You make your own arrangements and pay for it yourself and that is the end of the matter.
With them not allowing travel on advanced tickets at a later date forcing everyone to refund and buy more expensive flexible tickets, you do have to question where GWR will sit financially after this.
It’s a political nightmare though. I would think if operators are not footing the Bill they’d sooner not run a service than run an HST again.
Who will make them do it? They say no, you escalate it to who? Their boss, who will say no? One of the regulators funded by them who will say no? The contractual passenger’s rights are not worth the paper they’re written on. They don’t have to stick to them like the passenger does. Meanwhile they are doing what they can to run a service.
Same way as it has worked for years with short forms I guess. If you were reserved in that bit that’s missing, tough. The only difference is it might be a case of tough stay at home rather then tough stand up for 3 hours if they’re over socially distanced capacity, although there’s been a couple of full and standing photos kicking around today.
I think you’ll find you’ll be waiting, being stuck for aslong as they say you’re stuck if you don’t find and fund your own alternative. Sorry.
Have you been hibernating for the last 10+ years?
This is how it has worked with old stock still in use, and how it has worked to date.