the train was marked as having been cancelled from Slade Green when, if what the OP says is correct, it actually terminated at Abbey Wood. I think this is probably the source of confusion on Southeastern's part. I wonder is it just a mistake, or has it been done on purpose to hide the fact that the arrival at Abbey Wood was (presumably) greatly delayed.

 

[gray1404]

Personally, I would phone them up on this one. I would quote my reference number and tell them straight that you were on one of their trains and it struck and killed someone and you were left stuck on the train. I would also tell them how distressing it was anyway to have been on a train that killed someone anyway and that they are not handling the situation at all well.

 

[cav1975]

Personally, I would phone them up on this one. I would quote my reference number and tell them straight that you were on one of their trains and it struck and killed someone and you were left stuck on the train. I would also tell them how distressing it was anyway to have been on a train that killed someone anyway and that they are not handling the situation at all well.

Basically that is what I did this afternoon. This is after the original claim, a phone call when it was first rejected and a follow up letter from me had all mentionned that I was on the train involved in the incident. To be fair the lady that I spoke to today did understand and (after contacting her supervision) advised that my claim would now be accepted.

The incident was tragic, and I'm sure very unsettling for the driver. He stopped the train as rapidly as he could and then came onto the PA advising us that we had stopped due to an incident and that he expected that we would be there some time.

After all the emergency crews had moved on a relief driver took over and it was announced that the train would be driven to Plumstead stopping at Belvedere and Abbey Wood. We were also told that as there were "trains queuing up behind us" we could join one for onward transport. As the train normally stops at Abbey Wood, but not Belvedere or Plumstead, I got off at Abbey Wood to find that neither I nor the 20 others who got off were expected. I used the help point and the man in India told me that this was a staffed station and I should go to the ticket office.

To cut a long story short I ended up on a public bus in an unfamiliar part of London and was basically left to my own devices. I had to ask a local passengers on the bus where to get off.

I do realise that this was very disruptive for Southeastern, and not of their making, but I was surprised by the absence of contingency planning and by the straight denials from their delay repay team.