Basically today GC have abandoned customers, no ticket acceptance, non replacement transport.
Out of interest, legally where does a customer stand in a situation like this?
Any other operator that's in a position to assist passengers is obliged to do so under NRCoT condition 28.2.
As per the screenshot below, LNER are still happy to sell cheap Advances in both standard and first class on their 20:51 from Kings Cross to York. There is also an earlier itinerary involving the 20:02 from St Pancras, involving changes at Derby and Leeds.
It is therefore plainly evident that there are alternative services that GC's passengers could be accommodated on. Therefore the operators of those services would be obliged to accept GC passengers' tickets. Sadly we know that operators routinely breach the NRCoT with impunity, so the legal and practical positions are often different.
GC themselves are of course also under an obligation to arrange alternative transport for passengers (which is not conditional on how easy it is for them). They should have been arranging ticket acceptance on the above services, and if those negotiations failed despite their best efforts, they should have ensured they had staff in place at the relevant stations to issue new tickets and refreshments free of charge to passengers.
They should also be making it 100% clear they will reimburse passengers who choose to buy their own tickets and refreshments, and paying delay compensation on top.
As it stands, affected passengers will almost certainly have a claim against GC and they may also have a claim against other operators if they are wrongly charged extra to avail of their NRCoT 28.2 rights. I would, however, not expect a smooth experience in trying to claim back the relevant amounts from GC/other TOCs.
Well they clearly suffer from not having the resources available and in the right place to put things right when they go wrong. Not a lot that can be done about that once it happens.
They've effectively gone "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas". There are so many more things they could easily have done, some of which I've listed above. But they save money by fobbing customers off, and they know they'll get away with it, so that's the path they've chosen to take.
It isn't really the responsibility of the rest of the railway to pick up their pieces.
It absolutely is. Tickets are issued under the NRCoT, which all National Rail operators are signatories to. That includes the 28.2 requirement to assist other TOCs' stranded passengers. The TSA also contains a similar requirement although it's unclear whether it would apply in these circumstances.
Of course, it's perfectly reasonable for GC to be sent the bill for the assistance other TOCs render. But passengers shouldn't be left stranded because of petty disputes between operators.
It is an odd situation where we seem to be encouraging the continued presence of open access operators while not recognising the advantages that having a single operator network offers in terms of resources to put things right when they go wrong.
I agree that having open access operators always adds complexity. However, the evidence from Spain, France and Italy is that it encourages bureaucratic state operators to up their game and become more competitive. As such, there are arguments for and against it.
I think the most important thing is that passengers aren't left carrying the can when things go wrong. That necessitates much More hands-on regulation by the ORR, including enforcing existing licence obligations (such as the obligation to comply with the PRO).
A few test cases "pour encourager les autres" where recalcitrant operators like GC are prosecuted and threatened with licence suspension would quickly get all the TOCs in line. That's exactly what we saw when the RRB accessibility issue headed towards a judicial review.
As you say, this is the risk taken by anyone who buys a ticket restricted to an open access operator.
In practical terms, perhaps. In legal terms, absolutely not - because of NRCoT 28.2.
The problem I guess today is exacerbated by there being a reduced service south of Doncaster due to diversions via Lincoln and there being limited capacity on other services.
Not an excuse for stranding customers, of course. Even if it proved completely impossible to accommodate passengers on alternative trains today (which is clearly not the case) then GC should be making it clear they'll arrange hotels or pay for the bill afterwards.
Yes, and not trying to absolve them, but what are those other arrangements they could make?
They won't have a spare train nearby, and I suspect no STP path they could run a train in.
LNER have presumably said they won't take their customers because of the reduced timetable.
I can't imagine chartering a number of coaches at zero notice is practical.
The alternative arrangement is travel tomorrow, or earlier to meet the replacement train in Doncaster, ie 1653 rather than 1738 from Kings Cross.
That alternative arrangement is completely unacceptable and there are a range of alternatives, as I've outlined above.
