Northern guard gives misleading advice to passenger trying to use ‘LNER only’ ticket due to cancelled LNER service

[johntea]

I couldn’t help overhearing a Northern guard on a Harrogate to Leeds service earlier advising a passenger holding a ‘LNER only’ ticket that they needed to ‘be careful’ in future as apparently revenue protection wouldn’t take too kindly to it if they were on board

Just one slight issue…the 17:36 LNER from Harrogate to Leeds was cancelled (no more LNER services for the day after that), and LNER in the screenshot below clearly advise otherwise!

Customers from Horsforth and Harrogate can use their ticket to board a Northern service to Leeds from 15:45 and then from Leeds can travel on their booked service or the next available LNER service. We highly recommend that you make a new reservation for LNER services by visiting http://www.lner.co.uk/reserve, our Travel Centres or via the LNER App. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to your journey today.

I’m seeing quite a few instances on Northern recently where the guards seem to be advising passengers to ‘be careful in future’ without actually thinking about the situation a passenger may be in, and sadly I would also dread to think the outcome HAD revenue protection been on board!

 

[AlterEgo]

They’re only telling them to be careful “in future” though, because in any other circumstances their tickets wouldn’t be valid. That’s how I’m reading that advice anyway.

 

[MP393]

It is good advice if the train wasn’t cancelled though, and they (conductor) may not have been aware of that until the passenger prompted them. Admittedly I know everybody isn’t the same, but I’ve been working trains in the past and not known about previous/next services being cancelled, or if they’ve come in late from another route, and when I’ve questioned them on their invalid advance, they tell me it was cancelled/delayed etc. That’s the end of the conversation then, scan/check, thank you, apologise for the disruption they’ve had and move on. It isn’t always possible to be aware of every cancellation as it’s not always possible to check emails often etc.

 

[sheff1]

They’re only telling them to be careful “in future” though, because in any other circumstances their tickets wouldn’t be valid. That’s how I’m reading that advice anyway.

Possibly, but the way I read it the guard advised revenue protection wouldn’t take too kindly to the ticket if they were on board that specific train ... on which, of course, the passenger was perfectly entitled to travel.

One would hope that if revenue protection had been on board there would have been no problem, but as this is Northern ........

 

[greyman42]

Possibly, but the way I read it the guard advised revenue protection wouldn’t take too kindly to the ticket if they were on board that specific train ... on which, of course, the passenger was perfectly entitled to travel.

One would hope that if revenue protection had been on board there would have been no problem, but as this is Northern ........

On Northern services, can revenue protection be on board without the guards knowledge?

 

[trover]

On Northern services, can revenue protection be on board without the guards knowledge?

I’ve had RPI boarded the front 3 coaches of a 6 car 331 at an intermediate station, not sure if the guard in the rear 3 coaches knew though.

 

[scrapy]

It may be that the guard was advising the passenger of future use. Whilst ticket acceptance was allowed on that day, if a passenger has used their ticket on a Northern service once they may assume they can do so again (the guard may have had experience of this happening in days when the LNER service wasn't cancelled). Some passengers do assume that the 'LNER only' only applies to the main part of the journey, when they've had '+connections' tickets in the past.

 

[RPI]

Depends on the situation, the passenger may well have been unaware of the LNER cancellation and just told the guard they had been late or whatever.
A similar situation is where a passenger boards at a TVM only station where the TVM is out of service, if the passenger straight away says "the machine wasn't working" or similar, that's fine, if they say nothing I will ask why they haven't bought, if they say they were late or another response that's clear they didn't even try and use the machine then I will warn them, tell them that it's ok on this occasion as the machine was broken but to "be careful in future", so it's all about the context of the exact conversation that took place.