Delay Repay claims when alternative transport is used

[zoothorn]

I recently made a journey From Scotland involving East Coast/FCC. The E Coast part ran near enough to time. Arriving at Stevenage all the local trains were in chaos owing to an earlier fatality with many cancellations and long delays. My local connection was in due 40 mins, but about 15 mins before it was due to depart it was announced as cancelled, meaning over an hour's wait for the next and final train of the day. I decided to get a taxi as I had been travelling for some time and was not looking forward to waiting for 100 minutes in all for a 12 minute journey to complete the run home. The taxi cost near enough the amount I could get back for a 60 min delay repay claim if I had travelled on the last train (which did run).

FCC's Delay Repay site says
"Fraudulent claims
Please be reminded that Delay Repay claims may only be made for journeys actually made where delays exceed 30 minutes or longer. Claiming for journeys not made is fraud."

I have not made a claim for this journey but it occurred to me that it might be interesting to hear opinions on the actual legality/morality of making a claim as I was out of pocket for avoiding an inordinate delay.

 

[34D]

I recently made a journey From Scotland involving East Coast/FCC. The E Coast part ran near enough to time. Arriving at Stevenage all the local trains were in chaos owing to an earlier fatality with many cancellations and long delays. My local connection was in due 40 mins, but about 15 mins before it was due to depart it was announced as cancelled, meaning over an hour's wait for the next and final train of the day. I decided to get a taxi as I had been travelling for some time and was not looking forward to waiting for 100 minutes in all for a 12 minute journey to complete the run home. The taxi cost near enough the amount I could get back for a 60 min delay repay claim if I had travelled on the last train (which did run).

FCC's Delay Repay site says
"Fraudulent claims
Please be reminded that Delay Repay claims may only be made for journeys actually made where delays exceed 30 minutes or longer. Claiming for journeys not made is fraud."

I have not made a claim for this journey but it occurred to me that it might be interesting to hear opinions on the actual legality/morality of making a claim as I was out of pocket for avoiding an inordinate delay.

I would make the claim and enclose a copy of your taxi receipt. They'll either (I guess) pay out based on the actual arrival time of the train, or the cost of the taxi journey.

 

[GadgetMan]

Nothing stopping you from putting a claim in and there shouldn't be any need to lie or hide facts.

Be honest and explain your reasoning for arranging your own taxi and mention how late you would've been had you waited for the next train that ran. I'd even include a receipt for the Taxi to confirm the EXTRA cost you incurred. If the customer service department is feeling generous then they may send you vouchers for more than the value you are entitled to.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

If you decided not to wait for the train then a claim for the railway getting you to your destination late is both morally and legally wrong.

If you apply for a refund of the taxi fare, I would expect the TOC to reply without compensation as you alone chose to take the taxi.

 

[tannedfrog]

But the train was cancelled? That was the only reason he took a taxi

 

[IanD]

He chose to take a taxi. He didn't seek authorisation from rail staff who may well have arranged one for him.

 

[GadgetMan]

He chose to take a taxi. He didn't seek authorisation from rail staff who may well have arranged one for him.

It doesn't sound as though he is expecting them to reimburse him for the Taxi. It sounds as though the OP just wants to claim what he should be entitled to under delay repay. As long as he is honest with FCC then I don't see a problem with putting a claim in as his journey was indeed delayed by the railway.

 

[PTF62]

He chose to take a taxi. He didn't seek authorisation from rail staff who may well have arranged one for him.

Very funny. You have clearly never been delayed at Stevenage.

 

[IanD]

Very funny. You have clearly never been delayed at Stevenage.

All my delay repay claims from East Coast have involved journeys to Baldock changing at Stevenage and I have always found the staff to be quite helpful in the event of delays. Maybe I've just been lucky.

 

[PTF62]

All my delay repay claims from East Coast have involved journeys to Baldock changing at Stevenage and I have always found the staff to be quite helpful in the event of delays. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Judging by their utter disinterest when I was delayed for several hours at Easter when FCC trains were getting repeatedly stuck at Hitchin, I would say yes.

"What trains are running out of London and are they delayed"

"Dunno" (and don't care)

After a bit of prodding - "You could try the bus replacement to Sandy"

"When is the next bus, and what are the arrangements on from Sandy"

"Dunno" (and don't care)

repeat for a while until I lost the will to live.

 

[bb21]

Judging by their utter disinterest when I was delayed for several hours at Easter when FCC trains were getting repeatedly stuck at Hitchin, I would say yes.

"What trains are running out of London and are they delayed"

"Dunno" (and don't care)

After a bit of prodding - "You could try the bus replacement to Sandy"

"When is the next bus, and what are the arrangements on from Sandy"

"Dunno" (and don't care)

repeat for a while until I lost the will to live.

Maybe they genuinely did not know? Sometimes during periods of disruption, staff can be just as confused as passengers. They don't always have information relayed to them quickly and efficiently. They might have already tried to find out for other passengers before you and to no avail.

The TOC might refund a passenger's taxi fare as a goodwill gesture, and in my experience many do, however there is no provision in the Delay Repay scheme for such expenses without authorisation to be compensated for.

 

[benk1342]

As the train was cancelled and you decided not to travel, perhaps the best route is a refund under NRCoC 26(a) rather than pursuing a Delay Repay claim. While the rule states it is for "tickets that have not been used", note (i) implies that partially used tickets may be refunded.

 

[PTF62]

Maybe they genuinely did not know

It was not the amount of knowledge they did or did not have that made their "service" stand out, it was their utter lack of interest.

And I did ask if they could find out, and they refused to even try.

 

[TUC]

Maybe they genuinely did not know? Sometimes during periods of disruption, staff can be just as confused as passengers. They don't always have information relayed to them quickly and efficiently. They might have already tried to find out for other passengers before you and to no avail.

Surely though the member of staff should have answered more professionally than that though. They should at least have said 'we're trying to find out further information at the moment and will advise passengers as soon as possible". However unclear a situation rail staff are always in a better position than the passenger to find out what is happening.

 

[Aictos]

Surely though the member of staff should have answered more professionally than that though. They should at least have said 'we're trying to find out further information at the moment and will advise passengers as soon as possible". However unclear a situation rail staff are always in a better position than the passenger to find out what is happening.

I disagree, I've worked at stations where I've given every information possible that I have and it still isn't good enough for example I could have walked up and down the platform giving out the information about what's happening and some people want even more information which I don't have.

I've worked a night shift to which the only information I had was the overheads have lost all power so a test train is being used at slow speed to check them in both directions, at line speed this is a journey which takes about 6 minutes but at this speed took more like 30 to 40 minutes in one direction!

All I was told was to sit tight as a train will be arriving although delayed it will still run - one passenger got the hump expecting taxis and buses to be whistled out of thin air!!!!

If all I can get is limited information as long as I pass it on, I'm doing my job to the best of my ability so I disagree with both yours and PTF62's comments.

 

[maniacmartin]

IIf all I can get is limited information as long as I pass it on, I'm doing my job to the best of my ability so I disagree with both yours and PTF62's comments.

This seems to be a systematic problem with the railways. Information isn't always passed on to the frontline staff dealing with customers. Surely it is known by now the approximate amount of time it is likely to deal with a particular type of problem? There is nothing worse as a passenger in being told your train is delayed by 10 minutes, then another 10, then another 20 and so on, when if you were told it was say likely to be an hour delay upfront you can make other arrangements.

The information screens at a certain unnamed, unstaffed station do the opposite though - a delay of 10 minutes and they'll show it as one hour, so if you then nip to the pub for half an hour you'll miss the train!

 

[GadgetMan]

This seems to be a systematic problem with the railways. Information isn't always passed on to the frontline staff dealing with customers. Surely it is known by now the approximate amount of time it is likely to deal with a particular type of problem? There is nothing worse as a passenger in being told your train is delayed by 10 minutes, then another 10, then another 20 and so on, when if you were told it was say likely to be an hour delay upfront you can make other arrangements.

The information screens at a certain unnamed, unstaffed station do the opposite though - a delay of 10 minutes and they'll show it as one hour, so if you then nip to the pub for half an hour you'll miss the train!

It isn't always possible to know how long a delay will be, there are too many variables and unknowns;

A train comes to a stand blocking a line with technical problems, the driver may be able to get the train moving again within 10 minutes, he may not be able to sort it and it could need another train to couple up to it and rescue it, the train directly behind it may or may not have compatible couplers, when the second train eventually gets there and couples up the fault on the original unit may spread to the second train and disable both of them, fitters would then need to be transported from a maintenance depot to the trains which could take a while depending on how remote the location is..........

Thats just for a train breakdown. Other problems have similar variables and it isn't always easy to guess how long a delay is likely to be.


Your last comment about delays being mentioned as an hour and being sorted quicker. This often happens with things like points failures. Signaller can't get the points to work so arranges for techs to travel to the faulty points, they maybe an hour away so the delay is announced as approximately one hour in good faith. 5 minutes later the points decide to start working of there own accord. So would you prefer the trains to get moving again or be purposely delayed for another 55minutes bacause the initial estimate was 1 hour?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

This seems to be a systematic problem with the railways. Information isn't always passed on to the frontline staff dealing with customers. Surely it is known by now the approximate amount of time it is likely to deal with a particular type of problem? There is nothing worse as a passenger in being told your train is delayed by 10 minutes, then another 10, then another 20 and so on, when if you were told it was say likely to be an hour delay upfront you can make other arrangements.

The information screens at a certain unnamed, unstaffed station do the opposite though - a delay of 10 minutes and they'll show it as one hour, so if you then nip to the pub for half an hour you'll miss the train!

When I give out information, I try to ascertain if the train is at a stand or not, and where it is (not always possible), and then tell people "the train is at [a place], which is [so many] minutes away, but it is (not) moving", maybe also suggesting other options for travel. However, even when doing this I still get asked how long the train will be and if it will be delayed further. If it is at a stand ten minutes (by the timetable) away I can only say it will be a minimum of ten minutes, if it doesn't move for ten more minutes it will be a further ten minutes wait.

It may be that I am told engineers expect a problem to be solved in ten minutes, but then they discover the job is not so easy as they thought and take two hours to sort it out, there would be no way to give a time scale beyond that ten minutes.

We really don't have telepathy, psychic powers or crystal balls at our disposal.

 

[TUC]

I disagree, I've worked at stations where I've given every information possible that I have and it still isn't good enough for example I could have walked up and down the platform giving out the information about what's happening and some people want even more information which I don't have.

I've worked a night shift to which the only information I had was the overheads have lost all power so a test train is being used at slow speed to check them in both directions, at line speed this is a journey which takes about 6 minutes but at this speed took more like 30 to 40 minutes in one direction!

All I was told was to sit tight as a train will be arriving although delayed it will still run - one passenger got the hump expecting taxis and buses to be whistled out of thin air!!!!

If all I can get is limited information as long as I pass it on, I'm doing my job to the best of my ability so I disagree with both yours and PTF62's comments.

But the example given above was of a member of staff who simply responded 'dunno'. That is scarcely professional and is very different to the examples that you have given.