DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I had an incident at Oxenholme a week ago which seemed to raise a few questions about bicycles and missed connections...
I was travelling from Windermere to Nottingham with a bicycle, and with a scheduled couple of hours break of journey in Lancaster, and so had cycle reservations on the TPE 09:13 Oxenholme-Lancaster, the TPE 12:28 Lancaster-Manchester Pic, and the EMT 13:42 Manchester-Nottingham. No reservation Windermere-Oxenholme as Northern don't require them.
Unfortunately the Northern train from Windermere was delayed, and only arrived at Oxenholme just as the 09:13 TPE was pulling out. I spoke to the platform and ticket office staff at Oxenholme, and they said that it was impossible to book my bike on a later TPE train because TPE don't do same-day cycle reservations, but they'd talk to the guard on the next TPE train to Lancaster to see if he'd be nice and let my bike on anyway (On that day there were problems with the next few Virgin trains so that wasn't an option). They also said that TPE would not formally accept any responsibility for any problems getting my cycle on a train because the problems weren't caused by one of their own trains: I'd missed my connection because of a delayed Northern train, not a delayed TPE one.
Now in fact the issues sorted themselves out nicely: What it seemed everyone had forgotten was that there was a 09:55 Northern train to Manchester calling at Lancaster. Northern don't require reservations, so as soon as I saw that train announced, I hopped on it, and was able to complete my journey.
But although everything worked out on that day, that got me thinking... If what I was told at Oxenholme was correct, and things had panned out differently, then theoretically I could have ended up stuck en route, unable to complete the journey I'd paid for, and with no TOC accepting responsibility for it. Is that correct? Do TOCs really have no responsibility for trying to get you on a train with a cycle if you've missed a connection due to a different TOC's train being late? And do TPE really not allow cycles unless you've booked the previous day - thereby making it impossible to rebook due to a missed connection?
I was travelling from Windermere to Nottingham with a bicycle, and with a scheduled couple of hours break of journey in Lancaster, and so had cycle reservations on the TPE 09:13 Oxenholme-Lancaster, the TPE 12:28 Lancaster-Manchester Pic, and the EMT 13:42 Manchester-Nottingham. No reservation Windermere-Oxenholme as Northern don't require them.
Unfortunately the Northern train from Windermere was delayed, and only arrived at Oxenholme just as the 09:13 TPE was pulling out. I spoke to the platform and ticket office staff at Oxenholme, and they said that it was impossible to book my bike on a later TPE train because TPE don't do same-day cycle reservations, but they'd talk to the guard on the next TPE train to Lancaster to see if he'd be nice and let my bike on anyway (On that day there were problems with the next few Virgin trains so that wasn't an option). They also said that TPE would not formally accept any responsibility for any problems getting my cycle on a train because the problems weren't caused by one of their own trains: I'd missed my connection because of a delayed Northern train, not a delayed TPE one.
Now in fact the issues sorted themselves out nicely: What it seemed everyone had forgotten was that there was a 09:55 Northern train to Manchester calling at Lancaster. Northern don't require reservations, so as soon as I saw that train announced, I hopped on it, and was able to complete my journey.
But although everything worked out on that day, that got me thinking... If what I was told at Oxenholme was correct, and things had panned out differently, then theoretically I could have ended up stuck en route, unable to complete the journey I'd paid for, and with no TOC accepting responsibility for it. Is that correct? Do TOCs really have no responsibility for trying to get you on a train with a cycle if you've missed a connection due to a different TOC's train being late? And do TPE really not allow cycles unless you've booked the previous day - thereby making it impossible to rebook due to a missed connection?