Delay Repay when train arrives early.

Hi,
This isn't about a specific claim but rather an issue that has affected a few of my claims.

I travel daily from Birmingham New Street (BHM) to Congleton (CNG) changing at Stoke-on-Trent (SOT).

Occasionally CrossCountry arrive at Stoke a bit late and if the xx44 arrival is delayed to anything after about xx00 then the Northern service (which leaves at xx56/57/58) leaves before CrossCountry arrive leading to an hour wait for me.

If it's the 1756 that is missed then no issue occurs as the next one is 1858 so an hour delay is easily met.

However if the departure times from Stoke are both xx56 or xx58 then the Northern service frequently arrives at Congleton 1-3 minutes early, leading to somewhat unfair delay claims of 57-59 minutes.

Does this count as a 30-59m delay or should the TOC be fair when their services arrive early (it's not uncommon in the slightest!)

It is a 59m delay, but I've still waited in Stoke for an hour.

Any constructive feedback appreciated.

Cheers,
Jack.

For reference here is the odd pattern of Stoke-Congleton services on a weekday:

All compensation schemes must have defined conditions of entitlements and you are obviously aware of those that apply to your daily journey. I though that delay repay qualification was based on the difference between the scheduled time of arrival at your destination that you wouldhave assumed at the point of booking/starting the journey and the actual time that you arrived on the day.

To clarify, I am not trying to game the scheme. After an hour at a frequently cold station that doesn't have a great deal of facilities I would appreciate an appropriate compensation amount. Of course I want to arrive on time, but when I am delayed I want a fair representation. An hour sat at Stoke is an hour I could be at home but Northern's rubbish service timings half the compensation. It used to be fine. All services were 59 minutes past from Stoke. Why is there a need for the departure times to be so varied. Would they be happy if I paid them half the cost because the train arrived 1m late

I doubt that the whole WCML service has been crafted to save a few pounds on delay repay scheme costs, there are far too many timetabling issues to be that petty. Even if they could, it would only work for the odd service as the succession of 59 minute gaps would end up with times creeping around the clock, thereby destroying the nominal hour-based timetable.
Have you considered that there may be path conflicts at certain hours (maybe geographically quite remote from Stoke), and delaying/advancing local services' times a minute or so can cause a smoother operation of the routes affected.

I submit these claims as 59 minute delays. One from XC actually got accepted as 60m.
I have also not said that the whole WCML is crafted that way intentionally, only that it seems pointless to have such varying times for little reason. As I said it used to be xx59 off Stoke consistently and other services have not changed in any major way that could affect this.
We already have an abysmal service level, stupidly high timings Kidsgrove - Congleton (7m is silly, it's always done in about 4m if that.) are causing legitimate hour delays to be reduced under the threshold for no good reason.
Of course a way to fix this would be our aim of 2 tph.

This post was merely asking if the unfair timings are just unfortunate or if early trains do not count.


As a side note Northern have accepted a claim similar to the scenario in the original post. They have accepted a 30-59m delay and incorrectly calculated the compensation as £1.79 (Should be £4.05)
It seems they are not counting my first ticket (as I have two tickets for the journey). I am disputing this with them though and will take to ombudsman if they refuse the correct amount.

I have frequently found delays of “about” the threshold have been just under because of timetable foibles. Sometimes it’s recovery time, sometimes the difference between working and public timetable. But they are the rules of the scheme, and I accept them as applying.

It seems to me that the real problem you have is with the poor timekeeping of Cross Country, which is imposing those delays on you. I would suggest you focus your attention on that, and go through the complaints rather than Delay Repay route.

You may also, if you wish to press the point, want to consider the case won by a commuter on the East Suffolk line for repeated delays. That isn’t a recommendation, but may be a way for you to use that wasted time at Stoke.

35B said:

I have frequently found delays of “about” the threshold have been just under because of timetable foibles. Sometimes it’s recovery time, sometimes the difference between working and public timetable. But they are the rules of the scheme, and I accept them as applying.

It seems to me that the real problem you have is with the poor timekeeping of Cross Country, which is imposing those delays on you. I would suggest you focus your attention on that, and go through the complaints rather than Delay Repay route.

You may also, if you wish to press the point, want to consider the case won by a commuter on the East Suffolk line for repeated delays. That isn’t a recommendation, but may be a way for you to use that wasted time at Stoke.

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I contacted CrossCountry about their fairly common delays a few months ago via phone quoting their charter that says:

'Should a period of sustained poor performance be experienced, we will consider compensating Season ticket holders over and above the arrangements outlined above. In doing so, we will consult Transport Focus, the independent national rail consumer watchdog'.

They basically said they can't do anything as the repeated delays have to be the fault of CrossCountry and not Network Rail or another TOC.
I mentioned that it doesn't mention that requirement in their passenger charter and they didn't seem to care much and repeated the point.

A delay of 59 minutes still counts as a 30-59 minute delay regardless of whether or not you spend 60 additional minutes waiting at an intermediate station. There has to be a cut off somewhere, unfortunately.

yorkie said:

A delay of 59 minutes still counts as a 30-59 minute delay regardless of whether or not you spend 60 additional minutes waiting at an intermediate station. There has to be a cut off somewhere, unfortunately.

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Indeed there does, my annoyance is not at the terms of the scheme but the timetable enabling the early arrivals.

Having just checked I have claimed with CrossCountry about 25-30 times since September 24th 2018.

agbrs_Jack said:

I submit these claims as 59 minute delays. One from XC actually got accepted as 60m.
I have also not said that the whole WCML is crafted that way intentionally, only that it seems pointless to have such varying times for little reason. As I said it used to be xx59 off Stoke consistently and other services have not changed in any major way that could affect this. ...

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My point was that the WCML is a heavily used route and almost every train path through the network of lines is positioned in a very small slot. The timetable is basically a clockface one but there could be differences because maybe a heavier freight working tends to occupy junctions longer than a more conventional fast freight. A decision might be to widen the time window available to allow for slower acceleration with a heavier load after a speed restriction, - just a suggestion, so these minor ripples inthe general smoothness of such a timetable might be there for sound reasons. Your consideration of "other services" should include freight etc., which although not normally relevant to the general public, are certainly significant to many posters here.

agbrs_Jack said:

... We already have an abysmal service level, stupidly high timings Kidsgrove - Congleton (7m is silly, it's always done in about 4m if that.) are causing legitimate hour delays to be reduced under the threshold for no good reason.
Of course a way to fix this would be our aim of 2 tph.

This post was merely asking if the unfair timings are just unfortunate or if early trains do not count. ...

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I think you would do well to forget this concept of 'unfair' timings. As Yorkie says, "there has to be a cutoff somewhere".

As a side note Northern have accepted a claim similar to the scenario in the original post. They have accepted a 30-59m delay and incorrectly calculated the compensation as £1.79 (Should be £4.05)
It seems they are not counting my first ticket (as I have two tickets for the journey). I am disputing this with them though and will take to ombudsman if they refuse the correct amount.[/QUOTE]
I can't comment on Northern ignoring the first ticket, but there clearly is some leeway for TOCs to offer payment over and above the rules of their own plan. In January this year I was effectively delayed for an hour by an announcent cock-up at Milton Keynes where I (and some others) were sent to the wrong platform during a fairly tight but official train change. The delay was actually 59 minutes because the final train, the St Albansd Abbey branch train, always arrives one minute early. LNR actually counted it as an hour delay, I think in my case because I wrote directly to them and partly because it was a stupid error on their part rather than a stright network delay. This is the thread posted on here:https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...rough-wrong-announcement.176075/#post-3852753
As I wrote then, TOCs don't always admit their shortfalls, and I was happy to post a favourable response to their reply. I hope that the thread has been read by somebody in the position of dealing with passengers, not only LNR, but maybe some of the more recalcitrant TOCs.

agbrs_Jack said:

Does this count as a 30-59m delay or should the TOC be fair when their services arrive early (it's not uncommon in the slightest!)

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This is an unfortunate situation, but delay repay is set against what actually happened vs what the timetable says should have happened. So the TOC is correct to say that your delay fell into the 30-59 minute bracket.

You could, perhaps, try going down the "gesture of goodwill" route if the previous train was also a few minutes early (meaning that you were actually delayed by an hour).

najaB said:

This is an unfortunate situation, but delay repay is set against what actually happened vs what the timetable says should have happened. So the TOC is correct to say that your delay fell into the 30-59 minute bracket.

You could, perhaps, try going down the "gesture of goodwill" route if the previous train was also a few minutes early (meaning that you were actually delayed by an hour).

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The most recent one (Tuesday) was the 17:57 from Birmingham New Street.
The 1756 left Stoke 1E at 1755 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 1808 (booked 1810)
The 1858 left Stoke 1E at 1857 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 1910 (booked 1912) (My connection)
The 1958 left Stoke 1E at 1957 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 2010 (booked 2012)

All 3 left Kidsgrove RT.

Happened to me just last week. An hour and two minutes was measured as 59 minutes by the system, despite it being later. Just means they don't have to pay out as much. Anything up to an hour and five minutes is usually counted as 59 minutes.

Jocques said:

Anything up to an hour and five minutes is usually counted as 59 minutes.

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Conversely, I've had a 1 hour and 56 minute delay counted as two hours.

najaB said:

This is an unfortunate situation, but delay repay is set against what actually happened vs what the timetable says should have happened. So the TOC is correct to say that your delay fell into the 30-59 minute bracket.

You could, perhaps, try going down the "gesture of goodwill" route if the previous train was also a few minutes early (meaning that you were actually delayed by an hour).

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Aside for any delays making the second train missable, it could be argued that the second train that is routinely a couple of minutes early at it's destination is both reliable and better than advertised.

agbrs_Jack said:

The most recent one (Tuesday) was the 17:57 from Birmingham New Street.
The 1756 left Stoke 1E at 1755 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 1808 (booked 1810)
The 1858 left Stoke 1E at 1857 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 1910 (booked 1912) (My connection)
The 1958 left Stoke 1E at 1957 and arrived at Congleton 2E at 2010 (booked 2012)

All 3 left Kidsgrove RT.

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In reality none of those trains actually left Stoke 1 minute early - all 3 were marked as leaving 15 seconds early - this seems to be common and is merely a small timing offset issue.

With regards to Kidsgrove and Congleton - from December most trains will leave Kidsgrove 1 minute later , eating into the current typical waiting time at Congleton.

The rules are the rules, but I feel there is a difference between a creeping delay that starts low then rises up to 59 mins (where one would hope the signallers and controllers are doing their best to minimise) and a delay due to missed connections that, by design, is always going to be 58 or 59 minutes especially when everything is working perfectly!

For an example of something truly unfair, try being delayed for 1 hour on Ormskirk to Blackpool South. It is the same train so it is impossible to miss the connection unless they mess about with the diagrams on very short term plans (hope I got the terminology right). But because it is not advertised as a through train in the timetable and the min connection time at Preston is longer than the working timetable connection time, valid itineraries require you to get off and wait for an hour.

najaB said:

Conversely, I've had a 1 hour and 56 minute delay counted as two hours.

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I've had a 35-50 minute delays treated at 2 hours by GA due to me going via alternative routes to minimise my delay rather than hanging around Ely for 2 hours for the next connection.

Jocques said:

Anything up to an hour and five minutes is usually counted as 59 minutes.

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It isn't. I've had plenty of 61 minute delays paid out correctly.

What you are probably finding is that the public timetable arrival is a few minutes later than the working timetable. And delays go off the public timetable (which is annoying late at night).