Hoping I can get some expert advice here on a Merseyrail penalty fare issued last week - I’ll upload the tickets and redacted penalty fare notice on the next post.
The passenger was a middle-aged German national with good English (but clearly not first language) who was returning to the Wirral to resume a live-in carer role for a 95-year old, a job that she shares (alternates) with another live-in carer. She’s had the role for around six months so has become generally familiar (but not expert) with the geography of the Wirral and northwest England.
On Wednesday 30 April she was using the return portion of an off-peak return e-ticket valid any reasonable route. The outbound itinerary was actually Heswall-Bidston-Liverpool-Manchester Airport and the inbound itinerary was for Manchester Airport-Crewe-Chester-Shotton-Heswall. This isn’t relevant to the specific journey, but demonstrates some of the different ways this journey could be completed.
The original train she planned to take had been cancelled from the Airport, so she decided to travel into central Manchester where she had a wider choice of Liverpool bound trains. She was fortunate in being able to get the slightly delayed TPE Cleethorpes to Liverpool which arrived at Lime St a few minutes late at 2006.
During the journey, she checked her onward connections from Liverpool to Bidston (Merseyrail) and Bidston to Heswall (TfW). She had planned, had the original train not been cancelled, to connect into the 2005 Liverpool to West Kirby, which gets to Bidston at 2022 with a generous connection into the 2046 Bidston to Wrexham which would get to Heswall at 2056, and had arranged with her care-sharer to be picked up there by car.
Because she was running late, due to the cancellation at Manchester Airport and also the late running TPE, she realised she would not be able to make this connection and had the foresight to check what that would mean. She discovered that there was more than a 2 hour gap in the Bidston-Wrexham timetable in the evening, and that the next Bidston-Wrexham train would be 2257, arriving Heswall at 2307, meaning a lengthy wait at either Lime St or Bidston, neither of which were appealing.
She then called her shared-carer who suggested that she travelled to Spital instead as this was only a 10 minute drive from Heswall (it’s about 4 miles by car if you’re not familiar with the Wirral). This seemed sensible and they changed their pick-up plans to do this, as they needed to go through handover notes that evening and in their minds this was a flexible ‘any reasonable route’ ticket which (in the circumstances) to them felt very reasonable!
She therefore proceeded to the Lime St Underground platform - no problem with the e-ticket - and caught the next Chester/Ellesmere Port service intending to alight at Spital and complete the journey by car to Heswall.
Around Bebington, she encountered two Carlyle Revenue Protection officers who were working the (fairly quiet) Merseyrail train. The first RPI questioned why she was on the Chester train and she explained the reasons as per the story above. The RPI didn’t seem understand and called the second RPI over.
The second RPI took one look at the return ticket - the one showing a routing via Crewe, Chester and Shotton, and was adamant that her ticket was not valid on Merseyrail services, using the ‘we are a different company’ approach we’ve seen used here before, and also said that as her destination station was Heswall, her ticket could not be not valid.
By this point they had left Port Sunlight and the carer pointed out she needed to leave the train at the next station, Spital. The RPIs escorted her off the train onto the Spital station platform - by now it was around 2045, quite dark, and the platform was deserted except for the lone German woman and the two RPIs - who, whilst they were at no point discourteous, were nevertheless in quite a position of power - physically and apparently legally - and the carer was beginning to feel quite nervous and uncomfortable.
They proceeded to issue her a penalty fare of £104.85.
The person being cared for is a relative of mine, and they contacted me to see if I could help.
My questions therefore:
Many thanks - tickets and penalty fare notice (redacted) being uploaded in the next post.
The passenger was a middle-aged German national with good English (but clearly not first language) who was returning to the Wirral to resume a live-in carer role for a 95-year old, a job that she shares (alternates) with another live-in carer. She’s had the role for around six months so has become generally familiar (but not expert) with the geography of the Wirral and northwest England.
On Wednesday 30 April she was using the return portion of an off-peak return e-ticket valid any reasonable route. The outbound itinerary was actually Heswall-Bidston-Liverpool-Manchester Airport and the inbound itinerary was for Manchester Airport-Crewe-Chester-Shotton-Heswall. This isn’t relevant to the specific journey, but demonstrates some of the different ways this journey could be completed.
The original train she planned to take had been cancelled from the Airport, so she decided to travel into central Manchester where she had a wider choice of Liverpool bound trains. She was fortunate in being able to get the slightly delayed TPE Cleethorpes to Liverpool which arrived at Lime St a few minutes late at 2006.
During the journey, she checked her onward connections from Liverpool to Bidston (Merseyrail) and Bidston to Heswall (TfW). She had planned, had the original train not been cancelled, to connect into the 2005 Liverpool to West Kirby, which gets to Bidston at 2022 with a generous connection into the 2046 Bidston to Wrexham which would get to Heswall at 2056, and had arranged with her care-sharer to be picked up there by car.
Because she was running late, due to the cancellation at Manchester Airport and also the late running TPE, she realised she would not be able to make this connection and had the foresight to check what that would mean. She discovered that there was more than a 2 hour gap in the Bidston-Wrexham timetable in the evening, and that the next Bidston-Wrexham train would be 2257, arriving Heswall at 2307, meaning a lengthy wait at either Lime St or Bidston, neither of which were appealing.
She then called her shared-carer who suggested that she travelled to Spital instead as this was only a 10 minute drive from Heswall (it’s about 4 miles by car if you’re not familiar with the Wirral). This seemed sensible and they changed their pick-up plans to do this, as they needed to go through handover notes that evening and in their minds this was a flexible ‘any reasonable route’ ticket which (in the circumstances) to them felt very reasonable!
She therefore proceeded to the Lime St Underground platform - no problem with the e-ticket - and caught the next Chester/Ellesmere Port service intending to alight at Spital and complete the journey by car to Heswall.
Around Bebington, she encountered two Carlyle Revenue Protection officers who were working the (fairly quiet) Merseyrail train. The first RPI questioned why she was on the Chester train and she explained the reasons as per the story above. The RPI didn’t seem understand and called the second RPI over.
The second RPI took one look at the return ticket - the one showing a routing via Crewe, Chester and Shotton, and was adamant that her ticket was not valid on Merseyrail services, using the ‘we are a different company’ approach we’ve seen used here before, and also said that as her destination station was Heswall, her ticket could not be not valid.
By this point they had left Port Sunlight and the carer pointed out she needed to leave the train at the next station, Spital. The RPIs escorted her off the train onto the Spital station platform - by now it was around 2045, quite dark, and the platform was deserted except for the lone German woman and the two RPIs - who, whilst they were at no point discourteous, were nevertheless in quite a position of power - physically and apparently legally - and the carer was beginning to feel quite nervous and uncomfortable.
They proceeded to issue her a penalty fare of £104.85.
The person being cared for is a relative of mine, and they contacted me to see if I could help.
My questions therefore:
- Was her voluntary rerouting via Spital rather than Heswall a valid response to the railway-caused delays, given the open ticket?
- If not, given she had an open ticket, just not a valid ticket, should they have just excessed her rather than given her a penalty fare?
- If the penalty fare is valid, would she have any grounds for asking for clemency given the situation above (I appreciate Merseyrail are not known for this!)
- On the penalty notice, it states that the penalty is halved if paid within 21 days. I’d always understood that ‘clock’ would be frozen on appeal but the penalty fare notice states that ‘no account will be taken of any time on appeal’ when counting the 21 days. Does she therefore need to make sure she pays the penalty before the 21 days expires, to avoid the risk of having to pay the full penalty if unsuccessful at appeal?
- On the penalty notice the destination station is variously spelled as ‘Heswall’ and ‘Heswell’ and they have not captured her name correctly. Is this grounds for invalidating the penalty fare? I suspect not … but read on…
- The reason for the penalty given is ‘no ticket’ when she had showed them her e-ticket - I think this may be a serious error (ie one which would invalidate the penalty fare)
- The additional ‘grounds info’ states ‘Female had ticket to Heswell via transport for Wales but was going to Spital’ which is not correct - ticket was valid, end to end, on any train operating company, as the itineraries show. Is this a serious error
- The journey stated was incorrect - it states the journey was from Liverpool Lime St to Port Sunlight, when it was from Manchester Airport to Heswall end to end, and the journey being penalty-fared would have been Liverpool Lime St to Spital. Is this a serious error?
Many thanks - tickets and penalty fare notice (redacted) being uploaded in the next post.
