Northern 0827 Manchester Airport - Windermere...Sat, 25th May

[Ianno87]

If it was known as early as 0650 that the 0827 Airport to Windermere wasn't going to be operating, there doesn't seem to much justification for failing to acknowledge the fact to waiting passengers at the Airport until 0815.

Xenophon PGDGS, I'm not trying to justify failure to run trains, but did you check before leaving home that the 0827 was showing as operating normally, or that the inbound journey was shown as running to time? You must be reasonably techno-savvy to be contributing to this forum.

You may be on shakier ground trying to claim a refund/compensation if you never left to attempt your journey in the first place, without at least 'officially' getting advice not to turn up (e.g. by asking on Twitter or ringing up)

Plus it's not totally unreasonable that the TOC could have a spare train/driver ready at Manchester Airport, e.g. by a unit swap. The 'regular' traveller can't glean this from RealTimeTrains.

Incidentally, is it customary for prospective airline passengers to check prior to departure whether or not the plane will depart?

Only usually if there is a known problem (e.g. baggage system failure or something)

 

[farci]

If it was known as early as 0650 that the 0827 Airport to Windermere wasn't going to be operating, there doesn't seem to much justification for failing to acknowledge the fact to waiting passengers at the Airport until 0815.

Xenophon PGDGS, I'm not trying to justify failure to run trains, but did you check before leaving home that the 0827 was showing as operating normally, or that the inbound journey was shown as running to time? You must be reasonably techno-savvy to be contributing to this forum.

It's akin to the issue I raise in this post. The failure of TOCs to communicate to passengers when it all goes wrong whether you are tech-savvy or not
Due to serious disruption my journeys took 8 hours each way. Reading other recent threads I understand there were problems beyond TOCs' control. My issue is the inability of hard-pressed staff to transmit reliable information to passengers.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

It's akin to the issue I raise in this post. My issue is the inability of TOC Controls to transmit reliable information to hard-pressed front line staff who have to deal with passengers that often know more than the staff do.

Corrected that for you

 

[farci]

Corrected that for you

much appreciated

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Well, since Northern, in response to the complaint raised by me concerning the cancellation leading to the establishment of this thread, sent us two return tickets to be used anywhere on their franchise area, Saturday 22nd June will see an attempt to use the very same timed Windermere service, this time with even better weather forecasted.

 

[RAPC]

Wishing you better luck with your second journey. I hope everything goes to plan.

 

[Muenchener]

Well, since Northern, in response to the complaint raised by me concerning the cancellation leading to the establishment of this thread, sent us two return tickets to be used anywhere on their franchise area, Saturday 22nd June will see an attempt to use the very same timed Windermere service, this time with even better weather forecasted.

looks like you are in for a good day. Nice weather and your service was only a few minutes late leaving this morning.

 

[daveo]

Incidentally, is it customary for prospective airline passengers to check prior to departure whether or not the plane will depart?

Northern (or any other TOC - other than Virgin perhaps - do not run airlines!!!!!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Looks like you are in for a good day. Nice weather and your service was only a few minutes late leaving this morning.

The outward journey, made in the usual 2-car set, was without incident and we used the open top bus service from the stances outside Windermere station to take us down to the ferry boarding stage area at Bowness on Windermere, where we chose the return ferry service to and from Lakeside. We lunched at a good eaterie on our return to the town, which was absolutely packed with visitors being such a fine hot day.

We had chosen the 1605 direct return service from Windermere to Manchester Airport and the 2-car set was very heavily loaded, as would have been expected on such a fine day, weather-wise. All went well then a Northern staff member walked through both coaches between Oxenholme Lake District and Lancaster announcing to one and all that as no driver was available to take the train onwards from Lancaster, the service would be terminated there and Manchester Airport-bound passengers could take the following Virgin Trains service to Preston, where a Northern service to Manchester Airport would run.

All disembarked at the Virgin Trains managed Lancaster station and the tannoy system there confirmed it was in order to use Northern tickets to Preston on the 11-coach Pendolino London Euston-bound train to Preston that was only minutes in arriving. On arrival at Preston, we made our way to platform 2, where a Northern Preston to Manchester Airport service (four-car Class 319) was, which departed very soon.

So, all things considered, it was a reasonable day travel-wise, events being as they were.

 

[M60lad]

I was impressed with the service yesterday even more so as it seemed to be one of the ex Wessex Trains 158s on the service, a couple of things shocked me about this service yesterday, one was the fact that considering the fact this service was running late it still was let out and allowed to run infront of a Virgin Train at Lowton Junction and another thing was the fact that this must be one of the few passenger services that skips out Lancaster as I was expecting it to stop there until I checked Realtime Trains.

I used it myself yesterday as I managed to get 2 cheap Advance singles on both this and 14:50 Carlisle-Leeds service and used it to get to Kendle where I caught the next 508 service to Penrith (Nice scenic run yesterday), then across to Carlisle on 104.