Delay repay advice on abandoned journey and replacement ticket

On Sunday 16 March, I attempted to travel from Cambridge to Manchester via Ely, leaving Cambridge on the 1503 to Kings Lynn with a planned change at Ely onto the 1548 to Manchester. I bought tickets through the Forum ticketing site, split over five tickets: a mixture of anytime, super off peak and advance singles.

I used the ticket for the 1503 (super off peak single to Ely) to enter Cambridge station.
The 1503 was cancelled, the next train to Ely departing too late to make the connection.

Seeing no train from Ely at 1648, I decided to purchase another set of tickets from Cambridge to Manchester, travelling via Peterborough and Doncaster. These were also bought through the Forum ticketing site.

What options, if any, do I have for recovering any of the money for the original journey?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer

If the train was cancelled, there was no need to purchase additional tickets to travel on the next train. Did you ask staff for advice on what to do?

I think the best thing will be to contact Trainsplit Customer Services and explain what happened.

For the record, the reason there is no 16:48 from Ely is that, on Sundays, the train that would be the 16:48 is planned instead to use the Ely West Curve, running non-stop from Thetford to Peterborough. This is the only train of the week booked to use the Ely West Curve. This was the train in question:

What counts as the "next" train on the OP's itinerary is therefore somewhat open to question, and may depend on exactly what combination of tickets was held.

• Arguably, the next train on their itinerary would be the 17:49 from Ely, arriving in Manchester at 21:33, 117 minutes later than booked.
• However, the next train from Cambridge to Peterborough would have been the 15:59 to Birmingham. From there, they could have boarded the 17:21 from Peterborough (the train that had gone via the Ely West Curve) and arrived in Manchester at 20:39, 63 minutes later than the original itinerary.
• Taking the 15:59 to Peterborough, the 17:19 from Peterborough to Doncaster and then the 18:39 from Doncaster to Manchester would result in an arrival time of 20:07, 31 minutes later than booked. It sounds like this is probably what the OP did, albeit on a new ticket.

Thank you all for your advice.

It did not occur to me to ask staff - for one thing there were hundreds of people on the cancelled train (which terminated short at Cambridge) who were all annoyed, having been asked to move up the train twice (some problem with the doors in the middle unit) before it was finally cancelled. Also my combination of tickets was reasonably complex (5 tickets, mixture of three types of single including advances) and I would not have been confident of getting an outcome which would have allowed me to travel without worrying about ticket validity. Having read the many prosecution stories both on here and on the national news outlets, there is no way I would consider travelling without a ticket I know to be valid.

The first I knew of the 1721 from Peterborough was seeing it on the departure boards when I got to Peterborough. I tried realtimetrains, National Rail Journey Planner and the forum tickets site but none offered me that itinerary, probably because it is slower than the alternatives.

In any case, I held an advance for the March-Grantham portion. My assumption is that this is only valid on EMR if I miss the booked train, and there was no way for me to use that to make the 1721 from Peterborough - only CrossCountry trains were available to get me there in time. Therefore I had assumed that with the tickets I held, I would have to wait 2 hours and take the 1703 from Cambridge, changing onto the 1749 from Ely. I was not prepared to do this.

I had originally chosen the journey with EMR for convenience, as it is a single change. It was slower and (slightly) more expensive than the cheaper option via Doncaster.

I think I will have to chalk this one up to experience. I think a flexible return is probably the best bet for this journey, when I next make it. It seems there was no easy answer that I could have worked out for myself (beyond waiting 2 hours).

magpiespy said:

I think I will have to chalk this one up to experience. I think a flexible return is probably the best bet for this journey, when I next make it. It seems there was no easy answer that I could have worked out for myself (beyond waiting 2 hours).

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I would agree with Hadders and say it's definitely worth contacting Trainsplit and explaining the situation - there is definitely an argument that this counts as an abandoned journey due to the cancellation of your first train, and you should be due a refund if you return the tickets. However, if you've used some of the tickets (e.g. your single from Cambridge to Ely was flexible) but not all, then it's more complicated. Still, I do think it's worth writing an email explaining what happened and asking if you can have a refund - the worst they can say is no!