Discussion: Travelling on an earlier service due to a cancellation - is any refund due?

sheff1 · 18 Oct 2018

Yes, it depends on the TOC. EMT staff at St Pancras are clear that the policy is not to let people board an earlier train if their booked train is cancelled (unless there is mass disruption and all restrictions are lifted). EMT obviously prefer to have disgruntled passengers hanging around and then paying out Delay Repay afterwards rather than letting happy people travel on the earlier train and having no liability to pay compensation.

The suggestion

221129 said:
However most guards would use common sense and use discretion

is probably true. The problem with that at St Pancras is that the gate staff prevent passengers getting to the guard to ask.

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IanD · 18 Oct 2018

BrooklyBay said:
Related question, as this has me intrigued. Is it generally accepted that if your booked train is cancelled, but you are in the station earlier, that you can catch an alternate service before the cancelled service would have run?

As an example - was travelling London > Sheffield on the recent derailment day and was at the station a good 1.5 hours early due to a flight arriving early. Immediately noticed my train was cancelled but was advised by the information point staff that I would only be allowed to catch an alternate service that was departing after my cancelled one, so my 1.5 hour wait became a much longer wait.

221129 said:
That's correct. However if you ask the guard of the train most would apply common sense.

Surely it would depend on the type of ticket held. Only Advances require you to take the specified train, other tickets may be valid on earlier/later trains than the one on which you have reserved a seat.

Kite159 · 18 Oct 2018

BrooklyBay said:
Related question, as this has me intrigued. Is it generally accepted that if your booked train is cancelled, but you are in the station earlier, that you can catch an alternate service before the cancelled service would have run?

As an example - was travelling London > Sheffield on the recent derailment day and was at the station a good 1.5 hours early due to a flight arriving early. Immediately noticed my train was cancelled but was advised by the information point staff that I would only be allowed to catch an alternate service that was departing after my cancelled one, so my 1.5 hour wait became a much longer wait.

Depends on the TOC, I've been at Leeds & Edinburgh before when a VTEC (at the time) London train had been cancelled due to a train failure and the announcements have been saying that passengers could travel on the service before hand or the one afterwards, so any folk arriving in good time could board the service half an hour earlier to help ease the loading of the service after the cancellation.

Haywain · 18 Oct 2018

Kite159 said:
Depends on the TOC, I've been at Leeds & Edinburgh before when a VTEC (at the time) London train had been cancelled due to a train failure and the announcements have been saying that passengers could travel on the service before hand or the one afterwards, so any folk arriving in good time could board the service half an hour earlier to help ease the loading of the service after the cancellation.

I think it's fair to say that LNER (and predecessors) have always taken the view that, on most occasions, spreading the load is the best bet. Inevitably a significant proportion of intending passengers won't arrive in time for the train before the one they are booked on, so they won't have the same choice as those arriving early.

Discussion: Travelling on an earlier service due to a cancellation - is any refund due?

sheff1

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IanD

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Kite159

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Haywain

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