Bought tickets for wife and I with railcard via trainline, Spalding to Liverpool Lime Street. Outbound 22 April 24, return 25 Apr 24.
Outbound from Spalding to Doncaster with EMR, Doncaster to Liverpool with TPE.
Total, 4 tickets each way for us both.
First leg Spalding to Doncaster on time.
The connecting TPE at Doncaster was 25 mins late due to disruptive passenger at original start from Cleethorpes. Got on board ok, but late.
Part way through journey, announcement this TPE would terminate at Manchester Piccadilly due to an incident with a person on the track.
At Piccadilly, we all, disembarked to transfer to Northern Trains onwards to Lime Street.
After boarding, onward departure was delayed around 25 mins.
Eventually arriving at Piccadilly 1 hour 25 mins later than our original scheduled ticket of 1200.
Do I just claim a 1 hr 25 min delay from TPE for this?
Return was worse!
Arrived at station 1145.
1219 from Lime St to Doncaster was cancelled!
We went to Lime Street ticket office and were given new ticket for Northern trains to Manchester Piccadilly, allowing a short time for connection to the TPE onwards to Doncaster.
This train was just over a minute late at Piccadilly and being in my 70s, having had 2 spine ops in 2020, I cannot run , nor can my 70 year old wife. Finding staff assistance for where to be, then we arrived at platform 10 just as it was leaving.
Ok, just get the next train in another hour.
This scheduled train then came up showing as delayed around 35 minutes, and after a while then disappeared from the screen entirely!
I asked a platform assistant at the barrier and he confirmed it was cancelled, hence no longer on the screen.
We went to the ticket office and were given tickets for the 1519 to Doncaster, plus addition of Doncaster to Peterborough via lner departing with just a small amount of time for us to connect from tpe to lner. This lady was understanding and very helpful.
However, I must applaud the special needs assistant at Piccadilly who helped us both get seats on the packed TPE train to Doncaster albeit one in first class unreserved.
Unfortunately, after getting off this TPE inbound at Doncaster we then had to find which platform we needed, then change over use 2 lots of stairs and underpass and due to 100s of youngsters on the platform exiting from our connecting lner departure walking in groups abreast towards us we missed this lner by about 60 seconds.
As I said, neither of us are agile enough to run.
We then asked lner platform staff and were told to just get the next lner to Peterborough in around 20 mins, which we did.
We eventually got to Peterborough!
Our connection 11 minutes later to Spalding was on time and we finally got into Spalding just over 2 hours late!
Even if we had used the first lner train, we would still have had the same Spalding train.
So, finally, is it TPE, at the very start of our journey i claim from and is it for being 2 hours later than original journey tickets that we had bought?
This was our first ever visit to Liverpool and my first ever trip travelling North of Spalding. Spalding to Kings Cross been done many times before.
I will participate a bit more in this forum as time allows.
A bit of my background. I am a licensed radio amateur since 1967.
In past 18 years I have driven and fired 34081 92 Squadron, 60163 Tornado and more recently an out and back driver and also second man experience on Class 37 D6732 at North Norfolk Railway.
I first was interested in trains around 1959.
Rob
Outbound from Spalding to Doncaster with EMR, Doncaster to Liverpool with TPE.
Total, 4 tickets each way for us both.
First leg Spalding to Doncaster on time.
The connecting TPE at Doncaster was 25 mins late due to disruptive passenger at original start from Cleethorpes. Got on board ok, but late.
Part way through journey, announcement this TPE would terminate at Manchester Piccadilly due to an incident with a person on the track.
At Piccadilly, we all, disembarked to transfer to Northern Trains onwards to Lime Street.
After boarding, onward departure was delayed around 25 mins.
Eventually arriving at Piccadilly 1 hour 25 mins later than our original scheduled ticket of 1200.
Do I just claim a 1 hr 25 min delay from TPE for this?
Return was worse!
Arrived at station 1145.
1219 from Lime St to Doncaster was cancelled!
We went to Lime Street ticket office and were given new ticket for Northern trains to Manchester Piccadilly, allowing a short time for connection to the TPE onwards to Doncaster.
This train was just over a minute late at Piccadilly and being in my 70s, having had 2 spine ops in 2020, I cannot run , nor can my 70 year old wife. Finding staff assistance for where to be, then we arrived at platform 10 just as it was leaving.
Ok, just get the next train in another hour.
This scheduled train then came up showing as delayed around 35 minutes, and after a while then disappeared from the screen entirely!
I asked a platform assistant at the barrier and he confirmed it was cancelled, hence no longer on the screen.
We went to the ticket office and were given tickets for the 1519 to Doncaster, plus addition of Doncaster to Peterborough via lner departing with just a small amount of time for us to connect from tpe to lner. This lady was understanding and very helpful.
However, I must applaud the special needs assistant at Piccadilly who helped us both get seats on the packed TPE train to Doncaster albeit one in first class unreserved.
Unfortunately, after getting off this TPE inbound at Doncaster we then had to find which platform we needed, then change over use 2 lots of stairs and underpass and due to 100s of youngsters on the platform exiting from our connecting lner departure walking in groups abreast towards us we missed this lner by about 60 seconds.
As I said, neither of us are agile enough to run.
We then asked lner platform staff and were told to just get the next lner to Peterborough in around 20 mins, which we did.
We eventually got to Peterborough!
Our connection 11 minutes later to Spalding was on time and we finally got into Spalding just over 2 hours late!
Even if we had used the first lner train, we would still have had the same Spalding train.
So, finally, is it TPE, at the very start of our journey i claim from and is it for being 2 hours later than original journey tickets that we had bought?
This was our first ever visit to Liverpool and my first ever trip travelling North of Spalding. Spalding to Kings Cross been done many times before.
I will participate a bit more in this forum as time allows.
A bit of my background. I am a licensed radio amateur since 1967.
In past 18 years I have driven and fired 34081 92 Squadron, 60163 Tornado and more recently an out and back driver and also second man experience on Class 37 D6732 at North Norfolk Railway.
I first was interested in trains around 1959.
Rob
