Hypothetical Question

[les.]

I have just returned from a week touring the Scottish Highlands on the train. On the last day (Sunday just gone), I checked on my live train times app, to make sure the train I was due to catch (from Linlithgow, where I had stopped off on the way home) was on time.

It showed that there were no services to Edinburgh Waverley, where I was due to catch my connection to Doncaster and they were being replaced by buses. The replacement bus service for the train I was due to catch, got to Waverley 15 minutes after my train had left and the next VTEC service was not for another 3 hours. There was an earlier service but that left Linlithgow in 5 minutes and it was a good 15 minute walk from the B&B.

I decided to skip breakfast and walk down to Linlithgow to see what could be done to get me to Waverley in time to catch my train. When I got there, there was a Scotrail rep who said that the previous bus was running late and it arrived a couple of minutes after I got there.

In the end I got to Waverley in plenty of time to catch my booked train but if the earlier bus hadn't been running late what could I have expected from the staff at Linlithgow. Would they have offered to pay for alternate transport (ie taxi) to Waverley or would they have just said that I would have had to catch the next bus and have a 3 hour wait when I got to Waverley.

Obviously it doesn't matter now but I was just curious what I would have expected had the earlier service been on time.

 

[John @ home]

would they have just said that I would have had to catch the next bus and have a 3 hour wait when I got to Waverley.

Why is there a 3-hour wait at Edinburgh Waverley? It would be helpful if you could post the times for the whole of your planned journey last Sunday.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm confused why you would have a three hour wait, as VTEC were running services about every 70 minutes from Edinburgh, diverted via Carlisle due to engineering works but they were running.

Engineering work, both at Linlithgow and on the ECML, has been posted for quite some time, so the journey planners would reflect the bus times, not the normal train times. It's your responsibility to check before travel.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

During the autumn Sunday closure of part of the ECML between Berwick and Newcastle, there are still very regular services from Edinburgh to Doncaster running via Carlisle, some going on thereafter via Newcastle and others via Manchester - two or three an hour for most of the day.

 

[les.]

We were due to catch (and did in the end) in 0941 from Waverley. When I looked at the next VTEC service is said that it was at 1233.

There were other earlier trains to Doncaster but that would have meant using TPE or Cross Country trains, which I didn't think would be allowed. I have just checked the times for next Sunday morning and it's the same then too.
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I'm confused why you would have a three hour wait, as VTEC were running services about every 70 minutes from Edinburgh, diverted via Carlisle due to engineering works but they were running.

Engineering work, both at Linlithgow and on the ECML, has been posted for quite some time, so the journey planners would reflect the bus times, not the normal train times. It's your responsibility to check before travel.

I obviously did check before I traveled which is when this came up. When I booked the tickets 12 weeks in advance it wasn't shown as a bus replacement service though.