• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Misleading guard announcement.

Status
Not open for further replies.

londonbridge

Established Member
Joined
30 Jun 2010
Messages
1,448
Yesterday I was travelling on a London Midland advance single between Euston and Crewe. When the train reached Stafford the guard announced that "passengers for Crewe,Liverpool and beyond may change here for a faster forwarding service". My travelling companions were ready to leave the train until I argued that we risked a penalty fare for a)stopping short and/or b)not being on the booked train between Stafford and Crewe. They then said the guard was misleading people. Wonder if people have been caught out by this in the past?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Ivo

Established Member
Joined
8 Jan 2010
Messages
7,307
Location
Bath (or Southend)
The Guard in such situations is not intentionally misleading people, there is no doubt about that. For the most part it would be of benefit for customers to change; only those on APs would not be able to. As part of the T&Cs of such tickets people should know that they would not be allowed to change train.

In all honesty why shouldn't the Guard suggest such a thing? I certainly would - but if you start mentioning "Those on Advances must remain on this train" then people with other reservations who are just as clueless as the AP holders would get confused as well!

The only people that would get caught out are those that would elect to not learn the T&Cs of the ticket(s) they hold before travelling. It is not the Guard's job to tell everyone the rules relating to their tickets (unless the passenger then breaks them, which is a different story).
 

Wyvern

Established Member
Joined
27 Oct 2009
Messages
1,573
Are there London Midland only tickets (Cheaper) on this journey as well as "any permitted"

I do believe the guard could preface his announcements by saying "Any passengers whose tickets allow them to change trains may . . .etc. . . . .etc"
 
Joined
8 Mar 2010
Messages
48
We encourage this sort of helpful announcement, as the vast majority of people are helped by the information, to be fair. As mentioned already, the word 'may' is important!

As the connecting services are also run by LM, the only people unable to change are those booked on Advance tickets to Crewe. Advance from London to Liverpool usually specify a change of train at Stafford already.

In addition, most people will hopefully have been seen by the conductor since Northampton, and the possibilities explained then.

Hope that helps.

David.
 

lyesbkz

Member
Joined
1 Dec 2010
Messages
602
Location
Chesterfield
The only people that would get caught out are those that would elect to not learn the T&Cs of the ticket(s) they hold before travelling

So, most people then. The obvious problem being the amount of people that will then argue that they were in the right because they were 'following advice' from a member of staff.
 

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,433
Location
Yorkshire
My travelling companions were ready to leave the train until I argued that we risked a penalty fare for a)stopping short and/or b)not being on the booked train between Stafford and Crewe.
A Penalty Fare must not be charged in either of those situations. A fare may be charged but it would not be a Penalty Fare.
 

island

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Messages
15,982
Location
0036
If you are on the wrong train with an Advance in circumstances where a Penalty Fare would be issued if you were ticketless, then you are liable to a Penalty Fare.

I agree that you can't be charged a Penalty Fare for stopping short on an Advance ticket, although you can be charged up to the cheapest walk-up ticket that permits break of journey, plus £10.
 

clagmonster

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Messages
2,442
I agree that you can't be charged a Penalty Fare for stopping short on an Advance ticket, although you can be charged up to the cheapest walk-up ticket that permits break of journey, plus £10.
May I ask where the £10.00 is documented? The advance ticket conditions (certainly the versions I have seen, I don't believe I've checked every companies website), simply state that break of journey is not allowed, the NRCoC simply states that you will be excessed up to the cheapest ticket available for immediate travel.

I do agree that you may receive a PF for using an advance on the incorrect train, subject to the other criteria for issuing a PF being met.
 

wijit

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2012
Messages
89
The Guard in such situations is not intentionally misleading people,
As much as that guard is not intentionally misleading people, those same people would not be intentionally travelling in contravention of the T + C's, the difference is they would not be given much of a choice but to be out of pocket due to the poor information given. It would be unreasonable to expect the guard to go through the full terms, but can we say it is unreasonable for passengers to not know the full terms?
I'd argue that both situations would be unreasonable to expect, and because of that, and because the guard would know the complications involved in some tickets he would be better off saying nothing, regardless of how well intentioned he was.
 

185

Established Member
Joined
29 Aug 2010
Messages
4,970
Fairly common sense in this day and age of stupidly restrictive ticketing to include a minor 'disclaimer' in the announcement suggesting 'For passengers holding full price unrestricted tickets..<announcement>...but please make sure your ticket is valid.'
 

EM2

Established Member
Joined
16 Nov 2008
Messages
7,523
Location
The home of the concrete cow
Fairly common sense in this day and age of stupidly restrictive ticketing to include a minor 'disclaimer' in the announcement suggesting 'For passengers holding full price unrestricted tickets..<announcement>...but please make sure your ticket is valid.'
Bear in mind that in the instance I mentioned in post #2, I did ask the guard of the train I was on if my ticket would be valid, and got the answer: 'Er...you'd probably be all right...', I wasn't going to risk it.
 

Skymonster

Established Member
Joined
7 Feb 2012
Messages
1,726
Fairly common sense in this day and age of stupidly restrictive ticketing to include a minor 'disclaimer' in the announcement suggesting 'For passengers holding full price unrestricted tickets..<announcement>...but please make sure your ticket is valid.'

Agreed... Whilst I doubt that there was a deliberate intent to mislead, the word "may" could be construed by a casual traveller to indicate that they had approval from LM staff to change trains. Yes, yes, I know someone will say that the guard doesn't have the right to waive advance conditions, but in the real world casual passengers do not read all of the NRCoC and Ts&Cs and could get innocently caught out - as innocently in fact as the guard's potentially misleading announcement was in the first place in fact.
 

island

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Messages
15,982
Location
0036
May I ask where the £10.00 is documented? The advance ticket conditions (certainly the versions I have seen, I don't believe I've checked every companies website), simply state that break of journey is not allowed, the NRCoC simply states that you will be excessed up to the cheapest ticket available for immediate travel.

I do agree that you may receive a PF for using an advance on the incorrect train, subject to the other criteria for issuing a PF being met.

I'm just going off the fact that advances cost £10 to change, and several guards mentioning they charged the fee. It might be in the EC revenue handbook too.
 

clagmonster

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Messages
2,442
I'm just going off the fact that advances cost £10 to change, and several guards mentioning they charged the fee. It might be in the EC revenue handbook too.
I think any other permitted change does incur the fee, however I haven't seen anywhere in the conditions to state it is chargable in this circumstance. I suspect it is a very rare situation in practice.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top