Off Peak ticket - Disruption

Hello

A friend of mine is currently caught up in the WFJ fatality. She has a Liverpool-London Off Peak Return with a YP Railcard.

She went to get the 16:07 London-Liverpool service back home and has been advised that all passengers should use alternative routes either via Sheffield or Birmingham Moor Street.

She is now at STP and East Midlands are saying they cannot accept the ticket as it is an Off Peak Return in the peak. She has explained that on VT services it is valid at any time with a railcard, but they are refusing to let her travel unless she gets an excess.

Anyone got any advice here as I'm not exactly sure how this works in disruption.

The "internal" information provided to EMT staff by their control is:

TICKET ACCEPTANCE

Would all please note EMT have agreed to pass London Midland & Virgin tickets. London Midland is between London St.Pancras and Bedford only and Virgin Tickets between London St.Pancras and Sheffield due to a fatality in the Watford Area.

Thanks Information Control.

Posted By:332 No.:1310564725 Expiry Time:13/07/11 23:45

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She is wanting to travel London-Sheffield, then Sheffield-Liverpool.

I've no idea, but I'd be calling Virgin Customer services to see if they can help.

EMT should be honouring the ticket. Regardless of their own restrictions, the ticket as bought was valid for her travel plans. I'd be calling EMT first, then VT if they won't budge. Poor show by EMT in my view.

Ignoring the restrictions and easements, the fact is the ticket was to be used off-peak and it would seem a little unfair to then make someone wait until 7-7.30pm to travel via another route.

That would mean an incredible delay and why should anyone pay extra given they turned up on time for a train that wasn't inside the peak period.

If EMT don't budge, tell her to get over to Marylebone and go to Moor St, then New St - Lime St.

But I agree as her ticket would be valid for the corresponding VT services, and EMT are honouring the tickets, they should let her travel.

Thanks all for the responses. Will report back later...

Make sure a letter is sent to EMT, give them the name of the person who is declining her travel. Always take the name. In fact, sometimes making it clear you are noting their name is enough to make them adhere to the rules.

I'd also insist on speaking to a manager (at the time). I would ask if this is company policy or the opinion of one person acting alone. I would make it clear to them that I am making notes of their name and what they are claiming.

Also inform Virgin. They will have an agreement in place with EMT, and this rogue individual is not adhering to that. One day the boot will be on the other foot, and EMT will be expecting Virgin to honour their customers' tickets.

Sadly there are a minority of rail staff who act in an appauling way, they give the majority who are good, an undeserved bad name. Very little is done about those with a stinking attitude, so these problems always persist, and I have absolutely no confidence with the TOCs in general (especially not the Stagecoach ones - hardly surprising given Brian Souter's anti-customer views!) of this sort of thing being reduced or eliminated any time soon. Some TOCs are an exception to this, of course.
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Pumbaa said:

If EMT don't budge, tell her to get over to Marylebone and go to Moor St, then New St - Lime St. .

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That's probably what I'd do anyway, you're looking at a journey time of 2 hours + 1 hour 45 mins, with an average wait of 15 mins. So, 4 hours (ish).

On EMT, it's about 2 hours 10 minutes to Sheffield, then only an hourly train to Liverpool which takes 1 hour 50 minutes, so if you made a good connection you'd do it in 4 hours but more than likely you'd be waiting for connections and take longer than that! Yes, I know that it's half-hourly to Manchester, but then you'd need to change again and some of the trains from Manchester-Liverpool are not as fast.

But then I expect the EMT route via Sheffield to be quieter and more chance of a seat, as there is a huge over-capacity on this route under normal circumstances and I'd expect the London-Birmingham trains to be absolutely wedged.
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AlterEgo said:

Poor show by EMT in my view.

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I'm aware of EMT doing far worse than customers. They are a truly awful company. False imprisonment is one of the things they do. And as for the Routeing Guide, some of them deny it even exists! Terrible company, but I am not surprised given who owns it!

She's managed to get to Leicester by EMT after speaking to someone else. Been advised to go Leicester>Nuneaton>Crewe>Liverpool.

They always tell you at Euston of different ways to travel when there is a fatality but in my experience I find it easier and usually quicker to just wait around until things start moving again.

If there is a formal acceptance in place then the member of staff in question should have let the OP through, assuming they were aware there was acceptance. Speaking from experience, this information can take time to filter though - I never knew that there were problems on the Thameslink route for example, until punters started asking me if they could travel. First thing. I'd do would be to raid TRUST to check for disruption then Tyrell/National Rail for ticket acceptance information. I appreciate it might be more difficult for someone not sat in front of a computer, but a polite call to the controllers would verify the situation. As for peak/off peak, I'd say use common sense. Clearly the OP wouldve been permitted to travel at that time so it shouldn't have been an issue. In any case, discretion is supposed to be shown if there is significant disruption, this should apply to ticket acceptance as well.

In my experience it's usually better to sit tight and wait for trains to start running again - alternative routes sometimes take several hours longer than the planned route.

First class said:

She's managed to get to Leicester by EMT after speaking to someone else. Been advised to go Leicester>Nuneaton>Crewe>Liverpool.

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Not a good idea.
Connections northwards at Nuneaton are appalling in the evening.
Probably end up in New St with LM.

LNW-GW Joint said:

Not a good idea.
Connections northwards at Nuneaton are appalling in the evening.
Probably end up in New St with LM.

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Indeed - wonder what time said person actually reached their destination?

I have a small tale of a 3-hour delay today to tell.

Got a call this morning to go to London for an emergency. In the rush of things, I forgot to bring my phone with me and only discovered it when I was on the XC 170 bound for Nuneaton. How important is the phone? I hear some of you wonder. Well, as I found out later on, very, because I couldn't plan the best moves on the go, which eventually cost me a good few hours.

My original itinerary coming back, had everything gone to plan was:
1G31 1603 EUS - RUG 1651
1U41 1704 RUG - NUN 1716
1L49 1721 NUN - LEI 1751

As I arrived at Euston just gone 1600, to my astonishment I found that the 1603 had been cancelled. The 1623 VT service does not call at Rugby and the 1643 was first-call Coventry. I tried to find out from various members of staff as to ticket arrangements, either off-peak relaxation for travel on LM (because I had a Y-P-discounted SVR Route Direct from Nuneaton) or travel via alternative routes, namely EMT from St Pancras, however no one knew anything at all. A few of them declined my requests to ring control and find out, giving me a "I know how to do my job" look. It wouldn't have mattered anyway as there was no LM service going north of Northampton until the 1829 on a weekday so I was stuck for the 1703. "No big deal" I thought to myself and sat down in a corner started reading my book. I am not prepared to risk it by going to St Pancras without finding out an arrangement being in place first. Time flew by, the 1703 was wedged but left on time (-ish) at 1708. I count myself lucky that I managed to find a seat at the back end of Coach A (usual trick). As we pulled into Rugby at 1809 (18 late) I promptly got off.

Big mistake! As I couldn't check train-running information without my phone, I did not realise that because we missed the connection into 1U41, the next one down Trent Valley would be 2U91 at 2004, which (I didn't know at the time until station staff checked the log) was already expected late. After a few minutes staring at the departure board trying to figure out what to do, I finally decided to give up and seek help from staff. The guy who I talked to was very helpful. He checked things out with someone in the office and then spoke to hopefully someone at control, and eventually declared that I should have stayed on my train all the way to Birmingham. Just as we were talking, I completely missed the fact that 2Y79 pulled in for the 1817 to New Street. By the time I rang across the subway, it'd already got the "Right Away" and left without me. As a result I had another hour's wait for 1Y25 at 1917 (with 1G37, the 1803 departure from Euston, originally due at 1851, also cancelled), which eventually departed at 1924, by which time I was told that 2U91 just passed Bletchley 48 late.

We didn't experience any more delays thankfully and got to BHM 1 late at 2004. I caught 1L56 at 2022 and arrived back at Leicester 2 minutes early at 2113, for an overall lateness of 202. I wonder how much compensation I will get off Virgin for this delay.

Surprised that you were not told to use St Pancras as the OP's friend was due to get the 16.07 and that was the advice they received.

As for Virgin trains when the xx.03 is cancelled the following xx.23 usually stops at Rugby, not really helpful as you would still have missed the connection but might have knocked some time off your trip.

When you were hanging around at Euston you could of course picked up a couple of Virgin and LM timetables which would have allowed you to plan your journey home.

Out of curiosity if you come from Leicester why did you not go direct from there to London instead of via Nuneaton/Rugby?

Mr Spock said:

Surprised that you were not told to use St Pancras as the OP's friend was due to get the 16.07 and that was the advice they received.

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There were no announcements, or I must have missed it while in the toilet. However none of the staff knew anything when I came back and asked them so I eventually gave up after about 20 minutes. Maybe I was unlucky in speaking to the wrong person?

Mr Spock said:

When you were hanging around at Euston you could of course picked up a couple of Virgin and LM timetables which would have allowed you to plan your journey home.

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Yes I could, however I was just going by the first departure on the board to get me northwards. Again no one seemed to know whether LM were accepting VT's railcard easements on SVRs. Anyway it wouldn't have made much difference as they were all jam packed and none went further than Northampton.

Mr Spock said:

Out of curiosity if you come from Leicester why did you not go direct from there to London instead of via Nuneaton/Rugby?

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Leicester - London Terminals SOR Y-P £85.15

Leicester - Rugby SDR Y-P £8.65
Nuneaton - London Terminals Route Direct SVR Y-P £23.65

That's why.

Alternatively I could have also split at Bedford to bring the total down to £42.70, but still not as cheap.

My fault was relying too heavily on making a Trent Valley connection at Rugby, which there was none of after 1704 until 2004. I would have figured it out earlier with my phone on me.

bb21 said:

Yes I could, however I was just going by the first departure on the board to get me northwards. Again no one seemed to know whether LM were accepting VT's railcard easements on SVRs. Anyway it wouldn't have made much difference as they were all jam packed and none went further than Northampton.

Leicester - London Terminals SOR Y-P £85.15

Leicester - Rugby SDR Y-P £8.65
Nuneaton - London Terminals Route Direct SVR Y-P £23.65

That's why.

Alternatively I could have also split at Bedford to bring the total down to £42.70, but still not as cheap.

My fault was relying too heavily on making a Trent Valley connection at Rugby, which there was none of after 1704 until 2004. I would have figured it out earlier with my phone on me.

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I can certainly understand why you travelled the way you did at those prices.

With regards to the timetables I meant if you had picked them up you could have seen what connections you could make at Rugby or whether you would have to go via Coventry or Birmingham

The SVR restrictions issue is a red herring. If EMT are accepting VT/LM tickets then the tickets could be any ticket, including an Advance. I was able to leave [stn]STP[/stn] early one day that the East Coast route was a mess. I had heard in advance and got a train to [stn]SHF[/stn] nearly 2 hours earlier than my booked train from [stn]KGX[/stn], which meant I got to York roughly 'on time'!

Just wondering, what is "the WFJ fatality"?

doubletrackemble said:

Just wondering, what is "the WFJ fatality"?

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WFJ = Watford Junction the area the fatality was in.

Thanks, I thought it was maybe an industry acronym for a suicide! Perhaps I got a bit confused by it saying "the" rather than "a", unless the fatality was well known from its discussion on here?

doubletrackemble said:

unless the fatality was well known from its discussion on here?

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It was reported (WCML Problems) but the thread did not attract many contributions.