First Great Western lying over length of delay.

[londonbridge]

I travelled on a First Great Western train which departed forty two down and eventually arrived at Paddington fifty down. I put in a compensation claim and received a letter saying no compensation was payable because the delay was less than an hour, and their records showed the train was forty two down on arrival. I'm not that bothered about no compensation but I am about the fact that they seem to be willing to lie about the length of delays, as I checked the time on arrival in order to write the length of the delay on the claim form, and it was definitely fifty down, there was no way it was only forty two.

 

[Flamingo]

What day was it? Some of the weekend trains have a big difference between the public timetable and the working timetable with the arrival time in London, and whoever may have been looking at the working timetable. Just a thought.

 

[londonbridge]

It was a Sunday on the 11:58 from Tiverton Parkway. I'm sure the timetable poster said it was due at Paddington at 14:29 and it arrived at 15:20.

 

[louis97]

FGW don't offer compensation on high speed services for delays under 1 hour.

 

[Goatboy]

It was a Sunday on the 11:58 from Tiverton Parkway. I'm sure the timetable poster said it was due at Paddington at 14:29 and it arrived at 15:20.

The 11:58 from Tiverton arrives at Paddington at 14:32 and not 14:29.

You claim it arrived at 15:20, which would make it 48 down and not 50 down. So the difference between your claimed delay and the FGW claimed delay is just 6 minutes. Is this really a big enough deal to publically accuse them of deceiving you? Especially as it makes no material difference to your claim whether it was 42 down or 48 down.

 

[Eagle]

The 11:58 from Tiverton arrives at Paddington at 14:32 and not 14:29.

Not sure where either of those two times come from.

The public timetable shows the arrival (November 4) as 14.39. The working timetable shows it as 14.35.

Assuming that the arrival time was recorded as 15.21 (possible because recorded times are rounded rather than truncated, so it could have been 15.20.40 and rounded up), that would account for the recorded delay of 42 minutes. Simple.

Conclusion: either the OP was mistaken about the scheduled arrival time, and misread the poster/timetable; or the exact arrival time had been altered from that in the published timetable due to engineering works, which happens often on Sundays.

 

[whhistle]

Is this really a big enough deal to publically accuse them of deceiving you? Especially as it makes no material difference to your claim whether it was 42 down or 48 down.

While I do agree with you to an extent, you appear to have missed the point. Here's another example of the same subject:

ISP's being forced to block access to The Pirate Bay.

In the first thought this is a great idea as it will stop piracy right? Wrong. Many people find other ways to get to that site now and the main problem is where will that stop? What if the same group decide that this rail forum isn't good? Blocked.

It's more about freedom. The same principle goes to FGW if they did lie, which I am sure if it was a mistake, it was honest rather than malicious. How many other trains have they mis-informed passengers about?

 

[Goatboy]

not sure where either of those two times come from.

N RES (Why does the forum keep editing this to lower case?)

11:58

tiverton parkway [tvp]

2

london paddington [pad]


14:32

4

2h 34m

 

[Eagle]

The more I think about it the more I think my second conclusion is the right one, namely that the scheduled arrival time that week was different to the normal one due to engineering (being as we're all coming up with different scheduled arrival times from different dates and sources!). And obviously that's the one that was used to calculate delay.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
From Open Train Times:

On October 7, October 14 and October 21 the scheduled arrival was 14.29 PTT and 14.29 WTT.
On October 28 it was 14.37 PTT and 14.37 WTT.
On November 4 it was 14.39 PTT and 14.35 WTT.
On November 11 it will be 14.32 PTT and 14.28 WTT.
On November 18 it will be 14.33 PTT and 14.29 WTT.
On November 25 it will be 14.32 PTT and 14.28 WTT.
On December 2 it will be 14.36 PTT and 14.31.30 WTT.
It's clearly different every week, and whatever timetable the OP looked at can't possibly have listed the correct one for every week.

Logical assumption: the scheduled arrival was actually 14.38 that week. FGW were not wrong.

If the OP could tell me the actual date s/he travelled I could look up what the scheduled arrival time should have be. I won't be surprised if it is indeed 14.38

 

[Flamingo]

The past few Sundays I have worked, there has been a six minute difference between the arrival time in Paddington on the working timetable and the public timetable.

I think the OP might be reading a bit too much into it...

 

[richw]

Op says arrived at Paddington 50 down, so why waste time on a delay pay form knowing has to be 60 late to make a claim anyway? And as previously mentioned hardly any two Sunday timetables are the same with varied arrival times changing each week due to engineering, so important to be looking at the right engineering tinetable for the trip

 

[VP185]

Either way, FGW aren't lying are they because the arrival/departure times are automatically recorded. It's not a case of a FGW employee standing on the platform with an atomic watch recording the arrival times with a pen and paper!

 

[londonbridge]

Op says arrived at Paddington 50 down, so why waste time on a delay pay form knowing has to be 60 late to make a claim anyway? And as previously mentioned hardly any two Sunday timetables are the same with varied arrival times changing each week due to engineering, so important to be looking at the right engineering tinetable for the trip

Because I wasn't initially aware that the minimum delay was an hour. And now that I see that the scheduled arrival was most likely slightly different from the timetable anyway I'll just forget about it. Mods close the thread if you like.